Set Free

Stories of human interest are frequently used by ministers (and others) to deliver a poignant message.  Last Sunday the story was about a well-respected sports icon who fell from grace when details of his salacious “double life" became known by the public. The minister used the story to look at how motivation and motive operate in human life; he said many people (and quite often parents) can get caught up in the “hero system of American culture” – which is the desire to be great at something and “not feel so ordinary”. 

The ultimate driving force is the fear of death-the minister said “death is the boss” – as it is the “power that rules all the other forces” (fear, lust, greed, etc.) and none can escape this “pending existential reality” and the “rapid passing of life”. This sermon got personal. I am sure many sitting in the pews felt the pinch of these words like I did. I can acknowledge being influenced by our hero culture and more currently by the ‘how to stay young and be youthful again’ phenomena that marketers hark in their effort to sell medications, surgical procedures, cosmetics, clothing, etc. I wish I could naturally hang on to being young rather than getting old and avoid the inevitable – like Enoch who was “taken from this life” (Hebrews 11:5 & Genesis 5:24).  

Truth is we are all riding a bullet train towards death and there is no opportunity to get off, or slow it down or suspend time such that the train never arrives at its destination.  As people say—this is not a dress rehearsal and there are no redo’s of this life.  In order to be free of the fear of death—our confidence must be in the one who has the power to destroy death! Consider these scriptures:

·       I Corinthians 15:24-26: “Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death.” 

·       Hebrews 12:14 & 15: “Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil— and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.”

·       Galatians 5:11 “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.”

Someday at the time of death as our spirit departs from the body we then will be completely free - but until then, we can claim that we have been set free from the fear of death. Let us live and rejoice in that freedom now!