Re:form

I was walking to my truck in the parking lot of Barnes and Nobles the other day when I was approached by a man in a red shirt, jeans, and a white baseball cap. He quickly handed me a pamphlet and asked me if I had a couple of moments to spare.

I was curious, so I bit on his offer. In a few short moments I learned that this man had been a drug addict for most of his life. He had started smoking dope when he was young, he upgraded to other drugs later on, which led him to a life on the streets. Up until 5 years ago, he was homeless and near death, when he met a man from a drug recovery ministry in Dallas.

The man shared the message of the cross with him, and it saved him. He gave everything up, went into rehabilitation, and came out clean. Now he works with the man from the drug recovery ministry in Dallas, and he was hoping to raise funds that day.

I asked him, “You mean that all the man did was share the message of the cross with you, and that was enough to turn you away from everything that was killing you in your life?”

The man replied, “The message of the cross set me free.”

In John 8:31-36, we find Jesus speaking with those “who had believed in him.” He tells them that the only way to be his disciples is to live in his word. His word is his message about the advancing reign of God where God was doing powerful and wonderful things in and through Jesus. 'If you want to be my disciples, live in this message of God’s love.'

Jesus showed them about the saving power of his message. He healed the sick, he gave sight to the blind, and hearing to the deaf. He helped the crippled walk, and he raised the dead. He set people free from what held them in bondage. His message—his word—set people free. To be a disciple of Jesus is to live in the truth of Jesus’ message. To be a disciple is to be set free.

Now to those who had believed in him, they believed they were already free. They were descendents of Abraham, and they thought they were free. They believed a message that said that they were enslaved to no one. They were mistaken.

For a few hundred years, they hadn’t lived as a free people. They lived with different occupying countries who controlled them. Even their own history shows moments when the Israelites were free and not free. There was the whole event of Egyptian slavery that lasted over four hundred years. How could they say they were free?

They said they were free because they were living under an illusion of freedom which made them feel free, and that was enough for them. Even though they lived under a Roman occupation, the threat to their lives was tolerable. The Roman nation took fairly good care of them for minor inconveniences issued through taxes. Sometimes tax collectors took advantage of them, but for the most part the Jews were doing alright.

They could raise their kids the way they wanted to, they could work at their businesses the way they wanted to, they had better access to trade routes by using Roman roads. They even could continue to worship in their synagogues. They had to tolerate being outcasts in the Roman society, but at least they had a shot at their lifestyle.

When people did rebel against Roman rule, there was a hefty price to pay. Highways were often decorated with crucifixions, as a reminder to the oppressed of who was really in control. But if one could navigate around this, life went on almost as normal. They lived under the illusion of freedom, and Jesus’ message offered them nothing that they didn’t already have…so they thought. (ed's note: I realize that these few paragraphs may sound extremely insensitive. I've never experienced life under an occupying force. I've never lived under the kind of threats that first century Jews lived under. But, given more extreme alternatives, the Jewish state was allowed to exist within the Roman state, albeit from a controlled perspective.)

We’re not too unlike these descendants of Abraham. We live under our own illusions of freedom. One way that we see this illusion is through the myth of the American dream. This dream says that anybody can rise up from the lowest ranks and embrace the highest riches our planet can offer now. The promise is that once you make it big, you’ll have little to worry about. There have been a few success stories to promote this illusion of freedom from poverty, but largely it is untrue for many of Americans.

Many Americans live without health insurance, our poverty rates continue to climb, and the dream focuses on an individualistic reality that at its present rate threatens the success of life on this planet. If all the citizens of the world lived as Americans do, we would need eight planets to use for resources and to store our trash.

We live under an illusion of freedom. Compared to many other societies in our world, we are considerably free. We can roam between states without much thought for security. You can travel up to Oklahoma without worrying about your security. Why anybody would want to go to Oklahoma is beyond me (Go horns!0, but if you wanted to you, you wouldn't be stopped at checkpoints, searched for identity, and questioned for your motives of travel (which you ought to if you're traveling to Oklahoma ;)

We can go to any place of worship that we want to without threat from the government.

