Free at Last

Finding our true freedom in Jesus Christ

04/06/2022

Jn 8:31-42 Jesus said to those Jews who believed in him, “If you remain in my word, you will truly be my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” They answered him, “We are descendants of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How can you say, ‘You will become free’?” Jesus answered them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin. A slave does not remain in a household forever, but a son always remains. So if the Son frees you, then you will truly be free. I know that you are descendants of Abraham. But you are trying to kill me, because my word has no room among you. I tell you what I have seen in the Father’s presence; then do what you have heard from the Father.”

The last line of Martin Luther King Jr’s “I Have a Dream” speech captures the soul of America, as well as touches the soul of every American. Dr. King raised the collective conscience of our country saying stirringly: “Free at last. Free at last. Thank God Almighty, we are free at last.” I am convinced this same desire and destiny inspires countless courageous Ukranians, both soldiers and civilians, to fight back the invading Russians. They will fight to the last man and woman standing, until they are “free at last.”

William Wallace inspired his Scottish countrymen to fight the occupying British urging them: “Aye. Fight and you may die. Run, and you will live…at least for a while. And dying in your beds, many years from now, would you be willing to trade all the days, from this day to that, for one chance – just one chance – to come back here and tell our enemies they may take our lives, but they’ll never take our freedom!” In other words, freedom is worth more than life. That is why teenagers cannot wait to be free of school and parents, and why the elderly dread the day they cannot drive and lose their freedom of movement. We all long to be “free at last.”

Jesus also chimes in on the desire to be free in the gospel today from John 8. But Jesus teaches the Jews that there are two kinds of freedom. One freedom is exterior and is from forces outside of us, like racism, and the Russians and the British Empire. But the second kind is interior, from forces inside of us, namely, sin. So, Jesus says: “Amen, I say to you, anyone who commits sin is a slave of sin.”

In other words, it is possible to be completely free on the outside, but still remain a slave on the inside. We can fight be free of racism, and the Russians, and the British, as well as our parents and our children, but we may still find we are not free from our own sinful habits. Only when we are no longer slaves to ourselves will we finally be “free at last.”

Would you like to take a little test to see if you are fully free or still a slave? I created an acronym for the seven deadly sins, called EGG SLAP. I know it sounds silly, but that is exactly why you will remember it. The seven letters of EGG SLAP stand for each of the seven deadly sins: E is for envy, G is for gluttony, G is for greed, S is for sloth (laziness), L is for lust, A is for anger, and P is for Pride. These are the sins that enslave us on the inside, and we ignore them and think we are free when we are not. Unless Jesus, the Son, frees us from our sins, we are still captives to our vices.

Do you know who I think are some of the freest people in the world? It might surprise you to know they are members of Alcoholics Anonymous. Why are they so free? Well, for two reasons. First, they humbly recognize that they are slaves to alcohol. They admit they are alcoholics. In other words, they have discovered the greatest enemy is not Putin, or our parents, or our progeny, but the man in the mirror. We are slaves to ourselves and our bad habits or vices. The first step of AA states: “We admitted we were powerless over alcohol – that our lives had become unmanageable.” That is, they admitted they were slaves to sin.

The second reason I believe alcoholics are truly free is because they have found tree happiness. We all want to be free in order to be happy. Recovering alcoholics are some of the happiest people you will ever meet in your life. After World War II the whole world celebrated our freedom from Hitler and from Japan and Mussolini. But that happiness pales in comparison to the freedom you feel when you are free of envy, gluttony, greed, sloth, lust, anger and pride. Put differently, our vices are the real Axis Powers that truly enslave us, like alcohol, and when we are free from them we discover a joy no one can ever take from us.

Let me summarize: there are two kinds of freedom: freedom on the outside and freedom on the inside. Both are good, but those who are free on the inside are happier than those who are only free on the outside. That is what it means to be ultimately “free at last.”

Praised be Jesus Christ!