FREEDOM

Last week PBS featured an amazing program. 2011 is the 25th anniversary of the musical, "Les Miserables," which is, by far, my all time favorite musical. The songs when combined with the story of a man who seeks redemption and restoration for his sin by loving others and then turning his love to God, captivates one's heart, mind and soul. This production featured all the songs and story lines from the play without full staging and props. As I sat back and watched I especially took note of the songs of the young "schoolboys," who were captured up by the ideals of the French Revolution Liberté, égalité, fraternité, French for "Liberty, equality, fraternity (brotherhood). Those same ideals later transferred to our own American Revolution and came out as ,"life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Those images of the school boys at the barricades waving the French flag and proclaiming freedom for all, drew for me an astounding parallel to the recent revolution in Egypt; which, thank the Lord, was more peaceful than both the American and French Revolutions. The other Middle Eastern revolutions do not look as peaceful.

However, revolutions they all are indeed. People seeking freedom to express their ideas and ideals about the ways of government. People seeking equality of opportunity and decrying the corruption of their leaders. I was so taken by the program that I decided to start reading Victor Hugo's original work on which the play is based. I was confronted by this line from the preface, "So long as there shall exist, by virtue of law and custom, decrees of damnation pronounced by society, artificially creating hells amid the civilization of earth, and adding the element of human fate to divine destiny; so long as the three great problems of the century-the degradation of man through pauperism, the corruption of woman through hunger, the crippling of children through lack of light---are unsolved; so long as social asphyxia is possible in any part of the world;--in other words, and with still wider significance, so long as ignorance and poverty exist on earth, books of the nature of Les Miserables cannot fail to be of use." The story of Les Miserables is as poignant and piercing today as when it was published in 1862. Yes indeed, exploitation of women, poverty, and the crippling of children from a variety of social problems such as neglect, divorce, and abuse, all exist today. Unfortunately, they exit not only in countries with dictators, but also countries, like our own democracy. What's to be done to restore freedom both here and abroad?

I suggest we pray, like never before, for those who are seeking freedom from oppression and freedom from want, here in America and in the Middle East; that once free they will have an encounter with the only one who can grant permanent freedom, now and forever: Jesus Christ.

To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. 32Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” John 8:32