Dear Friends,
Mary Ann and I have a little inside joke that we’ve repeated dozens of times over the years. On the lesser known federal holidays, we see who can ask the other one first if the mail has come yet. The right response is an eye roll that signals “I’m no dummy. I know what day it is. I know there’s no mail today.” We’re always hoping we can trip the other person up.
Juneteenth is the newest day on which we can play our little game.
I don’t think most of us grew up with any knowledge or awareness of the significance of this day in our history. Maybe you’re still not clear about its meaning. Whether you think the day deserves federal holiday status or not – status that was granted three years ago – you can’t deny the powerful emotional resonance this day signifies for many of our fellow citizens. Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice calls it “our second independence day” as a nation. Her essay (https://redeemerlr.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=df57aea0670b59c32464d5bab&id=835ed26626&e=fbb0a4052b) about what this day means to her and others who came of age in the Jim Crow south is worth reading.
At the heart of the Juneteenth holiday is a recognition of the inalienable, God implanted desire and right for every human being to live free. I’m afraid in our day many of us take our civil freedoms for granted. We can imagine we would ever lose them. In the face of something threatening, we sometimes causally and too often easily surrender them to someone who promises to keep us safe. Past generations valued freedom enough that they were willing to put their lives on the line to protect it. I’m concerned that the spirit of liberty no longer burns in the hearts of many of our fellow citizens. I hope we’re not facing a future where we’ll experience the forfeiting of freedoms to a totalitarian state only to find ourselves humming “don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone.”
Political freedom must be cherished and protected to endure. In most of the world, the freedoms we enjoy are not protected and defended. Just ask Evan Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal reporter who has been “detained” in Russia’s notorious Lefortovo prison for more than a year on charges of espionage. In fact, he is imprisoned because the Russians don’t value freedom of speech and freedom of the press as we do.
Both the Juneteenth holiday and the upcoming Fourth of July holiday have had me thinking about cherished freedoms today. Like Condoleezza Rice, I am grateful I live in the country where I live – a country where, as she says, “great men who were themselves flawed human beings—ultimately lit the way toward a more perfect union. In some sense, the history of the United States is a story of striving to make their soaring words—We the People—real to every American. It’s the story of becoming what we profess to be.”
That is still a work in progress, but much progress has been made. Slowly. But steadily.
But even in a country where the promises of freedom are enshrined in our documents, we remain a nation where a majority of us are still in spiritual bondage. Thinking we are free to do as we please, we fail to realize we are actually slaves to our own passions, desires and appetites. It is ultimately that which we crave most that shapes our actions and our words. And if what we crave most is not a passion for God to be honored and glorified in our world, then whatever has pushed that aside is running – and ruining – our lives.
Who the Son sets free, Jesus said, will be free indeed. And freedom comes when we know the truth – about God, about ourselves, about our sin and our need for redemption. The truth is what sets us free.
One of the mountaintops in the Old Testament is the account of God’s liberation of His people from slavery and bondage in Egypt. That historical event was, by God’s design, a huge allegory of our liberation from our slavery to sin and self.
I love how Tim Keller remembers when that first dawned on him.
I'll never forget sitting in R. C. Sproul's living room in Stallstown, Pennsylvania, nearly forty years ago, and for the first time, J. Alec Motyer, the Old Testament scholar, was visiting from Britain. I had never heard of him. I was sitting on the floor with a bunch of other college and seminary kids, and R. C. Sproul told us something about the connection between the Old Testament and the New Testament.
Alec Motyer said this: "Think about it. Think of what an Israelite would say on the way to Canaan, having come out of the Red Sea and so forth. Here's what an Israelite would say: If you said, 'Who are you?' he would say, 'I was in a foreign land under the sentence of death, in bondage, but I took shelter under the blood of the lamb. Our mediator let us out, and we crossed over, and now we're on our way to the Promised Land. We're not there yet, but he's given us his law to make us a community. And he's given us the Tabernacle because you have to live by grace and forgiveness. And his presence is in our midst, and he's going to stay with us until we get home.'"
And Alex Motyer said, "That's exactly what the Christian says—almost word for word."
My 23-year-old self said, "Huh."
I hope on days like Juneteenth and on the Fourth of July, we celebrate and recommit ourselves to protecting and defending our cherished, God-given and easily lost civil freedoms.
But I hope that every day, we cherish and honor the more important freedom that became ours when Jesus wounds paid our ransom.
“If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” (John 8:36).
We have a big weekend ahead. We’ll be baptizing three young people on Sunday morning. We’ll be praying for and commissioning a team of teens and adults to go to Memphis for a Street Reach week. And we’ll celebrate it all with a Pasta Potluck when church is over.
Don’t forget to bring some food to share this Sunday. And plan to stay after the baptisms for a great time of fellowship.
For those NxtGeners who are going through Knowing God together this summer, make sure you have July 21 on your calendar. That’s when the next discussion group/get together takes place!
In the midst of trumpet blasts, where we see the devolution of the created world coupled together with demonic forces at work in the unseen world, how are God’s people supposed to respond? As we’ll see this week in Revelation 10, there’s an answer to that mystery.
See you in church.
Soli Deo Gloria!
Pastor Bob
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