Freedom

Hooray!  The snow and ice have gone.  No more time wasted scraping windscreens, clearing paths and coping with winter; we can look forward to spring.  During the quiet period that always follows Christmas in the courier industry, I’ve been watching a number of documentaries about World War II, and my mind has drifted towards the return of demobbed servicemen to their families.  Meanwhile the news programmes have told of the Algerian hostage crisis, the war in Mali and the general problems posed by militant Islamists.

These three thoughts may seem unconnected, but ... we are free now from the extra disciplines forced on us by winter; the returning servicemen were free from the military disciplines needed to defeat the enemy; and, after overturning the Taliban regime, the countries making up the coalition in Afghanistan were similarly free either to bring their forces home or to build on that freedom (in the words of the ISAF Mission statement, “in order to provide a secure environment for sustainable stability that is observable to the population.”)

In each case, this freedom is not only freedom from something; it is also freedom to return to normality, which is sometimes easier said than done.  After six years of war, for example, the necessary re-adjustment to married life was sometimes more than man and wife could stand; after a few months of trying, many formerly happy marriages foundered and became a late casualty of the war. 

Let’s relate these examples to our thoughts in Lent.  The purpose of Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross was to free mankind from the consequences of our sinfulness.  That freedom is available to everyone, and all we have to do is repent of our sins and accept God’s forgiveness, because the penalty has already been paid by Jesus.  But the same question arises here about the resulting freedom.  Does it just offer a return to what went before?  Surely, Jesus’ wonderful gift has to be more than simply ‘paying off the bill we’ve incurred up to now.’  How far-reaching is the freedom it brings? 

We need to take heed of the warning to be found in the Gospel at Luke 11:24-26.  In its simplest application, we might relate that forgiveness to a particular aspect of our behaviour and allow the Holy Spirit to eliminate that habit from our lives.  This probably creates more time for us: how do we use that time – to do good, or to acquire other bad habits? 

You might like to think about this passage as part of your own spiritual spring-clean this Lent.