Each summer, Calvary Episcopal Church and First Christian Church of Ashland, Kentucky join together to offer a Vacation Bible School, open to children throughout the community. This year's theme is "Adventures on Promise Island: Where Children Discover God's Lifesaving Love." We will meet on the evenings of July 16-19 to assist the children in discovering some of God's promises:
• July 16 – The Story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego – God's promise: I am with you.
• July 17 – The Story of the Raising of Lazarus – God's promise: I care about you.
• July 18 – The Story of Jesus' Resurrection – God's promise: I will save you.
• July 19 – The Story of Paul and Silas in Prison – God's promise: I will answer you.
Last night we had a meeting with the VBS teachers to review these four scriptures from an adult perspective in order to help them think about ways they will present them to the children. First Christian's Pastor Ike Nicholson and I took turns providing exegesis and commentary for the teachers.
In the course of our discussions, I was struck by how each of the four readings involves liberation. For example, King Nebuchadnezzar has the hands and feet of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego bound before they are thrown into the firey furnace. When he looks into the fire, he sees them (and a fourth figure who looks like a Son of God) walking around freely. They emerge from the firey furnace completely unsinged. Then, when Jesus calls Lazarus forth from his tomb, he instructs the bystanders to "Unbind him and let him go." Likewise, Jesus leaves tomb and the grave clothes behind when he is raised from the dead on the first Easter. During the earthquake, the chains the hold Paul and Silas are broken and the gates of their cell are opened so that they can go free. In each case, the miraculous liberation provides an opportunity for God's message to be shared – the message of a kind of freedom that can be found only in our relationship with the Living God.
It was an epiphany! God has been at work delivering people from one form of slavery or another for ever. When God reigns in our lives, we are completely liberated. Whatever binds us and holds us back is removed so that we can live with a freedom we can't find any other place.
Today is the feast day of St. Basil, Bishop of Caesarea. Basil knew and boldly expressed that unfettered liberty when the emperor Valens passed through Caesarea in 371. Valens demanded Basil's theological submission and Basil flatly refused. The imperial prefect expressed astonishment at Basil's defiance, to which Basil replied, "Perhaps you have never met a real bishop before." His freedom was derived not from a temporal ruler, but from the Sovereign of the Universe.
This collect from the office of Morning Prayer expresses it very well:
O God, the author of peace and lover of concord, to know you is eternal life and to serve you is perfect freedom: Defend us, your humble servants, in all assaults of our enemies; that we, surely trusting in your defense, may not fear the power of any adversaries; through the might of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Our children need to know that God gives them the freedom to be who God wants them to be and to follow God's leading in their lives no matter what happens. We need to impart that message to them in the words we say and the lives we live. God, liberate from whatever attachments may interfere with our ability to freely represent you to the children you have given into our care!