Good Shepherd Lutheran Church

The Fourth of July is a great holiday for us. What do you think of when someone mentions the 4^th? A picnic in the park? A family get together? Fireworks? The holiday has been around as long as each of us and many of us have developed traditional things that we do on the July 4^th. It is wonderful to mark such a special day in our history and to remember it every year. It makes that first 4^th of July apart of our own history almost as if we were a part of that original party that declared independence from tyranny.

With all the things that we do on the 4^th, I know that I don’t often think about the battle that followed that original Independence Day. Our country’s fathers declared independence, but it was another eight years or so before that independence was realized by the citizenry. Imagine the joy and the celebrations of those early July 4^ths when the participants could remember the hard fought battles that gained that independence from tyranny. The food maybe wasn’t as plentiful as now and the fireworks maybe didn’t exist, but those celebrations must have been grand for the joy that each shared as people that once were at the mercy of a far away government but now were independent and free. I imagine that they celebrated as often as they were able, regardless of the date or a declared holiday. Can you imagine not celebrating our Independence?

“But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.” Romans 6:17-18

Your independence from the law and freedom from the slavery to sin is something you get to celebrate daily in the joys a praying and knowing that your prayers are heard by God because He has promised to hear the prayers of His children. Freedom from slavery to sin is something you get to celebrate every Sunday as the forgiveness of sins is given to you through the means of grace.

Every Sunday you get to celebrate your independence from the tyranny under the devil who only sought your demise. In the Divine Service we have God’s Word of promise declared and sung in the liturgy; you remember the declaration of your freedom in Holy Baptism immediately in the invocation and you celebrate throughout as God’s Word bursts forth grander than any fireworks display.

But it is there on Sundays also that you get to participate in the sacrificial battle and not just remember it as something that happened long ago. Jesus continues to give you Himself in His body and blood that you may be nourished and strengthened for your daily battles with that old evil foe who lingers around trying to pull you back into slavery.

You have a day set aside every week that you get to celebrate the great victory over sin, death, and the devil; a holiday every week that reminds you of your freedom. It is a day of rest, when we greatly remember that our labor under the law is completed in Jesus and a day in which we celebrate that great declaration of justification for us in the resurrection of Jesus. I cannot imagine trading this liberty we have in Christ by failing to celebrate it at every opportunity.

I look forward to seeing you at our Sunday celebrations of freedom.

+ Pastor

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 27th, 2009 at 6:03 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.