Celebrating holidays in America is pretty challenging. Most people gather with their families but the overarching meaning of each holiday is frequently missing.
In many homes, Thanksgiving Day has been reduced to “Turkey Day,” a great day to watch football. Christmas is a now largely a consumer holiday.
The Fourth of July is now looked at by many as just an extra long weekend.
What differentiates July 4th from July 11th? Should getting together with your friends and neighbors today be any different than getting together with them next weekend?
I say “Yes.”
Because we do not either know or appreciate history, we really do not understand how blessed we are in this country.
What is freedom? Is it merely doing what you want to do? Is is getting drunk and taking “What’s your name?” to bed? People who live in oppressed countries do that, not because they are free, but because they are depressed. That can’t be what the Founders of the country gave their lives and fortunes for.
Freedom is having the opportunity to govern yourself, to profit from your labor, to live out your convictions, to associate with people of your choosing and to worship God according to the dictates of your conscience. This has been exceedingly rare in the history of mankind. The norm is a strong man who rules over his countrymen through sheer power according to whim and fancy.
233 years ago, after carefully enumerating their reasoning for taking such a bold step, 56 men publicly signed the Declaration of Independence.
All but a few of those delegates to the Continental Congress were men of substantial education, wealth and property, not unlike the people who govern us today. However, these men, instead of using their office to increase their wealth and power as is unfortunately so common today, “mutually pledged to each other (their) lives, (their) fortunes and (their) sacred honor.”
It was not empty promise. The King of England declared them guilty of treason.
All 56 signers were hunted by British soldiers. 9 died during the war. 5 were captured and brutalized. The homes of 12 of them were burned to the ground. 17 lost all of their earthly possessions. Many lost their wives and children.
233 years ago, these United States of America declared their independence from the King of England. 233 years ago, men and women of great conviction purchased our freedom from tyranny with their very lives.
During our celebration today, let us at least, either personally or publicly, read the document for which they gave their life. Let us sit still long enough to take each one of those 56 names upon our lips in appreciation of their sacrifice!
Happy Independence Day!
