Dear Friends,
(https://redeemerlr.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=df57aea0670b59c32464d5bab&id=fb39425fe9&e=fbb0a4052b)Click Above! ↑↑↑↑
Happy Fourth of July!
As we get ready to fire up the grill and celebrate our freedom as Americans, I want to tell you about something that happened spontaneously on October 28, 1886 in New York City.
But in order to understand that spontaneous event, you have to go back two decades.
Right after the end of the American Civil War and the freeing of the slaves, the head of the French Anti-Slavery Society had the idea for a monument to freedom that would be a joint project between France and the United States.
Over the next 20 years, funds were raised, plans were laid, and the work on the Statue of Liberty began. It was cast in France and shipped across the ocean to be reassembled on Bedloe’s island in the East River, where all arriving ships coming into the Port of New York would pass.
In May of 1884, the statue was completed in France. Three months later in New York Harbor, the Americans laid the cornerstone for its pedestal.
It was in June of 1885 that the dismantled Statue of Liberty arrived in New York, enclosed in more than 200 packing cases. The copper sheets were taken to Bedsoe’s Island, where they were reassembled, with the last rivet of the monument set aside to be fitted on October 28, 1886 during the dedication
On that day, President Grover Cleveland, the former Governor of New York, came to the city to help dedicate the monument.
The dedication ceremony included a parade that began at Madison Square and went along Broadway and Fifth Avenue, down to Battery Park.
What happened spontaneously on that day, as the parade passed the New York Stock Exchange is that traders began tossing ticker tape out the windows of their building. No one had planned it. In all the excitement, the traders filled the air about the streets with ticker tape floating down on the parade. This very first ticker tape parade ultimately set the stage for a long-standing celebratory tradition. Any time there was something big to commemorate, out came the ticker tape.
Here’s what ticker tape looks like, by the way.
It comes out of a machine that used to look like this.
The revelers crossed the river from Battery Park to Bedsoe’s Island – now called Liberty Island –where they held the dedication ceremony, as boats surrounded the island and fireworks were ignited.
The plaque attached to the monument included these familiar and important words:
"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
What had inspired this whole event – the fundraising for the statue, the design, the ceremony and the celebration – was a passionate sense that the ideals of freedom and liberty, foundational ideals that are part of the American democratic experiment, needed to be memorialize and commemorated.
The central ideal of the American democratic experiment in 1776 was that men and women should be able to live in freedom. That’s why the Bill of Rights in the constitution is so important. It outlines specific liberties that cannot be abridged.
Freedom of speech
Freedom of Religion
Freedom of the Press
Freedom of Assembly
The right to petition the government
The right to bear arms
The right to a fair trial
The right not to have to testify against yourself
Protection against unlawful search and seizure
Clearly each of these ideals of freedom have not always been part of our lived reality as a country.
The stain of 100 years of chattel slavery, followed by another 100 years of legally sanctioned racism and oppression of people in our country is part of the shame of our heritage as a nation.
But the ideals were always there. And those ideals that were part of our founding continue to guide us today. Our conviction that men and women were created to live free from oppression and tyranny is bedrock to who we are as Americans.
Our founders – even those like Thomas Jefferson who rejected Christian orthodoxy – still understood that the right to freedom comes not from government but from God. “We hold these truths to be self-evident.” he wrote. “That all men are created equal. That they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights. That among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
As we celebrate our nation’s founding and our heritage of freedom as Americans, let’s remember that the liberty we enjoy is actually a gift from God. Not to be taken for granted. And not to be squandered.
May God bless America.
Here’s a quick reminder of three events that are on our July calendar.
The NxtGen group of college aged students and young adults will get togther for the second of three lunchtime gatherings to discuss the book Knowing Godright after church on Sunday, July 21. If you have questions, look for Pastor Cole Perkins or Pat Howell. They can fill you in.
Students have two special events coming up in July. A movie night at church on Saturday, July 20. And a day at Magic Springs on Saturday, July 27.
Finally in July, we’ll cool off together at a family pool and pizza party on Tuesday night, July 30. Everyone’s invited.
We’ll take a break from our Revelation study this week to look at Jesus’ encounter with a demon possessed man who lived in isolation in a cemetery. The encounter shows us clearly that Jesus has authority over demonic forces at work in the unseen world.
As we get ready to look at this episode from the life of Jesus, let me encourage you to take seven minutes and watch my friend Bob Bennett sing the song he wrote about the “Man of the Tombs.” It’s a reminder of what all of us have in common with this man who Jesus set free from spiritual tyranny and oppression.
(https://redeemerlr.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=df57aea0670b59c32464d5bab&id=00afe35552&e=fbb0a4052b)Bob Bennett: Man of the Tombs
See you in church.
Soli Deo Gloria!
Pastor Bob
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