Back when I was a youth minister, there was a song our students would often sing. It was pretty simple —one of those constantly-repeating choruses that hymn snobs complain about—, and while there is a second verse out there somewhere, we mostly just repeated these words:
There is power in the name of Jesus
There is power in the name of Jesus
There is power in the name of Jesus
To break every chain, break every chain, break every chain (repeat)
In some personal reading recently, I encountered the phrase “redemption for both the oppressed and the oppressor,” and I suddenly found this old chorus running through my head again. There is power in the name of Jesus to break every chain. In the contexts where I first sang those words, the significant majority of those around me (not all, but certainly most) were people of privilege: affluent backgrounds, attentive parents, a world open to them due to whiteness and wealth. Looking back, I wonder what those words meant to all of us at the time. Given our context, I imagine we interpreted the “chains” as something deeply personal: addiction, insecurity, individual sin. But now, as I look at the rampant injustice all around us —police brutality, economic inequality, deeply entrenched structures of racism, sexism, and homophobia—, I realize those words had another meaning I missed at the time:
What if we ourselves were holding the chains we were asking God to break?
In his book The Angry Christian, author Andrew Lester writes, “Anger at unjust, oppressive behavior must not blind us to the humanity of the perpetrator, who is also a person created in God’s image, a child who is not beyond redemption.” I have to admit I don’t really like those words right now because there are a lot of influential people using the current time as an excuse for violence against vulnerable people, and I’m furious at them. But what if the cry to break every chain isn’t just about putting an end to their injustice? What if it’s a cry to help restore their humanity?
There is power in the name of Jesus to break every chain.
Of course, I don’t want to let myself off the hook so easily and pretend that racists and oppressors are a “them” I can wag my finger at. As a white Baptist man from a pretty affluent background myself, I wield a lot of unearned privilege, and I’ve benefitted from unjust, racist, and Christian-favoring systems in this country. I don’t get to stand outside of the system and critique it; I’m a part of it, and I’ve benefitted from it. I also need that redemption.
There is power in the name of Jesus to break every chain.
The not-as-often-used second verse of the song details how the chains will be broken. Curiously, it’s not an apocalyptic divine intervention or Jesus “coming into my heart” or whatever. The words are:
There’s an army rising up
There’s an army rising up
There’s an army rising up
To break every chain, break every chain, break every chain.
Justice won’t just happen one day. It requires human hands motivated by God. It requires an army of people— not a violent force seeking vindication, but a compassionate and courageous community willing to do the hard work of identifying and dismantling systems of oppression.
What does it take to break every chain,
the chains of the oppressed and the oppressor alike,
the chains that bind us and the chains with which we bind others?
It takes all of us
united by common vision and purpose
to bring love and justice to all.
That’s worth praying toward and loving toward and working toward.
There is power in the name of Jesus to break every chain.
Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? (Isaiah 58:6)