I Am Free

If I don't have to seek meaning from things like winning, making more money, getting more things, hearing more praise from others, in other words things I have no direct control over; if I find a bedrock sense of meaning and order in my life from an eternal, unchanging source, namely, God, then I am free.  I am freed up to pursue other things as secondary goals, secondary aims in life.  I can try to be number one on the pop charts, break the 100-meter world record, write my first novel, or even pay off the mortgage, knowing that even if I fail at these pursuits, I am not a failure. 

I am accepted, loved, and embraced by my Father.  The burden of my sins has been taken away from me by Christ's sacrifice.  With this crushing presence removed from my shoulders, I am free to bring glory to God in any and every situation, knowing that my failure in that moment does not mean I have lost my true, and core, identity.  I belong to God.  He guides me.  He strengthens and loves me.  And He will never fail, never hiccup in His strength, never abandon me.

That assurance, the promise and reality of salvation through Christ's blood, is what we celebrate here, at this table.  We mourn the undoing, the loss, the hole that was punched in the universe when He died.  But the mourning is turned into dancing.  We mourn for a moment, and celebrate for eternity.  Christ's victory over sin, over dying, made everything else possible.  He who created and made possible all things in the beginning, in the perfect beginning, on the cross undid our foolishness and selfishness, making all things possible yet again.