Cake. Who doesn’t love birthday cake?
How about a perfectly baked cheesecake? See it sitting on a bed of subtlety sweet biscuit crumble, graced with a rich, velvety layer of vanilla bean cheesecake.
Mind you, this is not some skimpy anorexic layer, but a slab of ridiculous proportion, as lofty as a mattress with a pillow top.
Everyone, loves a hearty serving, right?
Then this entire work of delectable culinary art is draped with a shimmering topcoat of dark chocolate ganache. It’s complete with cocoa rich dribble running down the sides for that additional temptation factor. Mmmmmmm.
Gimme cake. Me want cake. Nom, nom, nom.
An underdeveloped part of my brain has these random, Neanderthal like impulses that I have over the years, cleverly masked with a Mona Lisa smile.
Diets be cursed. Resistance is futile. A hefty calorific portion of cake does wonders to lift droopy spirits. I guess that’s why every month, during an afternoon staff meeting, we celebrate the birthdays of our beloved teachers.
The familiar Happy Birthday song is sung (though we’ve dispensed with the candle blowing formality, even before the Covid pandemic struck). The best part is tucking into the nutritional goodness of a sugary laden slice of heaven without microscopic saliva particles from a celebrant’s breath.
Recently though, our usually joyous birthday celebrations took an unexpected turn. And no, we didn’t all end up with a terrible case of cheesecake food poisoning. Although perhaps this is the ultimate dream of many a student during exam week.
The two cakes we bought (one carrot cake and a baked cheesecake) came from the Cake Merchant shop downtown. Whilst everyone was happily devouring their cake—no judgement here for those who chose carrot cake—someone chimed in with this question, “Hey, did you know that the owners of the shop have been arrested for human trafficking?”
Quite outrageous. But it was no joke. And the sweet deliciousness of cake suddenly turned sour.
Upon further research, thanks to my trusty google account, I discovered it to be true. There was horrendous criminal activity happening in our own backyard.
The owners of the Cake Merchant Shop, a married couple, were charged over a range of slavery offences and human trafficking.
The husband and wife duo were accused of isolating an employee from the community, confiscating his passport, and not providing him with a steady wage for his services thereby making him reliant on the owners for food.
Police allege that employee was also threatened with deportation for not working hard enough and had his phone calls monitored.
The victim was clearly mistreated by working excessive hours and not being paid for his labour. Movements were restricted and he was unable to access a bank account.
It’s a bitter pill to swallow that all this was happening in middle class suburbia.
Yet, slavery has been a scourge on society for thousands of years. God’s own people were enslaved by the Egyptians for four centuries, and God promised to redeem them.
Wherefore say unto the children of Israel. I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will rid you out of their bondage, and I will redeem you with a stretched out arm, and with great judgements. Exodus 6:6
Most of us are familiar with God’s spectacular rescue plan involving the ten plagues and the parting of the Red Sea.
The act of redemption here describes God’s promise to free his people—to sever them from bondage. All His displays of power would impress upon their hearts and minds that He was indeed the one true God.
However, slavery in all its forms still persisted.
In the Old Testament, those living in poverty, or who were unable to repay a debt had no other recourse but to give themselves away as slaves. Sometimes they indentured themselves into serving foreigners that had chosen to live with the Israelites.
In Leviticus, a person who lost land or property for payment of debts, or forfeited their freedom by selling himself as a slave to a foreigner could set their hopes on a Kinsman Redeemer.
Within the term redemption is the notion of a person delivering a family member from hardship or difficult circumstances.
In this ancient custom, the Kinsman Redeemer was obligated to buy back for a price what the person had lost.
His first duty was to buy back his family member from slavery. Secondly, he had the obligation to buy back land his relative had sold due to financial hardship.
Money was exchanged to recover lost homes, land, livestock and personal freedom.
Other duties included marrying the widow in the family who had no male heirs (Deut 25:5-10), and acting as a blood-avenger (Num 35:16-19).
The Kinsman Redeemer was the nearest relative such as a brother, uncle, nephew or blood relative willing to pay the ransom price.
And if a sojourner or stranger wax rich by thee, and thy brother that dwelleth by him wax poor, and sell himself unto the stranger or sojourner by thee, or to the stock of the stranger’s family:
After that he is sold he may be redeemed again; one of his brethren may redeem him: Leviticus 25:47 & 48
Here we find a powerful image of a redeemer buying back a slave and setting him free.
But what does redemption mean for us who live in the 21st century?
Christian redemption encompasses a wide range of spiritual blessings one of which is freedom from slavery.
Many of you are scratching your heads at this moment wondering how this can be. I am no one’s slave.
Take a look at what Jesus did in Titus 2:14.
Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.
Christ freed us from all sin. Jesus is our Kinsman Redeemer. We are no longer slaves to the ugly taskmaster of iniquity.
We’re no longer slaves to unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, greed, malice, envy, gossip, pride, rebellion and any other form that sin takes on. And we have Jesus to thank for our freedom.
But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that of doctrine which was delivered to you.
Being made then free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness. Rom 6:17-18
I’m reminded of the lyrics to a Tauren Wells song, Until Grace. When I’m driving my car and no one else is with me, I’ll crank up the volume, and sing with joy and abandon:
Until grace called my name
Oh, I didn’t know I could be free
Until grace found me
Until grace broke these chains
Oh, I didn’t know I could be free
Until grace found, Your grace found me
I might be looking at a future full of question marks
But I don’t have to have all of the answers if You have my heart
In You I’m finding redemption a little more with every breath
Brand new like the morning and I’ll never forget that
So let us who know Christ as our saviour, redeemer and Lord, live out the truth. We are no longer slaves to sin, but slaves to righteousness.
Bibliography:
The Archaeology Study Bible, 2017, Crossway, Wheaton, Illinois.
Henry, M. 1961, Commentary on the Whole Bible, Zondervan, Michigan.
Macarthur, J. 2019, The Macarthur Study Bible 2nd Edition, Thomas Nelson Publishers, China.
Lewin, R. 2021, ‘Cake shop owners charged with Slavery and Human Trafficking offences over Sydney Employee’, 7 News.com. Retrieved 30 March 2022 from
Pfeiffer C,F. 1990, The Wycliffe Bible Commentary, Moody Publishers, Illinois.
The Quest Study Bible, 1994, Zondervan Publishing House, Michigan.
Stanley, C. 1996, Charles Stanley’s Handbook for Christian Living, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville.
Strong, J. 1995, The New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville.
Vine, Unger, White. 1985, Vine’s Expository Dictionary of Biblical Words, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville.
Wells, Tauren. Lyrics to Until Grace. LyricFind. Retrieved 4 April 2022 from
Wu, C. 2021, ‘Western Sydney cake shop owners arrested and charged over alleged slavery and human trafficking’, Skynews.com. Retrieved 30 March 2022 from https://www.skynews.com.au/australia-news/crime/western-sydney-cake-shop-owners-arrested-and-charged-over-alleged-slavery-and-human-trafficking/news-story/9d2b43b0e6b560cc6d7b76ace0717e6f
