Village Shepherd

I shall never forget that moment on February 11, 1990 when Nelson Mandela was freed after nearly 30 years in captivity in South Africa. It was one of those magic moments shared, thanks to television, with the whole world.

Nelson Mandela emerged straight and upright and somehow whole, and with great dignity and courtesy addressed the world. Perhaps what impressed me most was his apparent total forgiveness of his captors and his wish not to concentrate on the evil done to him, but on the hope that his release heralded for the future for all people, and especially for South Africa.

After such a long time in prison many people would have no idea how to cope in a world changed almost beyond recognition. Some might go wild with the freedom, and spend all their time in frenzied living, trying to make up for lost time. Others might withdraw into themselves, incapable of facing the world again, and actually now more at home and happier in the darkness than in the light.

But Nelson Mandela at the age of 77, radiated Christian love and forbearance and forgiveness. Perhaps during those 30 years of imprisonment and despite them, somehow or other he'd learned the true meaning of freedom.

Real freedom is perhaps much less a physical thing than a state of mind. When Jesus died on the cross, physically he was totally imprisoned, totally in the power of other people, and unscrupulous and vicious people at that. But he was also more completely free than at any other point in his life. On the cross he experienced total freedom, because he had not allowed any of those people to get to him. He chose to die rather than to capitulate to their demands, and in so doing, he freed himself from them. He didn't do what they expected him and wanted him to do, he chose his own path and he chose to do what he knew was right.

Nelson Mandela went to prison for 30 years rather than capitulate to other people's demands, and that gave him his freedom. If you're able to continue on your own path, veering neither to left nor right despite the worst people can do to you, then you're free indeed, because you are your own person.

And that's the sort of freedom Jesus still offers to us; freedom to be whatever we want to be, freedom from manipulation by other people, and freedom to do whatever we want to do. People who have that sort of freedom also have immense inner power, because they're not affected by fear of the consequences. They may be very weak physically, just as Jesus was as he hung on the cross, but they are inwardly very strong. And that inner strength, bought at such a cost, brings with it an amazing resurrection.

Sin is creeping, insidious. It's very subtle, so that we're often mired in it before we realise. Years ago, I remember seeing "The Day of the Triffids", one of the earlier science fiction films. The Triffids are plants which grow huge and wrap everything around with their tentacles so that they gradually squeeze the life and the breath out of everything with which they come into contact. And that's a good image of sin. It wraps its tentacles around us and squeezes the life out of us, and we hardly notice it happening until it's too late.

Sin causes us to act in ways which are destructive, especially destructive of relationships. And we often justify what we're doing or thinking or saying by heaping blame onto the other person and being unable or unwilling to see that we might have any part in any problem.

But we can be free from all that. We can be free from the unpleasantness and the fear and the depression and the anger and the moodiness which sin causes. We can be free to live a full and glorious life just as God set out for us, because Jesus "took on" sin and defeated it. He slashed away those creeping tendrils and allowed us to breathe again, to breathe freely in him.

People who are free in every way, especially from those sticky bonds which sin and fear wrap around us, can truly become priests for Jesus. Christians are a kingdom of priests, all equal, all working and serving in their own way, all different from each other, some ordained and some lay, but a kingdom of priests nonetheless.

And that's the way it will be, says the writer of Revelation. God present forever, from the beginning of life to the end, symbolised by alpha to omega.

When that happens, everyone will see clearly, will suddenly understand what life is about, even those who continue to crucify Jesus.

Just as Thomas doubted that a man could possibly be alive again after dying, so many people will doubt that Jesus has the power to free us from those bonds which wrap us, bonds of sin and convention and fear of failure and pride and so on. But Thomas eventually discovered that all the claims about Jesus were true, because he met with the risen Christ for himself.

And the same is true today. Those who meet with the risen Christ for themselves will begin to taste freedom - freedom from misery, freedom from sin, freedom to be themselves, whatever and whoever that might be. That's the freedom God gave us when he gave us free will, and that's the glorious freedom Jesus has won back for us by his victory on the cross. And it's ours for the taking. We simply have to open our arms and reach out.