TEN SIGNS OF FREEDOM

Dr. Richard J. Henderson March 19, 2006

click for printable version

Psalm 19 (Responsive reading)
Exodus 20:1-17

Introduction

The Ten Commandments are interesting because they are rules that almost everybody believes in, but almost nobody knows. People are willing to fight adamantly for the Ten Commandments, but very few of those same people can name all ten them!

The Ten Commandments have been in the news a lot recently. I suppose the most visible actions have been those of Judge Ray Moore, who was chief justice of the Alabama. Supreme Court until he was removed. You remember he created a huge stone monument of the Ten Commandments and had it in his court - until it was ordered removed.

Since its and his removal, Judge Moore has been on the speaking circuit. When he goes to speak, he takes his mammoth monument with him. When he's not on the road, the monument is stored at Clark's memorials in Alabama. When he leaves, they bring in a large flatbed truck and park it under a five-ton crane. The monument is so heavy that even this huge crane sags under its weight as it lifts the tablet off the ground and onto the truck. Did you know Judge Moore's Ten Commandments monument weighs 5,280 pounds? Yes, more than two and one half tons, or, as Tom Long has noted, more than 500 pounds per commandment!

I

Lots of us think of the Ten Commandments as 5000 pounds of burden. Doesn't it sometimes feel like two and a half tons of "shoulds, oughts, and musts?" "Don't do this! Don't go there. Don't even think about that!" These can feel like heavy weights.

So, how does the Old Testament's introduction to the Ten Commandments go? Is it, "Here are the top ten things you must never do?" No. "Ten things to make your life miserable?" No. "Don't try these ten or you'll burn!?" No. It goes like this: "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery..."

II

The Ten Commandments aren't given to us as ten ways to make us feel guilty, but as ways to live in God's freedom. In other words, God loved us enough to make us free - to bring us out of miserable servitude to a land of freedom, a land flowing with milk and honey. God said, "I am the God of freedom, therefore you are free from useless idols, free to rest, free from the lifeless need to covet, free from the hatred of murder, free from the need to steal, free from the nasty entanglements of adultery, free to tell the truth. I care about you, and I set you free - so that you no longer need these things."

The commandments are not heavy burdens to lug around on our backs, but signs that we are free, that we no longer need these useless and self-destructive acts. The commandments aren't two and a half tons of weight to haul around, but signs that we are free. Do you know what a mess you've gotten into if you've murdered? Do you know what a mess you've made of life if you've committed adultery? Or given false testimony? Or stolen? Do you know how you've hurt yourself when you've chased after the gods of success or wealth or popularity?

These are not commandments that weigh us down; they make us free! To live by these rules is to be free of the awful entanglements we can get ourselves into. These commandments are not to be cringed at, but celebrated.

III

In the Ten Commandments we see the love of God, and we remember how God frees us. Since the time of the Exodus, God has been helping us break free from the shackles that enslave us.

In Jesus Christ, God offered the ultimate sacrifice so that we can live free from guilt and free from the finality of death. To look at the Ten Commandments is really to remember the ways in which God works to make us free.

Conclusion

In his latest book, Robert Wuthnow writes about how we pass on our values through the stories we tell - and the stories we live. He says, "Sometimes these stories become so implanted in our minds that they act back upon us, directly and powerfully."

He tells of a man named Jack Casey who is a volunteer fireman and an ambulance attendant. When Jack was a child he had to have some teeth taken out under anesthesia. He was terrified. The nurse standing beside him saw his fear and took his hand. She said, "Don't worry; I'll be right here beside you, no matter what happens." When he came out of surgery she had kept her word and she was right there.

He remembered this care. Almost twenty years later his ambulance was called to the scene of an accident. A pickup truck was upside down and the driver was pinned in the wreckage. Jack crawled inside the cab to try to get the driver out. Gasoline dripped down on both of them and there was a serious danger of fire because of the power tools being used to try to cut out the driver. Through this whole time the driver cried that he was terrified of dying. Jack kept saying to him - as the nurse had said to him so many years before - "Don't worry, I'm right here with you. I'm not going anywhere."

They were able to cut away the metal so that the driver got free. When he was freed the driver surprised Jack by yelling at him, "You were an idiot! That thing could have exploded and we both would have been burned up!" Jack looked into his eyes and said, "There was no way I was going to leave you there alone."

Isn't that what the Ten Commandments are about? We remember how we were cared for. We see how we are set free, and how our lives are shaped by the values we have seen and felt.

What we have been given, we pass on to those around us.

Amen.

©Richard J. Henderson 2006