The Jewish people have a big event, a central story, that encapsulates what the Jewish (and Judeo-Christian) faith is about:
Crossing a sea: Crossing from slavery to LIBERATION
“Let my people go!”
This is the cry of (the Jewish) God, the Living God, through Moses; and it’s really the cry of freedom in every human heart.
So what do we want to be liberated from?
Oppression.
Yes, of course.
…and oppression takes many forms.
But, we tend to also want liberation from authority…and that’s not what God has in mind. That misses the mark and produces precarious results.
In fact, the best liberation we can have is one that happens internally.
Our heart is liberated from sin and death and then we receive peace and life.
This is no marginal quality of our faith tradition. Liberation is found not in fleeing something (or someone) but in returning.
A homecoming. A reception by the Father for the children he loves.
Liberation must always be about fleeing to someone (the One).
…and that someone isn’t just another warden in a different prison, but One who wants our peace to be fully realized.
It’s about community identity and belonging.
Each brings freedom and saves us from ourselves.
Sometimes we suppose liberation means freedom to act autonomously and unilaterally for our own interests.
True liberation is the antithesis of that.
When I consider, in this very moment, what I hope to be liberated from in my own life, it seems to concern being free from believing lies. Lies about myself, others, and any sorts of ignoble things that imprison my future in a jailhouse of smallness.
A confined place that is missing the grandeur of what it means to be a sentient being enjoying the majesty of creation that a benevolent incomprehendable Being has fashioned.