Give me liberty or give me death!
Patrick Henry’s declaration – heralded in his impassioned speech of March 23rd, 1775 – fanned sufficient flame among a gathering of oppressed colonists to help launch a war for independence. Since the days of Henry’s speech, cries for the preservation of America’s freedoms have repeatedly rung out strong. From sea to shining sea.
Long centuries before Patrick Henry of the Virginia House, and long before the Continent of North America became a “thing”, the voice of an advocate for another kind of freedom was catching the attention of many.
The villages and towns where Jesus preached in the small patch of territory of the Middle East were held in the grip of Rome’s mighty empire. While the rabi’s message of emancipation did not specifically place Ceasar in its crosshairs (as Patrick Henry’s message did for Britain’s King George III) Jesus did – like Henry – employ straightforward language to do with sacrificial dying.
Jesus indeed did go to the grave (before rising from it). Yet the triumph that he secured by the freedom-revolution he led – and still leads – keeps the act of dying as a centerpiece within the communities of all who would know him as their liberating king.
The route taken by the follower of Jesus, bringing them to ever-unfolding life in his kingdom, is ever the path of dying.
Scripture’s words can sometimes rattle a soul. “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”
The persecutor-turned-apostle reminded his Corinthian friends, “I die daily”, attesting that a practicing disciple is one who lets go of his own identity, and grows increasingly in union with Jesus. Paul brings home the paradox – dying leads to living – as he graphically personalizes the revolutionary truth,
“I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.”
©2025 Jerry Lout Matthew 16:24; 1 Corinthians 15:31; Galatians 2:20