Jesus is Liberator of the Oppressed | Lent Devotional Day 33

Exploring the Meaning of Jesus’ Death
March 22, 2026
Written by: Ryan Hebel
 
Jesus is Liberator of the Oppressed - Atonement through the lens of Black Theology

Scripture:
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me.  He has sent me to preach good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind, to liberate the oppressed, and to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.”  
(Luke 4:18-19)

Reflection:
The crux of atonement theory from the black theological perspective exists at the intersection of Jesus’ solidarity with and liberation of the oppressed.  Through the cross, Jesus not only understands, but fully lives and embodies the realities of suffering, violence, and death at the hands of oppressors who are acting not just as individuals but as representatives of a broader oppressive and dehumanizing system, culture, and power structure.  At the same time, Jesus’ subsequent resurrection represents victory over the suffering, injustice, and death imposed by the oppressors and the ultimate liberation of the oppressed under the final authority of God.
 
This perspective is rooted in a global movement of liberation theology that emerged from the experiences of oppressed peoples in Latin America, Asia, and Africa but that was born uniquely of the African-American experience under slavery and Jim Crow. The black theological perspective represents the efforts of black theologians like James Cone, who were seeking to reconcile and reflect upon the black experience in America in the wake of the Civil Rights Movement.  They recognize the way that their lived experience was inseparable from the influence of their Christian oppressors while also finding freedom to reconnect with a unique cultural rootedness in the pre-colonial Africa.
 
In his seminal work “The Cross and the Lynching Tree,” Cone leverages the cross of Christ in an attempt to connect the horrors of the practice of lynching in the American South. The symbolic lynching tree that had come to haunt and traumatize the African-American experience is considered in light of Jesus’ experience of oppression 2,000 years ago while recognizing and highlighting the ways in which Jesus’ solidarity with Black Americans pre-dates even the white oppressor.  Both the solidarity and the liberation that Jesus brings, from the perspective of Black Theology, can start to be untangled and separated in many ways from the monolithic and monocultural influence of oppressive “whiteness”.  Cone reflects in the text, “I was black before I was Christian. My initial challenge was to develop a liberation theology that was both black and Christian—at the same time and in one voice. That was not easy because even in the black community the meaning of Christianity was white.” (Cone, The Cross and the Lynching Tree, p. xvii) However, in taking on the challenge, Cone and other other black theologians began the process of developing a black theological lens on the atonement. They recognize the fullness of the redemption that Jesus brings and the beauty that exists within the black cultural experience, while refusing to diminish and whitewash the injustice and suffering that is simultaneously inherent from being black and Christian in America.  

Prayer: 
Holy God, may I learn from you how to be in solidarity with those who are oppressed. Show me how to work for justice that honors those in bondage not just what I think to be right. Humble me in my efforts to live and seek justice like you. Amen.

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