Free to Offend, Or Offend to Free?

“Is it because of my handwriting?” he asked.

“No,” I answered.  “It’s because…well…what you wrote…it’s offensive”.

The truth.  It’s offensive sometimes. 

We euphemize and bush-beat and sugar-coat.  But at the end of the day, the truth is often downright detestable to a world that loves lies.

So you're given an assignment to write what you'd do as President of the U.S..  Every kid gets to write whatever they want.  And every kid’s finished work gets hung up in the hall for everyone to see.

That is, of course, unless you’ve written something that doesn’t feel so warm and fuzzy as the presidential daydreams of a 7-year-old might be expected to feel.  If you’ve implied that there is right and wrong…that there is horrifying injustice and violation of a divine moral law being committed at this very second; and if you’ve said it must stop…

Yours has to go home with your mom.

 In case you can’t quite make it out, his text reads, “I would make good choices, like it is illegal for moms to kill babies in their stomachs or even when they are out.”

So we had to have this discussion…about this world in which we live.  About how strange it is that if he’d simply written about “people” instead of unborn children, he’d have his assignment displayed with all the others.  About how when a world that’s being lulled into drowsy slavery by sweet-sounding lies gets angry when jarred by the alarm of truth…the clear call to freedom.

But I’m not a slave…..

 “So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, ‘If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.’  They answered Him, “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never yet been enslaved to anyone; how is it that You say, ‘You will become free’?  Jesus answered them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin.  The slave does not remain in the house forever.  So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.” – John 8:31-36

There it is…the offer of freedom.  Extended to those who sold themselves into slavery to a heartless taskmaster bent on their destruction.

And they’d rather believe He had a demon than admit to their true state.

We walk through this life, you and I, and we try to make sense of it.  There is death, there is oppression, there is abuse, there is tragedy.

Corruption.

Everything beautiful has been turned on its head and used for some purpose far lower than that for which it was originally intended.

We grow up amidst it and realize that our very hearts themselves are corrupt.  We are powerless to do or even know the right thing to do.  We try; we fail.  We try harder; we fail. We try our hardest.  We fail.  There’s just no way.  It’s too hard.

We lose hope.  We must either escape this bondage or change our perspective on it.

Escape seems impossible.  The mere suggestion of it starts to sound offensive.  Ridiculous.

We decide we like our prison.  We stop calling it prison.  We tell ourselves that this life is exactly what we want, and settle for life in a cage.

But then, this man comes along claiming to have been anointed to preach to the poor, to free the captives, give sight to the blind, free the oppressed, and proclaim God’s favor.  It rattles us.

IF there is a God, then I’ve really, really disappointed Him.  He’s probably so angry at me….

Just leave me alone.  I feel safe here in my cage.

IF there is a God, there is a moral standard which I can’t attain.  I’m held accountable for the choices I’ve made….

Oh my gosh.  Get this stuff away from me.  I can’t take it.  I can’t.  I’ve decided there’s no right or wrong.  It’s the only way I can live with myself.  Don’t you dare tell me differently.

IF there is a God, I’ve broken His heart.  Oh…..

But listen.  Can we listen?  Just for a minute.  Listen to Him…please.

“As He passed by, He saw a man blind from birth.  And His disciples asked Him, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?  Jesus answered, ‘It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents; but it was so that the works of God might be displayed in him.  We must work the works of Him who sent Me as long as it is day; night is coming when no one can work.  While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.’”- John 9:1-6

Jesus heals the blind man.  He works the works of “Him who sent Him”.  He is the light of the world…bringing hope to those in chains.  And the blind man…had he been unwilling to admit to his blindness, would he have been set free from it?

We are so busy tending to our management of caged life that we can’t imagine what is meant by “freedom”.  We don’t want to admit we are caged any more than the Jews in John 8 wanted to admit they were.

But it is the truth.  And our freedom depends on our willingness to grasp it as reality.

Who’s going to be offended by what Andy wrote?

Anyone who doesn’t know what great Love extends His hand and offers freedom from the endless work of justification for falling short.

“for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus…”- Romans 3:23

Should I tell Andy that, for the sake of not offending others, he should set about encouraging others to enjoy their lives in their cages?  Leave the blind men alone…they don’t know what “seeing” is anyway? Should I tell him to keep the truth…the key to their freedom…to himself?

“…whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith.  This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed; for the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.” – Romans 3:24-26

No.  We are here to rattle cages.  We are here to display as publicly as Jesus was displayed publicly that there IS a God in heaven, He IS completely righteous, and yet, through the blood of His Son…

He’s passed over your sin.  All of it.

He is not only perfectly just, but also justifies you…

So that you are free from the tyranny of sin that envelops you.  Free….

Is Andy’s hope that a mom walking the halls of his school will feel a sudden pang of guilt upon reading his piece?  That some indignant mind will see the writing of a child and have a complete change of heart?

No.

His hope is to see this world governed by the One who came back for His children…the ones who sold themselves into slavery.

It is that we would run to the Redeemer who sought us out and bought us back, to free us from the power of darkness.

It is that the works of God might be displayed…in the mom who lives with regret, the dad buried under guilt, the masses of living dead….

That they might LIVE!

You who are free…go out and rattle some cages today.  Tell them there’s living hope stronger than their chains.

“Therefore, we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life" - Romans 6:4