Christmas and Freedom

[HKHaugan]

Christmas and Freedom

 Freedom is a multi-defined word in the secular world. It usually means you can think and do anything you want. But no one is perfect intellectually or emotionally which means there is no guarantee they will be right. If you are a disciple of Jesus, freedom is spiritual and means choosing between what God wants and what we want.

 But let’s go back a little. What was freedom like in Jesus’ time? When you read about the birth of Jesus in Luke 2, there are some distinct occurrences we need to note, three to be exact, the world’s condition, the Lord’s way to deal with it and its individual effect.

First, there is no doubt this is a politically charged situation. The chapter starts with the political condition of the world in which His birth happened. It was a Roman world atmosphere with Roman values and Roman power. This meant that everything was run with the principle of compromise to maintain power. Local governments worked deals with an obviously superior military and economic authority. The emperor issues a decree that taxes are to be collected through out the empire and the means to organize it was through a census which meant that everyone was to go to the city of their birth and be counted. Imagine the streams of people headed for their home towns and the upset it caused. It was what Rome wanted and what it wanted it got.

The genus of Roman governmental policy was its ability to allow subject nations to have local authority but always under the supervision of an emperor appointed official, i.e. Pontius Pilate. Thus, the phrase Pax Romanum (peace guaranteed if Roman authority is accepted). It was this collective agreement among the nations of the time that allowed for the building of roads, advancement of education and a general freedom for economic travel and growth. This doesn’t mean that everything was conflict free. Far from it. But no matter what local conflicts existed, personal or civic, they were always dealt with in the context of Roman authority (as in the crucifixion of Jesus). When you boil down all exterior influences, the individual heart was never free from either the body it was in or the unknown that awaited it in every next moment. Nor is it today.

But, like all secular governments, Rome’s leadership and its populace were morally corrupt and the same can be said of the whole world into which Jesus was born. If you go to the bottom of corruption it is always measured by the condition of the individual human heart. Corruption, both individually and collectively, is a freedom killer. Complicating the situation was the fact that the Roman emperor was a self-declared god and a bevy of local gods and goddesses held other nations in their grasp.

Religions were cultural inventions to satisfy an internal need for self-justification. What this is saying basically is that mankind is always in spiritual need and will find a way to satisfy it. What distinguishes Christianity from religion is revelation. Christianity is revealed from outside mankind as a heart to heart personal relationship with One God in Jesus Christ.

Religion however, is both an extension and an invention. Its goal is the satisfaction of the need for a way to handle the unseen and unknown. Religion is the wishful extension of what perfect human emotion and ideals can be like. It is invented on the assumption that there are gods, deities, forces that parallel human intellectual an emotional experience and determine perfection. Religion is founded on imperfect human assumptions.

Underlying all human authority outside of the Lord God, fear is the dominating spirit, the unseen intimidator of the human heart. There is always that lingering sense that someone is looking over your shoulder at everything you’re doing, taking notes and one day the shoe drops. That is fear at work and Rome used it as a tool for social and political control.

Second, the Lord chose this time in man’s history to enter it. When you survey the world atmosphere it was rife with evil spirits, self-serving compromise, the lust for power and personal control. Morality was dictated by whatever worked for the moment and treated superficially. Sin ruled the human heart and all the world’s institutions. For God, it was the right time to enter.

Actually, there really is no difference between then and today. The only difference between the time of Jesus and today is the size of the population and technological development. Human nature remains the same. Every person is born band new and needs to learn from the beginning. Morality is not automatic. It has to be taught, learned and practiced anew in every human being. Thus, the Lord God revealing Himself in Jesus Christ. Freedom for the heart to choose honestly and clearly was absent from the human scene. He comes as the lone free human being to offer personal freedom, a spiritual freedom within that can change the world without. The freedom to love as opposed to acting out of fear. The freedom to believe in a relational God who makes relationship the change agent for correcting a corrupt world.

 Third, what was at stake in the world was the individual human heart, mind and spirit. These were lost in the subjugation and fear of whatever momentary authority held power. Survival was either through compromise or slavery. Hopelessness was a way of life, the atmosphere of every next moment. ‘Thinking outside the box’ so to speak, was not an option. You may feel something in the heart, dream of what freedom might be like, but reality was living in knowing what the moment demanded and accepting it. Freedom was dependent on external forces. It was Christ who introduced that freedom is an internal and eternal reality. The ultimate fear that ruled everything was death and He had risen from the dead. His life was the answer to fear, intimidation and inner anxiety regardless of where it emerged. A relationship with Him guides us to walk into every next moment dependent on His presence in the Holy Spirit. We don’t adjust to circumstance. Circumstance is the opportunity to reveal Him as the living Lord. We make circumstance adjust to Him. That’s our witness wherever we are. Now we are experiencing freedom, spiritual freedom, which is the foundation for all freedom. “It was for freedom that Christ has set us free (Gal.5:1).”