Today we celebrate the freedom of our nation. We commemorate the 234th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence by the Continental Congress. We remember a past event by which future generations, including us, were declared free. It remains for us in this 234th year to live out our freedom.
There is, of course, a danger in freedom, namely, to abuse liberty by making it a license for lawlessness. If we see our freedom as a freedom to live any way that we desire, then we are living in anarchy, not freedom. There is always the danger of taking freedom for granted, and not appreciating its cost.
St. Paul addresses a similar abuse of freedom in the Letter to the Romans. He writes to us: "Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not!"
We who are under grace are freed from sin. We have died to sin because we have died with Christ in Baptism. Therefore, since we are set free by Christ from sin, shall we indulge in sin, as if we still lived in slavery to it? Our Lord has rescued us from the tyranny of the prince of this world, at great cost to Himself on the Cross. Shall we live as if the Cross was nothing? Shall we live as if satan ruled over us, rather than Christ? Heaven forbid!
So let us boast of this: that we are free in Christ, through Baptism. Let us not boast of our freedom as if we had permission to sin as much as we want. For Christ did not shed His Blood so that we could run around out of control.
Let us so consider this great cost by which God bought our freedom: That our Savior willingly gave Himself into the hands of sinful men. Our Lord delivered Himself into the jaws of death. He suffered the worst agony imaginable, which is the very torture of hell, as He hung upon the Cross. This was the agony that we deserved to suffer. Yet He took it in our place, although He was completely innocent and undeserving of it.
In the same way, brave soldiers have given their lives for our nation so that we enjoy freedom. If we treated the sacrifice of those heroic soldiers as if it were nothing, then what callous and spoiled people we would be! Instead, we should savor our freedom and appreciate what a great gift it is, bought with the blood of patriots and heroes.
How much more, then, should we appreciate our freedom in Christ! He who is more heroic than any soldier sacrificed Himself for us. He faced the worst enemies in history: death, hell, and satan. He conquered those enemies on a field of battle called Calvary. He was struck by their worst attacks. He was killed in a most shameful, awful death. That death is His victory, and our victory as well.
May we never be found treating His sacrifice as if it were nothing! May we never be found abusing this freedom that Christ has delivered to us!
Instead, let us reverently and piously live our lives with Christ and His Cross ever before our eyes. He has given us peace and freedom from enemies that are far more powerful than us. We should therefore live every day as a wonderful and undeserved gift.
But if we ever abuse our freedom, the Cross is still there. We can return to the grace of our Baptism in Holy Absolution. We often sin as our flesh tricks us and trips us. We are not strong enough to live up to the freedom we were given merely by trying hard. We need more, and Christ has supplied more. He has provided us with the Means of Grace, so that whenever we do not live as we should, we can repent and receive again His forgiveness. It is ultimately in this way - by repentance and forgiveness - that we live up to our freedom.
So we worship in order to avoid the danger of abusing our freedom. We must not forget how great a gift our freedom is, having been bought with the precious Blood of our Savior and with His innocent sufferings and death. So we are brought to this holy Law that shows us how serious our sin is. Then we are brought to His Absolution, by which He declares us free from sin.
This is our Declaration of Independence, proclaimed two thousand years by Christ, yet commemorated and reaffirmed by Christ this day. For we are declared free from the horrors of death and the devil. We are declared free from the slavery of sin. We are declared to be one with Christ, and a new creation in His holy water of Baptism.
All glory be to Him alone. Amen.
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