Most persons will not give thought to one of the greatest truths of Easter that we can ever comprehend and enjoy – freedom. Freedom is fully represented in the Easter story. Those who crucified Jesus were used in the plan whereby God carried through on his offer of redemption. The death of Jesus was his decision, freely made, as was his resurrection, and anything else that he did. He made all the choices in the context of God’s will. There were alternatives, but they were not, for him, acceptable. Jesus was totally free, or, as we might say, as free as anyone can be. He was not free to deny himself. He was not free to violate his character. There are some things that God cannot do. He cannot lie. We can be sure of him because we know he cannot go back on his word. He cannot violate his own holiness. This is an important perception related to freedom.
God determined to make mankind with the freedom for choosing options. That is a unique characteristic of humanity over other creatures – freedom for choices. We know too little about that meaning. When a woman is violated, part of the experience is that the victim is denied the divine gift of choice. She is not permitted to say, I loathe this violation of my person, and reject it. She is not even invited to say, I welcome this experience and accept it. She is treated as a thing, without regard for her person, one freed of God to choose. To rob a person violates his/her nature to choose. That is to say, it violates the right to keep or give ourselves. This violator becomes irreverent, cursing the right of freedom to choose. Someone else reserves, on his/her own, the choice for me, so violates my personal meaning. That person holds me up to my own contempt.
Violation of this inalienable right is at base: for the immorality of slavery; for denial of rights to women; for the abuse of children; for the arrogant acts of some heads of state; for innumerable crimes. The victims are given no choice. God goes so far as to give human beings the right of choice for accepting or rejecting him. He actually demands choice making, and we exercise it for good or ill consequences. It was most fully exemplified in the free choice of Jesus to give up his life to preserve the choices of our freedom related even to immortality. There is a gimmick – we are not free not to choose. We must make our choices, or resigning duty leave it to others for us.
Freedom only works for ultimate good in a proper context. God is free and at liberty, even if there are some things he cannot do because of his nature. He cannot sin, because of his nature. We can and do, because of our human nature. We are free to choose conduct and thought context. So it is that we are free to choose between God and whatever else is available. Either choice ought to be in a free context. I may choose the Lord in the context of his holiness and love, or I may choose to follow my own way that has limitations shrouded in uncertainties, and ending in death. Death ends my choice making. I have freely chosen God’s life context, as the most free. Scripture informs us to choose life. It was Moses’ last instruction. That life is fully represented in the resurrection of Jesus, conquering death. His resurrection related to my life account is my free choice – to share in his resurrection to life eternal. That is both easy and difficult. The least anyone does is to give attention to the issue. Immortality hangs on the outcome. Man shouts for freedom. The nation I live in makes it a primary goal for society, while making necessary laws to limit anarchy, which is freedom, run amuck. We would do better to understand freedom as the right and duty to make helpful choices, all of which have some limits. Without the limits we would not really know what freedom is, or that God supports it at its best. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020