Each and every July we look to parades, pool parties, cookouts and fireworks to celebrate the independence of our nation. Bathed in red, white and blue, we enjoy the festivities that ring throughout the United States and take pride in our inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. In the midst of the fun, frivolity and fireworks, I think about the cost of freedom.
Indeed, how expensive it is. So many soldiers that we remember each week in our prayer time have given of their lives in service to their country so that we might be free to live and to worship as we so desire. I am indebted to these generous men and women of past, present, and even future generations.
I am thrilled to live in a nation that offers such freedom, the freedom to be who I am called to be, and do what I am called to do. I appreciate the value of this freedom, but I am also pensive of an even greater freedom, freedom from sin and death because of Jesus Christ and his sacrifice on the cross. Because of God’s incredible gift, I am no longer enslaved by darkness, sin and death. Because of God’s incredible gift, I am free to live, this life and the life to come.
Even though we do not deserve such freedom (for the wages of sin is death), God has been in the business of setting us free since we got booted out of the Garden of Eden. God is both simultaneously just and merciful. God loves you, me, and the world so much that God gave of His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him, shall not perish but shall have everlasting life (John 3:16).
We see this theme of freedom woven into every book in our Bible, both Old and New Testaments, and yet, I wonder if we recognize how costly this freedom is. My hope for you this day and always is that you live in gratitude for the beautiful gift of life that God has given to you and that you treasure the true freedom you have in Jesus the Christ. Amen.
Rev. Jennifer Eastman Hinkle is transitional pastor at the First Presbyterian Church in Delaware.
