JOHN 8:21-32
21Again he said to them, “I am going away, and you
will search for me, but you will die in your sin. Where I am going, you cannot
come.” 22Then the Jews said, “Is he going to kill himself? Is that what he
means by saying, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come’?” 23He said to them, “You
are from below, I am from above; you are of this world, I am not of this world.
24I told you that you would die in your sins, for you will die in your sins
unless you believe that I am he.” 25They said to him, “Who are you?” Jesus said
to them, “Why do I speak to you at all? 26I have much to say about you and much
to condemn; but the one who sent me is true, and I declare to the world what I
have heard from him.” 27They did not understand that he was speaking to them
about the Father. 28So Jesus said, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man,
then you will realize that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own, but I
speak these things as the Father instructed me. 29And the one who sent me is
with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what is pleasing to him.”
30As he was saying these things, many believed in him.
31Then Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in
him, “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; 32and you will
know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”
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“… and the truth will make you free.”
I’m not going to lie, this is a Scripture lesson I
would have trouble teaching to children, primarily because of that last
line.
It’s a phrase that has pretty well permeated
popular culture. How often do we hear “the truth will set you
free”? It’s a very well-known phrase. When I just typed it into
Google, I only had to get to “the truth w” before it autocompleted to “the
truth will set you free.”
And while as a general rule honesty is a better
policy than lying, and at times telling the truth can certainly be a freeing
act. But also, the truth has a tendency to bind us up as well.
There are a lot of hard truths out there that do a better job of caging us in
than setting us free.
This is especially true for kids. Sure, you
can tell the truth about who broke your grandmother’s lamp and it will set you
free from your guilt, but it’ll also probably mean that you get punished.
And who feels terribly free when they’ve been grounded?
But of course, this general kind of freedom is not
what the gospel writer originally intended. Though this verse has been
perverted into a slogan for telling the truth, that is not its original
meaning.
What this verse is actually talking about is the
truth we find in Jesus: in knowing that he is God’s divine son, sent to
live among us and die for our sins. It is that truth that makes us free
from the bondage of sin, free to live a life of obedience and gratitude to God.
That message is still going to be a little
difficult to teach to children, but it’s definitely a lot more meaningful and
important than the popular cultural interpretations of “the truth will make you
free.”
This Lenten season, how do you feel your faith in
God and Jesus setting you free from your transgressions?
The truth sets you free imperative reminds me of the German slogan "Arbeit macht frei" translated as Work (or labor) makes (you) free, which was posted over the entrances to a number of concentration camps in Nazi Germany. To claim that the truth always makes you free is dishonest and misleading. When external circumstances, and with consequences that are beyond our control, then it might, as is pointed out in the reflection above, be a forced to be not entirely honest. Self preservation model is hard to transcend. Our surrender to the healing, love and often overwhelmingly awesome comfort that is granted through Jesus, and God's constant presence in our daily lives, is necessary, our search for honest purpose in our lives is available through the serenity given through personal integrity that comes from honest soul searching, and self discovery.
ReplyDeleteTo suffice a short summary of how i feel my faith In God and trust in Jesus setting me free from my nearly daily mistakes, and rescue me from my long history of transgressions is through the bright forgiveness of self acceptance and ever increasing awareness I would be entirely unable to forgive myself if it wasn't for the bright and holy forgiveness granted by Gods dedicated love for me.
I can feel their love right here and now in part because I am honest with myself, not necessarily that i declare all of my truths to the world all the time. Serenity plays a big part too, knowing when telling "my truth" won't set me free, when it will, and how to tell the difference.
Drew:
ReplyDeleteI think God calls us to be honest with ourselves--and invites us to be our whole selves. Sometimes I can only look fully at who I'm to be in the world through the lens of God's love for me...otherwise it would be easy to only see my faults. Our faults, I think, are only part of the truth.
I wonder what we do with the purpose we find for our lives and how we use our self-awareness (of our gifts and our faults) in the world.
peace,
abby