As Americans, we celebrate freedom, but are we really free? In the land of the free and the home of the brave, do we really enjoy unrestricted freedom, liberty and independence? While we celebrate our national independence and exercise certain individual liberties, it doesn't take much for us to realize that we are not really free.
I wants to be free! That was the chant of slaves who worked in the fields of America producing its crops and maintaining its Southern agricultural economy. We spoke of our desire to be free, but many had no notion what freedom actually meant. For most freedom meant that ability to avoid the most responsibility possible.
For a time I wants to be free meant the end of slavery. That's when men like Frederick Douglass traveled the nation questioning whether or not our celebration of independence was real. In 1852 Douglass asked this pointed question, What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade, and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy- a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages.
American Independence from Britain certainly cut the political umbilical cord connecting this continent from Europe, but it did not bring true freedom and it certainly did not come free.
Even today, we are not completely free but what we have has been bought with a price.
Our national record is sprinkled with limitations, restrictions and prohibitions that limit us, but even the freedoms that remain are bought with a price.
The very first person to pay the price for American freedom, was a Black man, Crispus Attucks, who was killed protesting the British.
What of the others? Historians tell us that five signers of the Declaration of Independence were captured by the British as traitors, and tortured before they died. Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned. Two lost their sons serving in the Revolutionary Army; another had two sons captured. Nine of the 56 fought and died from wounds or hardships of the Revolutionary War.
They signed and pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor, knowing full well that the penalty would be death if they were captured.
Whatever liberties we share as Americans, they were bought with a price. Thousands gave their lives, both Black and White that we have a chance to exercise certain options, considered inalienable from the human spirit: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
We are free, but there are limitations, restrictions and prohibitions related to our freedom. This is the spirit of what Paul talked about when he wrote to the Galatians. In Galatians 5:1 he wrote Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.
Spiritually, Jesus came to set us free from bondage, but just like American Independence it is not complete freedom it has restrictions. Also like American Independence, it did not come without a price.
The price of our spiritual independence was paid by Christ on Calvary.
Salvation is available without a charge, but spiritual freedom was not free, it was bought with a price, which was paid by Jesus Christ, himself.
As Christians, we celebrate whatever level of freedom we enjoy, with the full knowledge that no freedoms come without responsibility. Our spiritual freedom from bondage was purchased by Christ and as such we owe him our allegiance.
Today, enjoy the freedom you have found in Christ, but remember it was bought with a price.