I
God has made us free. That’s the very essence of what God did when He created us. He made us free. He gave each of His creatures a measure of freedom, limiting them to a degree, of course, but nonetheless free. The eagle that soars in the sky, the great whale that plays in the ocean, the gazelle that trips lightly over the savannah, even the tall oak that, though rooted, strives toward the sun – each of these enjoys a measure of freedom. It is God’s gift; as Thomas Jefferson once said, “The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time.” If you deny that freedom, you diminish or even destroy life. But if you hold on to freedom, fight for freedom, you affirm life and you honor God. God has made us free. That’s the very essence of God’s gift of life.
And so your friend and loved one, Yvan Vital, was surely on the mark, investing his life in the cause of freedom. As an outsider to your culture, and as one with only a passing knowledge of your history, I cannot make comments on the politics of Haiti. I cannot speak meaningfully about that history, or about the political issues; but then Rod did not ask me here to provide a political lecture or a historical review. He asked me here to preach the gospel and proclaim the good news. Whenever I preach the gospel, I must speak about freedom. Whenever and wherever I proclaim the good news, I must speak of the liberty that our God has given. So today let me try to set into spiritual context the life of Yvan Vital, a man dedicated to the cause of freedom.
II
If you know a little about the earliest days of the Christian movement, you know that the apostle Paul found himself in a serious conflict. He found that he had a major quarrel with other spiritual leaders, both Jews and Christians, over the issue of freedom. This man, originally called Saul of Tarsus, had been one of the most rigid and aggressive leaders among the Jews. He says it himself – that he had been a Pharisee of the Pharisees, zealous, ardent, pursuing those who disagreed with him. Frankly, Saul must have been a horrible man to be around – aggressive, assertive, dictatorial, and ready to hunt you down and kill you if you crossed his path. Sound like anybody you know of? (Oh, I’m sorry, I said I wasn’t going to comment on Haitian history!).
But I’m sure you know the story about how the Lord Jesus met Saul on the road to Damascus one day, and turned him around. Turned him totally around. And the one who had once persecuted the church of God now became its most effective missionary. The one who set out to destroy life now turned to building up life. There’s hope for anyone, even oppressive presidents! (Oh, there I go again, making political comments). Jesus Christ turned Saul into Paul, turned him around, and made this man who had once sought to destroy the freedom of others into a fighter for justice and a laborer for liberty.
This apostle, in the middle of a struggle against those who did not understand how free God wanted them to be, cried out, in his magnificent Galatian letter, “For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” For freedom you have been set free .. Do not submit to a yoke of slavery.
III
You see, alongside the great truth that we have been created to be free, you have to consider the awesome fact that sometimes we give up our own freedom. Sometimes we yield our freedom to forces that want to take it away. How can that be? How is it possible for someone in power to take away our liberty and we don’t even realize that it is gone?
I can answer that with two words, two alone: ignorance and apathy. Ignorance and apathy. If we do not know the truth and if we are beaten down so that we feel nothing, we are finished. We are going to be slaves. Ignorance and apathy are the factors that make us yield our freedom. By the way, did you hear about the poll-taker who was doing a survey on a college campus? He was asking the students a question – it might have been Georgetown, Rod. He stopped students on the campus and asked them, “Is it true that ignorance and apathy are the two greatest problems facing young people? Would you agree that college students are held back by both ignorance and apathy?” Do you know the answer he got from most of the students? “I don’t know and I don’t care!”
It is tragic but true that those who want to enslave us can accomplish just that if they can brainwash us. If they lie to us and manipulate us and persuade us that they are telling us the truth, they can take away our freedom. And then if those who wish to oppress can hold us down and keep us poor and hungry for generations, they will break our spirits and we will feel nothing. We will be numb. We will just plod along and do their bidding and forget that we are supposed to be free. The lingering effect of racism, in Haiti, or in the United States, or anywhere else, is that it crushes spirits and wounds hearts, and people feel powerless. They start to believe that they are nothing. That is neither more nor less than ignorance and apathy.
