I Am Free!
Helen Francis
We are just back from a wonderful week’s holiday in Wales, the highlight of which was a day at "The Village" in Portmeirion. This amazing replica of an Italian village gained fame when it became the location for a 60s cult tv programme: ‘The Prisoner’.
It was a programme that epitomised the fascination with espionage that was such a focus of the Cold War years. In it the hero, having chosen to retire from spying, is drugged and transported to an unknown village. When he wakes up everything is the same in his room but different once outside.
Everyone is known only by a number, and all seem under some kind of trance. The rest of the series is him trying to work out the truth, which side has imprisoned him, how to leave, and how to elude the attempts to brainwash him into submission.
One of the most famous scenes shows the hero running along the beach, desperate to escape, and shouting to his captors "I am not a number, I'm a free man!" Something about this search for truth, and this repeated insistent declaration of freedom captured a cult following, and it echoes in many ways how and why Jesus’ message did the same.
This is what Jesus declared at the start of His public ministry:
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.”
(Luke 4:18-19)
He directs people to freedom, later declaring He is the way, the truth and the life.
John 8:32 says that, if we abide in His word and we are His disciples, “then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free”.
John 16:13 tells us the Holy Spirit will “lead us into all truth”.
Isn't it great that - even though there are days when we can feel we've woken up in enemy territory, when yesterday's certainties may seem less stable, and other voices try to confuse us as to truth - we have Jesus!
By following the Spirit, by abiding in the word, we remain free, whatever our surroundings look like. The year of God’s favour is still being preached, and we are part of an enormous following, rescued by grace, who can claim: "I am free!"
