They say that when the slaves in Jamaica knew they were to be set free on a certain day, they spent all night getting ready. While it was yet dark they began moving by twos and threes out of their huts into village lanes, joined by others coming from the forests and the plains. They streamed toward the highest hill, climbing through the darkness and crowding together at the top, waiting for the day. As the first strands of dawn began to show on the horizon, a ripple of laughter spread through the crowd like a murmur of waves. Then a shout went up and they began to sing in their distinctive rhythm, at last lifting up their hands into the sky at the rising of the sun and crying, "Free! Free! Free!"

However your life has been, don't let it be unchanged by this amazing gospel. Let your wary or weary heart take in the freedom of this powerful story. This story has the power to enable us to break free from all that would entomb us -- all the bonds, the limitations, the yesterday pain. And this gospel -- by God's grace -- gives us the courage to venture out to meet our Lord in our own life's tomorrow -- a tomorrow which is not fully here but is real, visible, already broken onto our horizon. Now we venture into the life we most profoundly longed for, not the life we've settled for. Not the keeping on that passes for life, but rather the life for which we have hungered and hoped, the life God intended for us.