IV
A
The glory of a life like Mr. Vital’s is that he did not submit to ignorance, nor did he wind down into feeling nothing. Yvan Vital learned. He learned far beyond his limited formal education. He learned economics, he learned military tactics, he learned how to organize, he learned how to develop a strategy to advance the cause of freedom for Haiti. He may have had far less classroom time than any of his children; but this man knew things. He knew the needs of his people, he knew the times in which he lived, and most of all, he knew himself. He knew his own mind and heart, and was true to himself. We cannot charge Mr. Vital with ignorance, not at all. He learned, and when you learn you will be free. Knowledge is power. Be proud of a man who could master so much knowledge, all in the cause of freedom.
B
And Mr. Vital was not only a man of learning; he was also a man of passion. He felt. His very soul yearned for the liberty of his land. He felt his calling at such a profound level that he put his life at risk, he sacrificed time he would have spent with his family, and he lived a powerful, effective, significant life. You do not accomplish anything with lukewarm opinions or ambiguous beliefs. It is the man of passion, the man who feels, the man who, as we like to say, gets up off his blessed assurance and does something, that matters. And Yvan Vital mattered. For the cause of freedom he made a difference. He could say, with the apostle Paul, that for freedom he had been set free, and that never again would he submit to a yoke of slavery.
V
But someone today is likely saying that Yvan is not free now, for he is deceased. Someone is arguing that all this effort, all this fighting, is for nought, because Haiti’s cause is not yet won. Someone will say that Vital is now forced to give up, because the end of his life has come. Someone, no doubt, thinks that this freedom fighter’s arms are weak and that his voice is silent. I say not. I say not. On the basis of the gospel of Jesus Christ, I say not. I say his arms are stronger than ever and that his voice will ring true for a long while to come. I say that a God of justice will take what Yvan Vital has done, will multiply it, and will bring it to completion. And I say, too, that we can learn from his life what it is to be people who know and people who care.
A
You and I can be free, as Mr. Vital was free, if we will know who we are and what we are about, if we will pursue purpose in life. As a Christian pastor, I believe that knowledge and purpose can be found in Jesus Christ. It is He who gives us the power to know who we are; it is He who gives us power to commit ourselves to the cause of justice.
B
You and I can be free, as Mr. Vital was free, if we will understand how oppressive situations and repressive people wear down our spirits and work to crush us. If we are vigilant and watchful, if we listen to our own hearts and grow our own spirits, we can remain free. Again, I must tell you that it is in knowing Jesus Christ personally that power comes. I cannot know my own spirit and what freedom is until I see and know Jesus. The Bible says that “if the Son make you free, you shall be free indeed.” I can be free if I let the spirit of Jesus work in me and shape me.
C
You and I can be free, as Mr. Vital was free, if we will submit to no one and to nothing until we have first submitted to Jesus Christ. It may sound strange to suggest that we get our freedom by submitting to anyone as our master and our lord, but it is true. When we accept the lordship of Jesus Christ, then we become free. We are free to do what we know to be right, we are free to follow what we know to be true, and we are free, as Yvan Vital was free, to sacrifice time and energy, because in Jesus Christ we see one who was willing to give His very life for us and for the Father’s will. He will make us free; in His service there is perfect freedom.
D
And you and I can be free, as our friend is now free, even in this last hour, even in this seemingly so final a thing, this death. Death is confinement and bondage only for those who have not found themselves in Christ. But for one who knows Jesus as Savior and Lord, death is not defeat, nor is it bondage. In Christ, death is victory, death is liberty. For the single most important fact of all of human history is this: that Jesus of Nazareth, once crucified by a repressive government, slapped in a stone-cold tomb, sealed away and shut up – that same Jesus burst the bands of the tomb, broke the power of death, and so destroyed oppression forever. He is risen! He is risen! He is alive, He is free, and He lives to make us free.
Say not that your brother Vital is finished; he has only just begun. Say not that your brother’s cause is lost; he has started something that will someday be an avalanche of justice. Say not that Vital is in bondage to death. Dr. King said it to another oppressed people a generation ago, “Free at last, free at last; thank God almighty, [he’s] free at last.”
