June-July 2016 Newsletter
Posted on June 3, 2016 by spiritofjoy No comments
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The Problem of Freedom
Summer is the season we Americans celebrate our freedom. The season begins with our remembering, on Memorial Day, those who died in many wars in order to win and preserve our nation’s freedom. We join family and friends for picnics and shoot off fireworks on Independence Day to celebrate “liberty and justice for all.” It is truly a blessing to live in a nation that offers most of us so much freedom.
The Bible also talks about freedom, but in some different ways. The captivity and tyranny the Scriptures recognize is our captivity to the power of sin and death. Our own struggle to win independence from this power has inevitably come up short. We cannot free ourselves, no matter how hard we try.
There is One who can and does. “For freedom Christ has set us free,” we read in Paul’s letter to the Galatians in the New Testament. St. John adds in his Gospel, “So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed” (8:36).
Spirit of Joy is adding to this summer’s typical celebrations of freedom by considering what it means to be “free indeed” in a series of summer worship services from Memorial Day to Independence Day. We’re calling the series “Life on the FreeWay.” The Book of Galatians will be our travel guide. The great theme of St. Paul’s letter to the Galatians is Christian freedom.
Paul wrote to this group of new Christians to help them embrace, enjoy, and hold on tight to the freedom freely offered them—and us—through the crucified and risen Christ. The problem was that it sounded too good to be true. There were those who insisted—as we also do today—that there must be something we can add to what Jesus did to make us truly free? How could there not be something–giving or serving or praying or worshiping or at least believing—to gain the freedom won for us in the death and resurrection of Christ. Surely God helps those who ultimately must help themselves.
Not so, Paul emphatically argues. True freedom—the freedom we were created to enjoy—comes through Christ alone. You’re invited to meet us on this FreeWay this summer, to discover the joy of living free indeed! PJE