Falling Into the Hands of Robbers and Thieves

It’s a human experience to know the trauma of falling into the hands of robbers and thieves, but there is one who joins us in our ditch.

I was robbed a few years ago. I had parked my truck in a parking lot and had gone into a shop to purchase a few things.

When I walked out, I saw someone looking into the back of my truck. I thought that was strange, so I began walking briskly toward them.

When they saw me coming, they rushed to their vehicle, climbed in, and took off. Two adults were in the car, a male and a female, and two children were in car seats in the back.

When I got to my car, I saw some gardening tools were missing.

I jumped in the truck and took off after them. This is where you hear upbeat Hollywood music!

But they had gone, couldn’t see them anywhere, so I returned to the parking area and went into the shop to see if they had security video footage of the event.

They did, but these thieves were cunning. They didn’t drive close enough to the cameras to get good images. The security guard said that this is what robbers do. They cruise around the carparks looking for opportunities. They are fully aware of where the cameras are and the quick exit routes.

I watched as a van cruised around the parking lot, found a spot next to my truck, and went back in next to it for a potential quick getaway. Then the male and female rummage through the gear on the back. They tried to open the doors but found they were locked. They then started to take equipment from my truck and put it in their car.

I called the police and filed a report, but nothing was returned. Fortunately, insurance covered the loss, enabling me to buy better-quality tools.

But ever since then, I have been more careful with where I park my truck and what I leave on the back. I will soon buy a van where everything will be fully enclosed and secure.

When you’ve been robbed

Wild thoughts and feelings raged through my mind about what I would do if I caught them. I did still have my pitchfork!

I had been violated; someone had crossed a line and stolen what I had worked hard to earn and purchase.

What a fool I was to leave my tools exposed like that. I was naive.

Then more self-accusing thoughts pounded through my brain—stupid, idiot, dummy.

Past shaming events triggered memories. I was a little boy again, being bullied.

Everyone will think even less of me than what they think of me now.

It is a downward, deepening spiral into despair.

Then there were those children in the back seat. They were being formed in their thinking that is what you do, this is normal. They would grow to think it’s perfectly normal to cross other people’s lines to get what they want. They were being robbed of truth every time this scenario played out before them.

Robbers and Thieves

Jesus once told a parable about us and how we have been robbed.

Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. ‘Teacher,’ he said, ‘what must I do to inherit eternal life?’

He said to him, ‘What is written in the law? What do you read there?’

He answered, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbour as yourself.’

And he said to him, ‘You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.’

But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbour?’

Jesus replied, ‘A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. Luke 10:25-30

In the original greek, the word Jesus used to describe the robbers was léstés

lēstḗs – a thief (“robber”) stealing out in the open (typically with violence). lēstḗs (“a bandit, briard”) is a thief who also plunders and pillages – an unscrupulous marauder (malefactor), exploiting the vulnerable without hesitating to use violence.

There was more than one robber, and they only saw this man as someone they could take from. He was stripped naked, used for violence, and abandoned.

Types of abuse

Mark Laaser, in Healing the wounds of Sexual Addiction, describes two kinds of abuse: invasion and abandonment.

He places the types of abuse, invasion, and abandonment, into the four areas of human experience.

1. Emotional

Yelling
Screaming
Putdowns
Name-calling
Profanity
Mind rape

2. Physical

Hitting
Slapping
Pushing
Shoving
Spanking

3. Sexual

Touching or penetrating the genital area
Teasing about body
Sexual humor
Sexual misinformation about sex

4. Spiritual

Punitive or angry messages about God
Self-righteousness
Negative messages about sex
Modeling unhealthy lifestyles

As you look over the list, you will probably see items you will connect with as either a receiver of this abuse or a giver. There is grace and forgiveness for us all, whether we are the victim or the violator.

Abandonment abuse we will look at in the next post.

Jesus in the ditch

For this parable to have the most significant effect, one must see themselves as that man.

Someone going about their daily business only to be attacked and left half dead. Naked, stripped of anything of value, and left to die.

Robbers and thieves. The obvious invaders and marauders across the line of our humanity. Everyone I have met can relate to some experience of abuse where someone has crossed an obvious line.

But we are not alone in our half-dead state. Jesus knows the invasiveness of what man can do.

He knows the invaders, thieves, robbers, and marauders. Jesus experienced the dehumanizing effects of living in a broken world.

He, too, was stripped naked and left to die. Christianity is the only religion where God dies.

When we fully face our wounds and how we have wounded others, we need someone to cross our lines with a message of self-sacrificial love and hope. That’s the message of the purest form of love. It’s where someone leaves the road, crosses the line, and enters our ditch with an invasiveness of resurrection hope.

Quotes to consider

Any spirituality that does not lead from a self- centered existence to an other-centred mode of existence is bankrupt. Brennan Manning. The Signature of Jesus
It is so difficult to admit to ourselves and others that we can’t control everything. Only when we name the ways we are powerless do we create space for God to step in. Richard Rohr
Change is possible and substantial, but not perfected until heaven. “Substantial healing”, a phrase used by Francis Schaffer, underscores the possibility of deep and meaningful alteration, without blinding our eyes to the fact that permanent and final change awaits the transformation of the world through Christ’s return. The wounds of living in a fallen world with fallen people (including ourselves) make being damaged (internally and externally) a certainty. Dan Allender
[Christianity is] the only religion in the world where God dies at the end. People say they’re Christians, but you know what? You never see them nailed to anything. (T.V. series – Inside man)
I had never confronted the utter helplessness of rape, of knowing that it just did not matter that I existed; that I did not want this; that I was a human being; not a thing to be invaded, punched, or possibly killed. Rape denies that you are a person, that you exist. In contrast, lovemaking affirms your existence. Lynne Henderson, ‘What Makes Rape a Crime’, Berkeley Women’s Law Journal 3: (1988), 226.