Freedom! Hallelujah!

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

- Galatians 5:1

We were sitting quietly together in our worship service, listening to a woman's profound testimony of the saving power of Jesus Christ, when my friend overwhelmingly responded with an "amen" of approval and then hollered "hallelujah!", startling slumbering spirits. Another friend on the other side of me broke into laughter, disrupting the orderliness of religious routine. 

I self-consciously panicked as others turned around pronouncing the inappropriateness of the moment. I almost surprised myself as I abruptly hushed him and made him jump in his seat. He sat stunned for a moment, a look of shame and anxiety crossed his face as he bent over to me and whispered in my ear, "Pastor Dallas...It's great to see you today. Pastor Dallas, I'm sorry I was too loud." 

In that light, with the hallelujah of a growing chorus of angels ringing in my ear, my moralistic behaviour modification appeared rather small-minded; I was not an educator, advocate, resource specialist, pastor, in his questioning eyes - he was speaking to me as a friend. I knew he hadn't misbehaved, nor was anyone offended but my own ego and control spirit.

He was simply caught up in the moment of worship and praised God directly from his heart, without filtering praise through complex layers of control - the control mechanisms that dictate the expression of most typical adults.  How can we limit praise, when the word, "hallelujah", is itself undefinable (since a definition is by nature a self-imposed limitation)? The "hallelujah" of the heart is the unconstrained response of the human spirit to our infinite God who loves us beyond words, for no human word is the final word.

This was our Remembrance Day service, and as we spent time in silence to remember our fallen soldiers in the line of battle - the wide screen displaying row after row of white crosses in an endless field of green - I thought about their sacrifice, and what they had laid down their lives for, namely; freedom, including our freedom to worship. Not the self-serving indulgence of an anything-goes relativism, but the freedom to live for God. 

The moment was particularly sobering as I reflected on the restrictions I unnecessarily imposed on my friends to limit their free expression of worship to our living and loving God. 

I thanked God for friends today - friends willing to confront and invite me to remember, for a spirit of oppression is the result of ingratitude and forgetfulness, "they have oppressed the alien and mistreated the fatherless and the widow...For you have forgotten me, declares the Sovereign Lord" (Ezekiel 22:6-12). Lest we forget, how far Jesus was willing to reach to secure our freedom, with outstretched hands nailed to a cross.