Set Free

Sermon given at Sydenstricker UMC 7/1/18

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^NRS Romans 6:1 What then are we to say? Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound? ² By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it? ³ Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? ⁴ Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. ⁵ For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. ⁶ We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. ⁷ For whoever has died is freed from sin.

A Vietnam veteran recalls an experience he had on Christmas Eve in 1972. His squad was ambushed by the enemy, everyone was killed except him. Following a struggle and with great force he was captured. “I was thinking how much I did not want to spend Christmas, let alone the remaining six months of my tour of duty, in a POW camp,” he explains. They kept traveling through the night. When they finally stopped the Vietnamese lieutenant gave him food to eat. “Merry Christmas” he said in perfect English. His captor told him it would be an honor to celebrate Christmas with him. His name was Nugent. He explained that he had been educated in Canada and that his family had been killed. “Silent Night” was Nugent’s favorite Christmas Carol. The two men began singing it together.

Early the next morning shots rang out. “Bullets were flying all around,” the American soldier recalls. Nugent was shot in the chest. He held him in his arms. “Thanking me for the Christmas songfest.” He started singing “Silent Night” knowing that it was Nugent’s favorite carol. “Nugent put his bloody hand to my lips, ‘the voice of angel, I go in peace.’ Thank you were his last words. At that moment I did not see an enemy, but a friend and a brother. Here was a man who started as an enemy, showed compassion, became a friend, died as a brother.”
Source: Delilah, Love Matters (Ontario Canada: Harlequin, 2008), pp. 43-47

Today we come to this place prisoner of the world around us. We may not feel trapped or imprisoned. Mother Teresa would say that is the symptom of affluence that makes us think we are in control, we have the power and we do not need God. The truth is very different. In our world today we are often trapped by financial things that we cannot control, medical costs that skyrocket and we are required to pay, mortgages we have no say in the interest rates charged, welfare systems that hold people in abject slavery regardless of that the system wants us to believe and peer constraints that hold us from being truly free to express ourselves, live our lives or pray. Today our world is so polarized and angry that we fear expressing our opinion in certain places. Some even have to be careful where they go to eat, to pray, and to do the things they should be able to do without fear of any kind. Our world today is becoming a we versus them world and the lines of whether we are we or them is becoming increasingly difficult to define. Is it any wonder that we walk along each day in a trance like state?

God offers us an answer in the midst of the firestorm. An answer that allows us to be whom God is calling us to be. There is no guarantee that consequences will not be required to navigate. The early disciples had to face physical persecution and even death and yet they continued their lives with great joy. We are called to love one another regardless. There is no exclusion in that calling; no special invitations people but rather a clear message of inclusion for all. It is a shame that some people who have been excluded for so long cannot hear this message without special invitation. God’s message is simple, clear and concise: Love one another! When we can become a person of love rather than a person of hate or political correctness then we can share in God’s love ourselves and then with others. Hear my words this day – when we cannot, we do not!

God is offering us a gift so great, so immense that money cannot buy it, works cannot achieve it and being a good person is not the measure of success. God is offering us immortality, eternal life in a place where joy and celebration is the norm, pain, and suffering are no more. What keeps us from sharing that gift is our own selves. We allow the world to hold us captive in its understanding of success, happiness and desire. Let go and become free. God sent us Jesus how walked among us to show us how to love one another regardless. If we look at His life, we see a life filled with persecution, anger directed at His every word and those who wished Him dead. Yet, He continued to share a message of love and freedom from oppression that resonated then and now.

Paul tells us that in baptism, we were baptized in His death. What does that mean? Simply, it means that Jesus died on the cross to bridge the grand canyon of sin. The cross now lays across that vast divide and allows us to be in relationship with God forever. As Jesus blood flowed down the cross, we were set free. We no longer need to abide by the measure of the world when it comes to success. We have been set free from our own natures.

This gift is available to everyone. It requires little of us. We simply have to say Jesus I want you in my heart and the transforming power of God will fill us. Our lives will change. That resurrection in the death of Christ will happen immediately in our own lives if we simply open our hearts to God. Today can mark a transformation in our lives if we simply let it. Then, we are must go out into the world and share that love with others. I know that part is scary. But the joy of seeing transformation in others is so rewarding that it cannot be adequately described. We see it in the faces of youth who have returned from mission, in those who have shared meals with the hungry and those who have witnessed the miracle of healing in those with whom they prayed. Would you like to be set free?    

I would like you to close your eyes as I share with you another story.  A man and his son are on a hilltop close to their home watching events unfold in the city below.  On a far hill, a crowd has gathered.  The weather had started out as beautiful day but now there are signs of an impending storm.  The son looks up at his father and asks, “Daddy, what is happening?”  We hear the father tell his son that he does not know, but everything will be ok.  As they look across to the other hill, a man on a cross suddenly cries out, “Father forgive them, they know not what they do.” Then shortly after that the man says, “It is finished.” Suddenly a roman guard spears him and his blood begins to flow. Clouds rapidly begin to grow in the background and thunder rumbles.  Can you see it? Suddenly clouds fill the sky, thunder splits the air as lighting strikes the ground.  People cry out in fright and begin to run in all directions. The ground shakes beneath their feet and the temple and the city below is torn in two. As the father and son stand in awe and fright and the world shakes about them, in that moment of time, our sins are forever washed away.

What is the price of freedom we ask?

And in the quiet of the hour, when no other words are spoken, with our hands in prayer asking what is the price of freedom, He says to you and to me, it is the price of one life, my friends, on a cross on a hill. A death like none other in this lifetime or forever, a man who was sinless, guiltless and could have chosen freedom just by speaking the words, but chose to remain there, punished, brutally beaten, hung to die of strangulation on a cross-made for the worst of criminals in the Roman system. My friends and neighbors, this is the price of freedom. For the scripture says that there is no greater love than for a man to give his own life, that others may live. We paraphrase, we quote it, and for many of those whose names we celebrate this independence day, we live it. When next you are asked what the price of freedom is, you know the answer. As disciples we are pledged to tell the story of grace and love which hung on a cross two thousand years ago. A story of redemption, a story of restoration, and a story of relationships healed as we are forever forgiven. Christ came not to be only remembered as a teacher, he came not to be only remembered as a healer, he came to be remembered as the man who died and three days later was resurrected. The true story of Independence Day is that two thousand years ago, he lived the words he spoke. Two thousand years ago, he answered the question for all time, what is the price of freedom. It is the price of one man, sinless and pure, on a cross. As his blood flows down the cross, our freedom is bought and paid for forever. Would you be set free?