advocate – Jerry Lout ⚬ Writer ⚬ Speaker ⚬ Mobilizer

Give me liberty or give me death!

Patrick Henry’s declaration – heralded in his impassioned speech of March 23^rd, 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.”

Seeing all things about us put right over time. . .

Who wouldn’t opt for such a prospect? Frankly, though, many of us in our quest for quick solutions might be less than euphoric over the ending couple of words there – over time.

Ralph Waldo Emerson offered a thoughtful if somewhat annoying perspective, “People wish to be settled; only as far as they are unsettled is there any hope for them”.

I once got left alone in a forsaken dry riverbed in the heart of Africa’s wild game country. Night had set in. I was on foot and fighting distressing questions about whether I would get out in one piece or be eaten by a leopard or some other carnivorous beast. Being unarmed and at the mercy it seemed of whatever may come my way, I called up by a pure act of will and perhaps a trace of faith, a string of verses from the Old Testament.

Assured from earlier times that the passage (Psalm 91) bore reliable truths and had come ‘God-breathed for his people in times of crisis, I began quoting them as best as I was able. After some moments as I trekked through sand hoping somehow for a safe exit, voicing scripture as I went, a great, unexpected quiet settled down over me. My mind no longer raced. Nor, it seemed, did my pulse.

Throughout my years in various kinds of settings – few of which competed with the riverbed episode for high drama – a conviction has grown within me. A priceless gift comes our way from the hand of a gracious God – the gift of growing disillusioned with ourselves.

Centuries-old histories from inside and outside the church offer up loads of evidence that people simply cannot tackle and conquer every vice or resistance that comes their way. Even religious people.

Someone from outside ourselves must make himself present as rescuer, as advocate.

Thankfully (yes, we keep returning to it) someone has come.

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