Toward Home

As the diminutive vessel sailed through the darkness, the small, brave band on deck strained to catch a glimpse of their new home. While the vast continent emerging before them was virtually devoid of human beings, it was filled to overflowing with the natural blessings of God -- the land brimmed with fresh water, good soil, wildlife, timber, gold, silver, copper, coal, iron ore, oil, and more; indeed, these resources were in such abundance, that today, nearly four hundred years later, America has not nearly exhausted the supply.
These extraordinary gifts, placed at the feet of our pilgrim ancestors by the benevolent hands of a loving God, pale in comparison to His most precious provision -- freedom. While invisible, the eyes aboard the 'Arbella' surely saw it. It was, after all, what they were seeking with their heart -- they, and millions to follow, risked all to live before God in liberty of conscience, thought, word, and deed. Before disembarking upon New England's rocky shore, John Winthrop shared with his fellow Puritans the vision of his mind's eye:


"For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us; so that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be a story and a byword throughout the world..."

Winthrop's hope was that they, in this new world, would serve as a 'model of Christian charity,' out of which the light of their good deeds might illuminate the earth so that all mankind might see and glorify the Father of heaven. That light, which has streamed through the decades unto us, has fired all men with the brilliance of it's dual spectrums of faith and freedom.
The great experiment our patriarchs envisioned and enacted would ultimately be a beacon -- or a byword. The new nation would serve as a lesson for all future time and places -- the realities and blessings of liberty in the governance of men were either attainable or they were not. The history of the world would suggest the latter to be true; however, no other nation, kingdom, empire, or city-state had as it's foundation a creed, an ideal, not springing forth from the mind of man, but from the very heart of God:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying it's foundation on such principles, and organizing it's powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness."

From the time of it's approval by the assembled delegates in Philadelphia in 1776, the Declaration of Independence was recognized for it's momentous impact. In a letter to his wife, Abigail, John Adams said that the adoption day would be celebrated "with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of the continent to the other, from this time forward forevermore. As historian David Ramsey has written, "July fourth was consecrated by Americans to religious gratitude. It is considered by them as the birth day of their freedom." Truly, it is nothing less.
Thomas Jefferson, the father who begat that declaration, that synopsis of the American mind and soul, also stated, in his first inaugural address:

"Equal and exact justice to all...freedom of religion, freedom of the press, and freedom of person. These principles form the bright constellation which has gone before us, and guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation. The wisdom of our sages and the blood of our heroes have been devoted to their attainment. They should be the creed of our political faith, the text of civil instruction, the touchstone by which to try the services of those we trust; and should we wander from them in moments of error or alarm, let us hasten to retrace our steps and to regain the road which alone leads to peace, liberty, and safety."

We have certainly wandered from the road at times and, sadly, we continue to stray onto paths of ignorance, injustice, and covetous isolation. Freedom, like the precious gospel, which sets men spiritually free, must be our constant companion along the way and shared with all we meet. George Santayana noted, of course, that "those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." More significantly, author Forrest Church has written, "When we forget our history, especially when we forget the principles on which our nation was founded, we are doomed to fail to live up to it. Yes, our forbears often failed to live up to their ideals. That is partly because these ideals were so lofty. The greater our aspirations, the more certain it is that we will fail to live up to them. Such failure has it's own nobility. Our ancestors set the bar high."
Indeed, that bar was shaken and virtually shattered by the pressure imposed upon it by the ungodly burden of American slavery. The man who lifted the burdensome chains from the limbs of four million human beings and from lady liberty herself was Father Abraham. With firm conviction, courageous action, and timeless eloquence, this giant among men championed the cause of freedom like no other. Speaking of his nation's charter document, President-elect Lincoln stood on the steps of Independence Hall in 1861 and spoke of it's meaning and destiny:

The Declaration of Independence, he said, "gave liberty not alone to the people of this country, but hope to all the world for all future time. It was that which gave promise that in due time the weights would be lifted from the shoulders of all men. If it cannot be saved upon that principle, it would be truly awful. I would rather be assassinated on this spot than to surrender it."

In his first state of the Union address, he wrote of how difficult a task lay before his beloved country -- what was required was, tragically, untold deaths and, what he later called a "new birth of freedom."

"The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. the occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion...Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history. The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation...We, even we here, hold the power and bear the responsibility. In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free -- honorable alike in what we give and what we preserve. We shall nobly save of meanly lose the last, best hope of earth...The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just -- a way which, if followed, the world will forever applaud, and God must forever bless."

Lincoln realized that in order to maintain freedom for ourselves, it must be offered to all. To do less would be to accept a freedom permeated at it's core with the "base alloy of hypocrisy" -- a proposition he, and none of us, should be willing to accept.
One hundred years later, on August 28, 1963, an ancestor of the emancipated stood in the shadow of the nation's temple to the Great Emancipator and spoke of a dream as yet unfulfilled, reminding his generation of work yet to be done:

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke of "a day when this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of it's creed. This will be the day when all God's children will be able to sing with new meaning, 'My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.' When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of that old Negro spiritual, 'Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

Every generation of Americans must be willing to strive to speed that day, to labor in 'double-time,' so that, out of such a moral drumbeat, the echoing cadence of freedom's march might redound along the corridors of time unto all peoples. We today have been reminded afresh of the paradoxical truth that freedom is both fragile and strong. Fragile when left to itself, taken for granted, and undefended by a sleeping and self-absorbed people. Strong when embraced by all, given to all, and protected by the eternally vigilant. Embodying such strength was the Father whom we have most recently laid to rest, our fortieth president.
Ronald Reagan believed that America was chosen by God for a specific purpose. He spoke often of 'a rendezvous with destiny.' "I believe," he said, "there was a divine plan to place this great continent between the two oceans to be found by people from every corner of the earth. I believe we were preordained to carry the torch of freedom for the world." His soul recognized the same cause, the same commitment, the same clarion call that Winthrop heard, held dear, and heeded. The light that shone forth was liberty's torch -- never to be extinguished or cloaked, but set upon a majestic lamp stand for a world to see and be attracted to. President Reagan, in his farewell address to the nation, spoke of this drawing power in the form of a parable and a parting.
The story involves not the small ship which sailed through our opening lines, but the massive United States Naval carrier "Midway," churning through the South China Sea in the mid-1980's. A sailor aboard, on watch, spotted on the horizon a tiny, leaky boat crammed with refugees from Indochina, hoping to get to America. A launch was sent to retrieve them and, as the refugees made their way through the choppy seas, one spied the sailor on deck and called out, "Hello American sailor, Hello Freedom Man. A small moment with a big meaning," a moment the sailor, and president, wouldn't forget -- Our children stood again, as always, for freedom. How subsequent generation live the creed, standing for freedom, matters much. In the balance is not only America's future, but the destiny of the world.
The address concluded with a look back to that early freedom man and a look to the vision of that city upon a hill.

"I've spoken of a shining city all my political life, but I don't know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans - windswept, God blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors, and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That how I saw it, and see it still. And how stands the city on this winter night? After two hundred years, two centuries, she still stands strong and true on the granite ridge, and her glow has held steady, no matter what storm. And she's still a beacon, still a magnet for all who must have freedom, for all the pilgrims from all the lost places, who are hurtling in the darkness toward home."