Yesterday was Tax Day—the annual reminder that citizens of a country are responsible for its care. We gripe, and we grumble. We grouse that our hard-earned dollars are hardly well-spent. We find fault with budget allocations and pork barrel spending, and I am surely not suggesting that such grievances have no grounds, but, in spite of its many faults and failures, our country is still one of the few where the line to get in is long and the line to get out is short.
Why? Because due to the spiritual, economic, and social principles of its foundation, our nation offers more freedom, more opportunity, and more protection than most inhabitants of the globe could ever even dream. Since few of us have lived in oppression, occupation, or terror, we do not fully appreciate the simple rights to worship as we wish, speak as we want, and remain innocent until proven guilty. Even the most advanced civilizations of the past rarely offered such rights, as the Apostle Paul discovered first-hand.
When the Jerusalem crowd called for his death, the Roman commander “ordered that Paul be taken to the barracks”(Acts 22:24). This sounded good until he issued the directive that Paul “be flogged and questioned in order to find out why the people were shouting at him like this”(Acts 22:24). Flogged and THEN questioned? Why the brutality? Why the lack of respect and the lack of rights?
In the Roman world, only a special few had rights—certain soldiers who had fought for the empire, those born into the proper families, or men with the proper funds. The commander assumed Paul fit none of those categories, so he gave the order for him to be beaten. (For more on the dangers of assuming, see Acts Devotion 45 from last Friday.) “As they stretched Paul out to flog him, he said to the centurion standing there, ‘Is it legal for you to flog a Roman citizen who hasn’t even been found guilty?’”(Acts 22:25). Hurried questions from his alarmed captors revealed that Paul’s citizenship was a birthright—not a purchased privilege like the commander’s, so Paul’s back was spared, and he was released to defend himself before the Jewish Sanhedrin.
Our country is not perfect, and our history is pockmarked with periods of inhumanity and brutality, but, by God’s grace, we are at a place where all who live in our land—rich or poor, male or female, Republican or Democrat, Christian or heathen, etc.—are blessed with astounding freedoms and abundant rights.
Tax time might be a bad time for your bank account, but it’s a good time to count your blessings. Thank God the star-spangled banner still waves o’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
No comments:
Post a Comment