Loosening the Bonds

The psalmist tells us that our bonds have been loosed. Peter says that we were ransomed from the futile ways of our ancestors. Salvation is a given, they seem to be arguing. It is a gift and was done by God’s action, not ours. Specifically, Peter says, through the precious blood of Christ. This means that our emphasis is not on how to get saved, at least this week, but rather, for what are we saved. What will we do with this freedom that has been given to us?

Granted, we could also spend some time talking about what we are saved from. What is this futility that Peter speaks of, for example? What are the snares of death that the psalmist mentions in Psalm 116? And is the salvation of Psalm 116 the same as the salvation of I Peter 1? This would make a fascinating Bible study and is certainly worth considering for conversation and for deeper understanding. But is it the proclamation we want to make on this third Sunday of Easter? Is it the good news that needs to be given and heard on this day?

Maybe it is; in your context, there may be many who are seeking such information. The texts, however, focus not on the fact of being saved but on the result. What happens because our bonds have been loosed? What are we ransomed to do? Or perhaps better, not the result, but the response. That’s what we need to consider together. What is our response to being set free?

At the risk of being cliché, three responses seem to be called for in our texts for this week. Still haven’t found the poem, though (😊). Let’s start with remember. A part of our response to being set free is to remember what life was like before we experienced this freedom. The psalmist recites the journey, the state that caused the poet to call out the name of the Lord. This might seem relatively minor, and our inclination is often to say, “Let’s move on, look ahead, don’t spend time looking back. The whole looking back thing is what caused so much trouble for the Exodus journey. If they had learned to let the past be the past, then they could have got on with following God, and maybe it wouldn’t have taken them forty years!”

A good argument, to be sure—except what was happening in the wilderness wandering was not remembering but waxing nostalgic. They weren’t remembering what it was really like when they were slaves in Egypt; they were creating a false reality that sounded so much better than it really was. We often have that trouble with history; we want to view it through rose-colored glasses and think that it was some sort of golden age for everyone, when, in fact. it wasn’t.

The call to remember as a response to our salvation is a call to be honest about where we’ve been and where we’ve come from. It is also an opportunity to ask forgiveness, not just from the God who has showered us with grace, but from the people we have hurt, or neglected, or overlooked. It is an opportunity for us to embrace some humility and some empathy for those who don’t know yet what we know about being set free. We remember in order to keep our feet on the ground, to keep an honest perspective about who we are and how we are not really the authors of the good story our life is turning into. We remember so that we can embrace the other two responses to our freedom.

The response of the psalmist is perhaps the clearest. Because we remember that the Lord heard our cry and God loosed our bonds, we will praise. Praise is the second thing that we will do in response to our salvation. The end of Psalm 116 is an act of worship mingled with a way of living one’s life in all its power and grace and joy. There is exuberance in these verses that cannot be denied. It’s important to not skip over that joy. There is praise and there is praise. Too often, we give God praise because it is in the script (or the bulletin or projected on the screen) for us to do so. The psalmist goes to great lengths to offer this praise as a response to what has been done in the life of the one who sings the praise.

Another noteworthy element of praise is that it is both private and public. We too often individualize our response to God. We call it a private matter, just between me and God. Well, the scriptural witness is that faith and our response to God are never intended to be a private matter. In fact, the sign that our faith and devotion to God is real and true and deep in our lives is that we are willing and able and unrelentless in sharing our joy or offering our praise in the whole community of faith. There is a corporate component to our worship that is an essential element to the expression of faith. “Not neglecting to meet together,” says the writer of Hebrews (10:25) in calling us to be the body that we are called to be.