Daniel 3:13-30, Daniel 3, John 8:31-42
Freedom
There are many ways to describe freedom.
When I was growing up I remember an arts and craft project patched together from scraps of leather hanging on the wall of our family’s summer cottage. It boldly stated “Free is Responsible”. Mel Gibson, as Braveheart in the movie by the same name, used his last dying breath to shout, “Freedom!”. A young boy, soon to be a young man, frustrated at his mother’s meddling in his life says, “You’re not the boss of me!”
A catchy slogan from the 1960′s, a call to arms, a claim for personal independence; freedom is one of those exprssions that has so many meanings its no wonder that those who are listening to Jesus are confused by his words in the Gospel today. “You will know the truth and the truth will make you free”.
The three men from the book of Daniel; Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, were not free. They were three youths of Jewish nobility captured in the Babylonian deportation from Judah. As slaves they find their lives to be at the beck and call of king Nebuchadnezzar and yes, the King is the boss of them.
Yet in their seeming limited freedom they find the courage to remain free in their faith. It would have seemed a small thing to eat food placed before them, even if the food had been a part of a pagan ritual. But the three young men place the value of their faith and of their religion higher then their own lives. In doing so they transcend their limited existence and become truly free.
As Jesus speaks to those who believe in him he tries to make them see that he has not come to liberate them from an earthly oppression. He recognizes that they are an oppressed people but Jesus is not the “Braveheart” of his time who has come to cripple the Roman occupation. The freedom that Jesus speaks of is of a higher order. It is a freedom that comes from recognizing one’s true calling as a son or daughter of God.
It is this freedom that Jesus will have to get in touch with in his own life as he prays in the Garden of Gethsemane.(Mark 14:32-40) Jesus had the freedom to let the cup of suffering pass him by. Yet he chose to embrace it and drink fully from it. In doing so he demonstrates a sense of freedom that seems to allude so many.
We are free to take the easy road. We have no kings or tyrants choosing the path for us. But what will we gain? In taking the road less traveled, the real road to freedom, we stand to find who we really are and to gain eternal life.
How free are you? Do you find it hard to make decisions that really matter?
To what do you find yourself enslaved?
