The Compelling Call of Freedom

Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” (John 8:34-36)

During her mid-thirties, people began to call her Moses. At first it might seem like a strange name for any woman, but no other name better described her life’s work. She was given the name because of her ability to go into the land of captivity and bring people out of slavery’s bondage. She was born in 1820, the fifth of nine children into a family of slaves, growing up in the farmland of Maryland. If you had seen her, your first reaction might not have been respect. She was un-educated. She lived in a culture that didn’t respect African Americans. She wasn’t a very impressive looking person, just a little over five feet tall, with dark brown weathered skin. The clothes she wore were often old and worn out. When she smiled, people could see that her top two front teeth were missing. But what she lacked in size and appearance she made up in courage and by the size of her heart.

Her given name was Araminta Ross (Minty) but later as a young adult, she took the first name of Harriet to honor her mother. At age 24 she married John Tubman, a free black man. When she talked to him about her dream of escaping to freedom in the north, he wouldn’t hear of it. He said if she tried to leave, he’d turn her in. She resolved to take her chances anyway. One morning in 1849 John Tubman woke up alone and Harriet was gone. It was her first day experiencing what she had longed for all her life - freedom. Tubman made her way to Philadelphia, PA., via the Underground Railroad, a secret network of free blacks, white abolitionists and Quakers who helped escaping slaves on the run. Though she was free herself, she vowed to return to Maryland and bring her family out. So in 1850, she made her first return trip as an Underground Railroad “Conductor” - someone who retrieved and guided out slaves with the assistance of sympathizers along the way.

On her first trip she returned with her sister and her sister’s children. This was just the first of many journeys to come. Each summer and winter Tubman worked as a maid, saving the funds she needed to make return trips to the South. Every spring and fall she risked her life by going south and returning with more people. It was extremely dangerous work that would cost her life if she was ever captured. Over and over she went back, compelled by the driving force of freedom. In all, she made 19 trips and is credited with leading nearly 300 people to freedom. She was proud of the fact that she never once lost a single person under her care. “I never ran my train off the track,” she said, “and I never lost a passenger.” Rewards for her capture in the South once totaled $40,000.00 – a virtual fortune in those days. During the Civil War, Tubman served as a nurse, scout, and sometime-spy for the Union army, mainly in South Carolina. She also took part in a military campaign that resulted in the rescue of 756 slaves and destroyed millions of dollars' worth of enemy property. Harriet Tubman was a person who clearly understood the value and potential cost of freedom. Yet she could not turn away from its compelling call.

Intuitively every person on the face of the earth knows nothing is more valuable than freedom. Freedom calls to every person of every ethnicity of every nation of every time. No one is immune to its voice. No child has ever been born desiring enslavement. If we don’t have freedom, no price is too high to acquire it. No one lives a satisfying life unless they live as a free person. Many have fought and died in order to guarantee freedom from tyranny, oppression and persecution in our country. We rightly remember and honor people who understand its matchless value. Harriet Tubman and others like her who have fought and died for freedom’s sake are worthy of our remembrance. They heard the compelling voice of freedom and answered its call.

As we celebrate the freedoms we enjoy in our country this Independence Day, let’s also remember that it was for our freedom that Christ gave His life. The freedoms which we have in Christ are a far greater blessing than the blessings we enjoy as citizens of a free nation. Through His resurrection, Jesus has provided freedom from the enslavement of sin and death. We no longer have to remain captive to the power of temptation and the resulting unavoidable consequences that follow. Through Jesus we can be set free from the bondage of sin as well as the penalty of sin. Jesus is the greatest emancipator of all time. For no one else has the power to set us free from death. Jesus alone is the one who conquered the unbeatable foe of death. Only Christ has the ability to set captives free from its grip.

This Independence Day remember to thank God for the freedoms which we enjoy in our country. Thank God for those who heard the compelling call of freedom and were willing to place their life on the line so that others might enjoy it. But remember also to thank the One who gave His life to provide an even greater freedom – freedom from the penalty of sin and death - and the reward of eternity with God.

The compelling voice of freedom still calls.

How will you answer?
PT