Whether those words were actually uttered by William Wallace we
do not know.
They are a portion of a battlefield speech delivered by Mel Gibson in the movie Braveheart in which he portrayed the legendary freedom fighter during the Wars of Scottish Independence.
Wallace was speaking of the personal, social, political and national freedoms sought by people who had lived a long time without any of them.
In a speech to his victorious troops he asked, now that you are free, what are your plans? Will you continue the fight to its conclusion, or will you slip back into the old ways and slowly become slaves again?
Two centuries after William Wallace was captured and executed by England's King Edward I in 1305, Martin Luther and others like him were used by God in their time to expose a different kind of freedom for the people, achieved for us by a different victor, Jesus Christ.
The freedom won by Christ, through his death and resurrection is our release from the guilt of sin and the curse of eternal death. It is, in fact, life itself, the freedom to follow Him. His victory is our victory, a gift to us through faith in Christ.
But Wallace-like questions ring in our ears. Now that you are free, what are your plans? Will you continue the fight to its conclusion, will you live the life of forgiveness and joy that you have been given, or will you slip back into the old ways and slowly become slaves again?
What will you do with that freedom?
In the Large Catechism, Luther observed that the answer to holding on to our Gospel freedom is daily living our Baptism, saying it “is nothing else than putting to death the old Adam, and after that the resurrection of the new man, both of which must take place in us all our lives, so that a truly Christian life is nothing else than a daily Baptism, once begun and ever to be continued.
This must be practiced without ceasing, that we ever keep purging away whatever is of the old Adam, and that that which belongs to the new man come forth.”
This is the freedom of a Christian, new life every day.
As we observe the 500th anniversary of the Reformation it is important to understand what really happened.
In the Reformation the Church didn't change, not the true Church anyway. It belongs to Christ. It never changes. It can't change.
People were changed when the unchanging truth of God's Word was revealed and blind, enslaved hearts were set free.
Every day is a fresh day with the freedom to follow Jesus. It' still all about him.
By the way, if you've never seen Gibson's famous freedom speech, here is it on Youtube.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Comments on this blog are expected to reflect the grace and forgiveness won for us through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.