“Freedom”, “independence” and “liberty” refer to an absence of undue restrictions and an opportunity to exercise one’s rights and powers. Freedom emphasizes opportunity. Independence implies the ability to stand alone, unsustained by anything else. Liberty is used to refer to past or possible restriction, confinement or subjection. There are different kinds of freedom, independence and liberty. On Independence Day we celebrate our civil liberties in this Republic.
When the majority of the world looks at the United States of America it cannot imagine enjoying the freedom, independence and liberty we are privileged to enjoy. But, as Irish lawyer and politician John Curran said in a speech in Dublin on July 10, 1790, “The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance.” Freedom can only be maintained and enjoyed when citizens understand and value its spiritual roots.
St. Paul, in his celebrated letter to the Galatians 5:1 writes, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.”
He develops an argument that there are two approaches to life, and you can see these two approaches in every culture, in every society, in every family system: one is characterized by legalism, rules and traditionalism; the other by promise, freedom and grace. One is enslaved to the past, the other is open to the future. One is controlled by guilt, despair, anxiety, and the tyranny of human conformity. The other is released to choose to live for truth, goodness and love.
He describes the two approaches or religions in terms of the wives of Abraham: Hagar, the slave woman, who bore the son Ishmael, and Sarah, the free woman, who bore the son Isaac. They represent two covenants. Hagar stands for Mount Sinai, and Sarah stands for the Jerusalem that is above that is free, “and she is our mother.” (Gal.4:26) Each choice we make, forms our approach to life. The Christian culture, that is the basis of this nation, nurtured the covenant of the Jerusalem that is above, that is free. She is our mother who bears the children of freedom.
During the Cold war days when the communists ruled Hungary, a man in Budapest went to the police station to ask for permission to emigrate to the United States. “Aren’t you happy here?” the police asked. “I have no complaints,” said the man. “Are you dissatisfied with your work?” “I have no complaints.” “Are you discontented with your living conditions?” “I have no complaints.” “Then why do you want to go to America?” “Because there I can have complaints,” explained the man.
Christ came to set us free from guilt, oppression, and despair. He came to give us freedom of conscience, freedom from sin, freedom to choose God’s way of life. He did this on the Cross and by his example.
Jesus embodied freedom in his own life. He is free of traditionalism. He set aside the legalism of the old covenant with all its rules and regulations. Jesus is free from the dominance of convention. He mixed with those whom respectable society thought it right to shun: prostitutes, profiteers, hated financial agents of an alien empire. He shocked people by this freedom.
Jesus is free from the pressure of life’s circumstances. He feels the tragedies of the world around him with intense sensitivity; he shares, and bears the sorrows of others, he is plunged deep into the waters of human calamity. Yet there is in him an inward peace, a serenity, which seems to belong to another world.
Jesus is free from the dominance of the contemporary. He is not one who in rejecting old traditions is ruled by the current enthusiasms of his contemporaries. He is not controlled by family secrets, or by the influence of those around him. He is not a slave to fashion or public opinion. He is not programmed to respond to commercials or to be self-indulgent.
There is an underlying secret to Jesus: he is free from self and free for God. In Jesus we see what it means for humans to be free. When we learn the truth from Jesus about ourselves and God, and follow in his steps, we become free. The freedom Jesus comes to bring liberates us from self-centeredness so that we can give ourselves to love and care and help others. Martin Luther put it this way: “A Christian is the most free lord of all, and subject to none; a Christian is the most dutiful servant of all, and subject to everyone.”
We become most free, not when we are free to do as we like, but when we are free to like to do for others out of love. That is true liberation.
Nobel Prize winning Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) once said, “I have on my table a violin string. It is free. I twist one end of it and it responds. It is free. But it is not free to do what a violin string is supposed to do – to produce music. So I take it, fix it in my violin, and tighten it until it is taut. Only then is it free to be a violin string.”
There are so many people whose lives are at loose ends. They think that their looseness is freedom, but it is aimlessness. They need to be attached to God in Jesus for them to find their true purpose and to become free to be what they were supposed to do – to produce the music God intended for them. “If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” (John 8:36)
What does freedom look like to you? Let me give you a definition of freedom by Archbishop of Canterbury, Michael Ramsey (1904-1988). “My freedom is not my power to do what I choose as and when I choose it. My freedom is rather my ability to choose an end or a goal and to unify my faculties in the consistent pursuit of that end or goal.”
When this nation became independent, it was free to pursue it own destiny. The citizens of the United States were free to make their own choices, to decide through the institutions they created, what kind of people they wanted to become. That is our heritage and our responsibility.
Victor Pentz, former Pastor of Peachtree Presbyterian Church in Atlanta told the story of the grandmother of a friend of his. When she was young she lived in Serbia. Her father, who was a violent man, told her to take some cattle to market and sell them for him. When she had the money she decided to leave home, and she bought a ticket on a ship to America. When she arrived in New York she was taken to Ellis Island. The immigration officials divided the arrivals into two lines, one for men and one for women. A man came down the line asking for papers. She had none. She had no passport or identification. He marked the sleeve of her coat with a large X in chalk, which meant that she would be placed on the first ship back and be deported. A man in the other line called her over. He brushed off the X, and when they reached the end of the line he said that she was with him. A week later they were married.
That is what Jesus has done for us. He has taken us sinners: unwanted, sometimes abused, and given us a new identity. He has loved us, married us, and given us a new life of freedom. We are free to choose. St. Paul put it this way: “I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me….I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:12,13)
That is when we experience true freedom, and nurture “sweet freedom’s song” in the nation.
(Ted Schroder, SOUL FOOD, Volume 3, pp.1-4)
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