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Corinthians 7 22 For whoever was called in the Lord as a slave is a freed
person belonging to the Lord, just as whoever was free when called is a slave
of Christ. 23 You were bought with a price; do not become slaves of
human masters. 24 In whatever condition you were called, brothers
and sisters, there remain with God.
Good morning
and welcome. Bonnie and I are excited to be here with you this morning. As we
moved here we remarked on how this is another significant event in our Christian
journey. In life, there are events that change the way we view the world,
change the environment in which we live and change the way we view
ourselves. These events are sometimes so
earth shattering, that we literally remember where we were and what we were
doing. The birth of a child, the news of
the passing of a loved one, the assassination of a president, the collapse of a
building on the family farm, the death of John Lennon, the destruction of the
World Trade Center. These events can shape how we move forward in the future,
and how we each remember the past. These events become permanent markers for us
as we move through life reminding us at times where we were, what we were doing
and what was going on in the world. But these events also remind us that
independence comes with a terrible cost to those who walk this earth. What is
the price of freedom, my friends?
In a movie
that was on the screen some years back, we see the hero of the movie, William
Wallace facing his death at the hand of those serving the ruthless King. At
issue is the freedom of Scotland. Given the choice of recanting his disloyalty
to the King or suffering a horrible death, he chooses to shout the word Freedom
as his answer. What is it that makes a person face death and horrible adversity
just to secure freedom for those he represents? For those of you that have
served our country and faced war, it is knowing that what we have is precious
and special. Freedom to live as we desire, worship are we desire and speak as
we desire.
I want to read
for you a piece of historical record that I thought would be relevant on this
day. It was delivered from the President to Congress. “I address you the
members of this new congress, at a moment unprecedented in the history of the
union. I use the word “unprecedented” because no previous time had American
security been as seriously threatened from without as it is today. In the
future days which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded
upon four essential human freedoms.
The first is
the freedom of speech and expression – everywhere in the world.
The second is
freedom of every person to worship God in his own way – everywhere in the
world. The third is freedom from want, which translated into world terms, means
economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime
life for its inhabitants – everywhere in the world. The fourth is freedom from
fear, which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of
armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be
in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor –
anywhere in the world. This is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a
definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation. That
kind of world is the very antithesis of the so-called “new order” of tyranny
which the dictators seek to create with the crash of a bomb.”
So can any of
you guess when this was given? Sadly, it was given to the 77th
Congress by Franklin Delano Roosevelt on January 6, 1941. We can only imagine
that as he sat there, he could not have foreseen the destruction that would
occur on December 7th of that year. Nor could he foresee the world
that we face each and every day of our lives today. And it is sad that he gave
this speech in 1941 and that the world today is not any different than the
world he knew. If anything we face increased terrorism, increased fear of
economic and physical harm, and increased persecution for being Christian.
What is the
price of freedom?
From the
beginning of time man has shouted, imagined, dreamed and fought over their
understanding of this word. But it is
much more than just a word. The mere
mention of the word can evoke raw emotion from those who hear it, often causing
tears to form, and joy or sorrow to surface.
We all seek it, whether we are talking about our way of life, our right
to speak, work and even our right to pray without restraint. Webster, sorry I
know that dates me, defines freedom as the liberation from slavery or restraint
or from the power of another: independence.
What is the
price of freedom?
Our own
American heritage is full of stories of how a diverse people banded together to
fight for relief from oppression, religious persecution and slavery. They fought
economic and physical hardships in an effort to be free. They gave their blood,
their lands and their families in order to gain independence and be free.
What is the
price of freedom?
What is the
price of freedom we often hear asked? And in this new generation, as graphic
depictions of war are shown, we see with our own eyes what the cost is. As a
child of the 60’s, I used to see the nightly news and hear body counts and I
did not understand. Today our men and women rarely talk about places like
Normandy, Anzio, Pork Chop, Tet, Fallujah and Kabul except in quiet whispers
among the knowing, those who were there. These are not exotic cities or places
in the world but reminders of lost friends, brothers and now sisters. As I talk
to men and women who have stood on the desert during Desert Storm and now Iraq and
Afghanistan who have seen their friends and family knocked down by the
onslaught of war, I hear them ask, what is the price of freedom?
Some years
ago I teamed during a Christian weekend as a Spiritual Director. During one of
our special moments, an older man came to me burdened with incredible guilt
that he had carried with him for many years. He came there in front of me and
began to sob. He shared that he needed forgiveness for a sin he had carried for
most of his life. As he stood there, tears streaming down his face, he told me
about a beach in a place called Normandy. He shared how he could still feel the
biting of the sand as the bullets flew and his buddies died. And then he asked
forgiveness for using their bodies to move up the beach, feeling and still
hearing the thuds and feeling the bullets hit their bodies. In that moment we
prayed not for forgiveness but for understanding and for peace and as the Holy
Spirit came into him I knew that he truly understood the price of freedom. So
often those that have returned from wars across the globe continually ask the question
on holidays such as this, why me lord, what is it that caused you to let me
survive when others did not. Why did I survive when others perished?
What is the
price of freedom they ask?
Galatians tells us in the fifth
chapter, “For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not
submit again to a yoke of slavery. …6 For in Christ Jesus neither
circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything; the only thing that counts
is faith working through love.” The
two scriptures today remind us that we are to remember what the price is that
sets us free and what freedom really means. Freedom does not automatically give
one an easy button that means that they will not experience sorrow or tears. It
does not mean that our lives suddenly become easy journeys. What it means is
that the price has been paid, that we who will experience physical death and we
all will, will not experience spiritual death, but have everlasting life. We no
longer need to be justified by someone else’s rules or by someone else’s social
norms to understand who we are. We can continue to allow ourselves to be held
in the grip of the world or release ourselves into the embrace of God who loves
us.
I would like
you to close your eyes as I share with you another story. A man and his son are on a hill top 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.” And then shortly after that the man says, “It is finished.” Suddenly he is
speared by a roman guard 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 me and to you, 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.
