Freedom from sin

You shall know the truth, said Jesus, and the truth shall make you free. But the Jews to whom he said this were clueless, for although they called themselves the children of Abraham, yet they seem to have forgotten the history of Israel, saying, We have never been in bondage to anyone. Did they not know of the countless times the nation had been subjugated by their enemies, because of their own apostasy, until they cried out for deliverance? Or had they forgotten their greatest bondage, in Egypt? And that bondage was unlike the ones following, for there is no specific apostasy for which God gave them over to slavery. Rather, in that case they could only point to their original bondage to sin, in the Garden in the beginning. And this is the greatest bondage of all men, the original and primal sin of nature: we are by nature sinful and unclean. But the Son, who alone is without sin, makes us free by His wonderful works and words, and in this freedom, which comes to us in the forgiveness of sins, we shall be free indeed, eternally. Sermon for Midweek of Cantate