SPECIAL DAYS: Easter Sunday

April 4, 1999

LESSON(S): Jeremiah 31:1-6, Colossians 3:1-4, John 20:1-18, NRSV

SERMON TITLE: Freedom Day

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  1. How are you feeling today?
    1. This is not an unusual question
      1. We are frequently asked this question.
      2. How are you? Implies it.
    2. It is an important one for today.
    3. What do feelings have to do with the day.
      1. I do not know how the Hebrews felt as they stood on the east side of the Sea of Reeds and watch Pharaoh's army disappear under the flood.
      2. I do not know what the black slaves in America felt when information came that they were free.
        1. Slaves freed by the Emancipation Proclamation
        2. September 22, 1862
      3. I do not know how the prisoners felt in Auschwitz when they were freed by the allied armies.
        1. Prisoners freed from the death and destruction of Auschwitz in 1945
      4. I do not know how people felt with the passage of the Civil Rights Act which more fully integrated our society.
    4. I do know with a deep intensity of feeling what I am feeling today.
  2. Today is Freedom Day!
    1. God is not the god of enslavement, but the god who sets people free.
      1. We have been freed from the shackles of sin
      2. We have been freed from the burden of guilt.
      3. We have been freed from the oppression of ignorance
      4. We have been freed from the grip of outside control
      5. We have been freed from the repression of movement
      6. We have been freed from the restrictions of action.
      7. We have been freed from the hesitancy of doubt and confusion

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  3. This is freedom day.
    1. We are urged not use your freedom for self-indulgence
      1. (Galatians 5:13 NRSV) For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another.
    2. Freedom creates obligations.
      1. Saving Private Ryan exemplifies the need to fulfill the obligation created by the necessity of war.
        1. Nothing could have prepared the soldiers at Omaha Beach for the battle they are about to wage.
          1. Filled with hope and resolve, none of them knows if they will survive the small strip of beach ahead of them.
          2. As his eyes scan the Normandy coast, Captain John Miller (TOM HANKS) believes that getting himself and his men past the gauntlet is the greatest challenge he has faced in the war.
          3. But his most difficult task still lies ahead.
        2. Miller is ordered to take his squad behind enemy lines on a dangerous mission to find and retrieve one man:
          1. Private James Ryan (MATT DAMON). The youngest of four brothers.
          2. Ryan is the last survivor, the other three having all been killed in action within days of one another.
        3. As the squad pushes deeper into enemy territory, Captain Miller's men find themselves questioning their orders.
          1. Why is one man worth risking eight.
          2. Why is the life of this private worth more than their own?

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        4. They have an obligation to fulfill the honorable challenge that they have received.
      2. There is an old Native American teaching that you owe your life to the one who saved your life.
        1. God's freedom invites the voluntary assumption of the obligations to love.
    3. We are also urged to use our freedom to grow and explore.
      1. Realize full human potential
      2. Realize full human kinship
      3. Realize the possibilities of attaining to the fullness of the stature of Christ.
        1. (Ephesians 4:11-13 NRSV) The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, [12] to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, [13] until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ.
  4. How are you feeling today.
    1. Feel like jumping for joy.
    2. Feel like rejoicing.
  5. Freedom Day contains not only freedom but danger as well.
    1. Some slaves did not want to be free.
    2. They did not know what to do with their freedom.
    3. There was no one to role-model what it meant and how it could be lived out.
      1. At Auschwitz some of the prisoners waled out of the gates took one look at freedom and went back inside.
      2. The had been enslaved so long they did not know what it meant to be free.
      3. They had to learn again to be free
    4. We have to learn again, and again, over, and over again what it means to be free.
  6. This is freedom day
    1. (John 8:34-36 NRSV) Jesus answered them, "Very truly, I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not have a permanent place in the household; the son has a place there forever. So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.
    2. Truly, in Christ we are free!

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