“Set Free…”
Video clip from “The Shawshank Redemption,” I played the equivalent of this clip sans subtitles (“Hope is a good thing, and no good thing ever dies.” “Get busy living, or get busy dying… It’s the excitement only a free man can feel… I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams. I hope”).
(May 16, 2010) Paul and Silas, the prison guard, and in some ways the servant girl in the passage from Acts are all set free from different kinds of captivity. In some cases, we know what they are freed to do, but in others, we do not. As we see in “The Shawshank Redemption,” knowing for what we have been freed is just as important– probably more important– than knowing that we have been freed at all. Red is only able to embrace his freedom because he has a reason to live, he has hope. While we proclaim that God has set us free– from fear, from sin, from pain, from sorrow, from abuse– we also need to know for what God has set us free: to love, to serve, to proclaim, to act, to get busy living for God. (Acts 16:16-34)
We Your People, Ours the Journey 