Episode 53: Independence Day

Readings:

Psalm 51
Deuteronomy 26:1-11
2 Corinthians 8:16-24
Luke 18:9-14

Sermon:

“Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.”
Galatians 5:1

Grace, mercy and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen.

There is no captivity, there is no yoke, no bondage darker than the shadowy estate of slavery and the power that it has over men…

Yet, for every anguish of the spirit, for every deafening cry of the soul, there is an answer from our Lord, a God of liberty and freedom, that contends with the cause of His children and that strengthens and preserves them amidst their plight and struggle, amidst the challenges that overtake them and the hurt that burdens them, threatening to crush them under the weight of its bleak power. He hears the calls, the yearnings, the longing, and He responds with the force of His justice. “I called upon the LORD in distress: the LORD answered me, and set me in a large place. The LORD is on my side; I will not fear: what can man do unto me?” (Psalm 118:5 and 6)

Here we come to that deep and abiding truth, we have had a God who, in His tender mercies, in His gracious precepts, has maintained the dignity of humanity and the integrity of life through His declarations of liberty through all ages, in all times. So much so has He stated the freedom of men, that He would give His only begotten Son, our Savior, Christ Jesus unto this world for the sake of freedom, setting to flight the bondage of sin, death and the Devil and its dark hold over us. Through the encompassing sacrifice of the Messiah we would find undeserved, unearned liberty that would wash us clean in the wonder working power of the blood of the Lamb.

But then, what is freedom, what is liberty, what are the rights of man, except an undeserved gift from God, endowed upon us in the love of our Creator, and maintained, preserved, by the power of His Spirit? For as Saint Paul tells us in His Epistle to the Corinthians “Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” (2 Corinthians 3:17)

We live in a world that so often tries to attribute the gifts of God to the works of men. Yet throughout history, throughout time the Lord has revealed an encompassing truth, an abiding truth that cannot be shattered or destroyed, that cannot be wished away by the power of men or the works of their hands. It’s a truth that God would deliver to the children of Israel even during the days of their dark captivity at the hands of the Pharaohs, and that he would uphold in all generations.

By His hand does freedom ring, by His might rights are granted, by His power liberty is maintained, and through it justice is preserved in the love that our Heavenly Father has for us.

Tomorrow, in jubilation, we celebrate Independence Day, a day in our history that holds deep meaning and significant purpose for us. A day when our Founding Fathers looked to the world that was around them, and said that no power, no principality, no force, no matter how strong it may be, no matter how much power it holds within its hands, may separate us from the precious gifts of God given to us in those rights we were born with, endowed upon us by our Creator in that greatest of love that He had for us. There, by their hands, with the guiding providence of the Lord, with the fear of death upon and the grim reminders of suppression and subjugation all around them that would threaten their very lives, they, with courage and hope, passed a Declaration of Independence that asserted that very idea in a way no people, no government, had ever done in the past.

We have this tendency to forget the place that God had in those early days of this Republic or to gloss over that history, rewriting it as we re-conceive and de-imagine the faith that built this nation even from the earliest of days, when darkness and oppression seemed to surround it and trust in the Lord was all that our fathers had to build their hope in. A trust that knew the Creator guided the cause of the just and the challenges of those yearning for deliverance that they might breathe the blessed air of freedom. The claim goes up that no longer are we one nation under God, for He no longer has a place on our national landscape. We are told that His cause is no longer our cause and that our struggle is no longer His struggle.

Yet there is no lasting sense of freedom, no abiding sense of liberty, there are no rights that we can dwell amidst except that which is granted by His divine hand, and preserved by His loving precepts. To dismiss God’s presence is to re-conjure the nature of our rights as being granted by the hand and the power of men, and there we are grimly reminded that everything that can be given by the kindness of men can be taken by the force of men. Freedom may be fought for by men and women of amazing devotion, giving their lives in sacrifice for their brothers and sisters, but without God there would be nothing to struggle for, all there would be was this abstract idea we little understood and could not comprehend.

Here though, through the deeper revelations that He offers unto us, we know of His great love and His tender mercies that give unto us glorious liberty, maintaining our rights in an abiding sense of truth that shall always set us free.

Place therefore your trust not in the wisdom of this world or in the power of men, think not of Governments or authorities as the guardians of your rights and freedoms, nor consider them the authors and the finishers of liberty and justice. Know instead, as our Founders had, that the power and the glory comes from God, our Heavenly Father, through the encompassing love that He has for us, and through His grace and compassions, He makes each of us the protectors of those great gifts that He grants unto us.

Remember the cause of freedom, remember the cause of justice and liberty, knowing that God, He has made us free… free to live and do and be… free to think and to breathe and to stand tall, created in His divine image. Let not any force, any power, any authority rob that dignity from you, let none so deceive you that you may come to believe that God’s hand is not in the cause of freedom and the rights of men. For on that day, when such a deception shall come to sweep across the land, we shall no longer stand with liberty upon our lips and freedom in our breathe, we shall no longer find that our rights are within our grasps, and justice, it shall be a fleeting memory, long since passed from our eyes, blown away as if nothing more than crumbled dust left to the wind, held to be cheap and meaningless in our eyes.

Live forever in hope dear Brothers and Sisters, the abiding, transcending, encompassing hope of our Lord and God. Dwell amidst its great truth revealed unto us by our Heavenly Father. A truth…a hope that has guided the fate and the destiny of this nation since the earliest days of birth, and that God Himself uttered unto man since the moment of his first creation. It is then that we know we shall be good stewards of those great gifts given unto us by the Lord through the power of His might and the graciousness of His tender and loving precept, testified of in the love of Christ and preserved evermore in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Lord, grant this unto us all.

Now may the peace of the Lord, that peace that transcends all human understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, even unto life everlasting, Amen.