"Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed."  John 8:36, NKJV

$2.7 billion -- that's the estimated amount of money Americans spent last year on fireworks to celebrate Independence Day!  Fireworks may be pricey, but for hundreds of years they've been a go-to expression of joyful celebration, even well before John Adams suggested that the signing of the Declaration of Independence be "solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more."   But apparently that wasn't the only way American colonists celebrated the independence they declared.  Since the colonists had been chafing under British control that increasingly felt unlawful and unjust, some actually celebrated in the summer of 1776 not with fireworks but with mock funerals of King George III of England, as if to announce the death of Britain's rule in America.  It may be a bit morbid, but the significance is worth noting:  In order for Americans to be free, something had to die.  And the same could be said of the freedom for which Christ has set believers free.

In John 8, we find the Jewish leaders questioning who Jesus is even though He has been trying to make it plain to them "from the beginning" (v. 25).  Eventually Jesus asserts that the revelation of who He is will be crystal clear when His enemies have crucified Him: "“When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He" (v. 28).  Knowing who Jesus is, knowing Him as the One sent from God, knowing Him as the Son of Man is more than just a matter of intellectual assent.  

It's a clarity about God's character that cannot be denied when we look upon Christ crucified.  

I believe this is "the truth" Jesus later said "shall make you free" (v. 32).

So what exactly is the truth that sets us free?  It's knowing Jesus and Him crucified.  It's knowing who Jesus is, not just in title and position but in character and heart.  It's knowing Him as the God who loves us more than His own existence.  Seeing Christ crucified, we can see love personified.  And knowing Jesus like this makes us free indeed -- free from bondage to sin (Jn. 8:34-36), i.e. a life with self at the center.  

Whether we know it or not, living with self at the center is an oppressive bondage Christ has come to deliver us from.

That's why the apostle Paul would later determine not to know anything among the Corinthians "except Jesus Christ and Him crucified"  (1 Cor. 2:2).  That cross-eyed focus freed this former Pharisee from catering to ego-centric distinctions and classifications and from relying upon his own accomplishments for significance and standing before God (cf. Phil. 3:7).  Have we experienced that kind of freedom -- freedom to live the abundant life released from trusting to our own measures and merits for salvation?  God is inviting us to know Christ and Him crucified.

Sadly this is the revelation the Pharisees resisted, and because of it they remained bound in unbelief and sin.  But that doesn't have to be our story.  We can receive what the Pharisees resisted.  We can know the truth of who Jesus is and live in a freedom only Christ can give.  So while we celebrate with fellow Americans our country's independence from the oppressive rule of a foreign king, let's take a prayerful moment to declare our willful DEPENDence upon our crucified King who through death conquered death.