When Jesus tells us that his message can set us free, we who live under the illusion of freedom have a hard time seeing where Jesus can help us.

We have large disposable incomes that can get us anywhere in the world and experience anything we’d like to. You can book a flight tomorrow to travel to Peru and smell fresh Peruvian coffee as it is being harvested.

We have technology that connects us to anybody who has access. No longer am I enslaved to the television to receive updates on sports scores, but I can get those beamed directly to the pager on my hip.

HDTV frees us from looking at cloudy pictures.

Digital Surround Sound frees us from listening to 2 channel speaker systems.

Prescription drugs free us from living with much pain after major surgeries and speed up the recovery process.

Fast Food restaurants free us from slavery to countertop stoves and waiting for dinner.

So when Jesus walks into our lives, and tells us that his message can set us free, we wonder, “We’re free, aren’t we?”

Jesus’ words of delivery cause us to pause and truly assess our situation of so-called freedom. At the same time that we enjoy all of these so-called freedoms, we are experiencing global brokenness in the human system.

Nations threaten each other’s security. Wars are being fought over territory and resources in Africa. Children are conscripted into armies in the dead of night. Simple drugs that we can get at CVS over the counter are not available in many parts of our world. Those same prescription drugs also carry the dizzying power to control us.

The freest nation in the world also has one of the largest crime rates in the world. The truth is that no matter how hard we try to structure our governments to allow for individuals to experience freedom, we can’t free ourselves from the state of sin that Jesus says we’re in.

“Everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin.” We may be able to view crystal clear broadcasts of Dallas Cowboys’ games and Drew Bledsoe interceptions, but we don’t bring that same crystal clarity in our relationships with one another, so we end up hurting the ones we love. We manipulate and coerce, we guilt and we shame our way to love with one another.

“Everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin.” We may be able to grab a full meal on the way to our soccer games, but we forget that many on this planet die of thirst because of lack of access to clean water.

“Everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin.” We may be able to listen to THX sound in carefully planned movie theaters, but we have a hard time hearing God and figuring out what God wants from us.

Our slavery to sin shades the way we think. Our so-called freedoms that we experience manipulate us when we come to the table with God. Our freedoms puff us up with power, and we actually believe a lie that says we are free to choose God over everything in our life. But we aren’t.

We tend to serve our own interests before we serve God’s. That’s why we need Jesus, and his message of truth and deliverance. Without him, we would live content under the curtains of our so-called freedoms.

Jesus works to release us from our limited freedoms and to set us in his freedom. Jesus lives in full relationship with God, and doesn’t settle for anything less like we often do. Jesus lets God be God, and he lives as a testament to what his Father does in our world. This is what it means to be free. You let God be God, and you enjoy what God does.

By doing so, Jesus is God’s Son and carries his authority to release us from our sins, to give us new life, and to help live as we ought to. All of our so-called freedoms can’t release us from the guilt, the shame, and the anxiety that we feel from day to day because of the mess we create in our lives. But Jesus can.

And he does it with his words. He walks into our lives, and speaks the truth. He speaks the truth that frees us from pretending that we are in control and that we are slaves to no one. He speaks the truth that says we will never be able to free ourselves from the sin we find ourselves in.

Jesus is God’s Son who sets us free forever. We experience it in baptism when we die and rise with Christ. We taste it in the bread and wine when we taste the future where we live just as free as Jesus does. We live into our freedom when we pray to the God who sets us free.

Jesus’s message is true. When we live in it, we live in freedom. And because Jesus is risen from the grave, we know that one day we too will be wholly free as Jesus is. For now, we cling to him to set us free every day. We clamor for his words and looks for his truth. When his truth finds us, we are set free, and free people are able to tell others where freedom will find them. It isn’t in drugs, it isn’t in government, it’s not in a TV.

It’s in God’s Son.