I once read an old legend about Abraham Lincoln.
The legend goes like this…
One day Abraham was walking through town while a slave auction was taking place. Usually Abe walked by such auctions as quickly as possible with his head down and a bad taste in his mouth. But today as a young girl stood up, he locked eyes with her and he couldn’t look away. As the bidding began, he made his way over to the slave block, moved by the ache in his heart. It was a high price, but he bid, for the first time, and won.
The girl walked over to him with her shoulders sagging and her eyes hung low. Abraham lifted her chin, “Little girl-you are free.”
But the girl didn’t understand. She, who had been a slave all her life, didn’t even know what freedom implied.
“But what does that mean? Can I say whatever I want to say?”
“Yes, you can say whatever you want to say.”
“And can I be whoever I want to be?”
“Yes,” said Abraham, “You can be whoever you want to be.”
“And, and does that mean I can go wherever I want to go?”
She held her breath.
“Yes,” Abraham replied, “You can go wherever you want to go.”
Then the girl, with tears streaming down her face, kneeled to the ground and hugged Abraham’s knees, “Then I will go with you.”
This girl had been a slave all her life, but the desire of her heart was to be the servant of the one who set her free.
Most likely this story is more legend than legitimate, but it moved me. Like the girl on the slave block, I’ve been set free too.
Jesus, my Savior, paid the highest price a person could pay in order to redeem my life from sin. As 1 Peter 1:18-19 tells us,
” You were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. “
Before Christ, we were slaves to sin. Our hearts, our souls, our bodies were captive to it. We had no choice but to sin. We could barely even imagine a life without it.
That’s when God stepped in.
He came to us while we were still his enemies, in the chains of the Devil and the grip of the world. He came and set us free, from the slavery and the bondage of our fleshly lust and its desires. He paid a high price for us, not because of anything we did, but because of his mercy.
None of us have encountered love like that. You can search the world, and never find a grace that could compare. It’s once in a lifetime. But you don’t have to search the world. And you don’t have to be a bible scholar or go to seminary to understand that grace. You just need to experience it.
Because once he sets you free, you may not be able to see what a life of freedom entails, but it’s ok, cause you’ve seen Jesus.
“You can go wherever you want to go, my child.”
But we don’t even have to think twice.
“Then I will go with you.”
What more could we give than our all to the one he gave his all for us?
This reminds me of another story from one of my favorite books, Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens. Nicholas is a young man of integrity and virtue who is forced into adulthood very early due to his Fathers death. In order to support his widowed mother, he accepts a teaching position at a boarding school in Yorkshire called Dothebys hall. The school is dark. The headmaster and his wife are cruel and abusive towards the boys. They feed them little, they whip them, they make them work long hours, they burn their letters and take their possessions…Nicholas does what he can to try and bring light to such a dark place, but it is to no avail. The evil is too great for him, and he knows he can’t stay.
As he’s packing up to leave, one of the boys who he’s be-friended is distraught. Smike is a cripple, whose parents sent him to Dothebys school and never came back for him. He is beaten daily because he can’t work as hard or as fast as the other boys. He wants to go with Nicholas, with all his heart, but he has nothing to give. He’s a poor, sickly boy, darkened by the sin of man. And yet Nicholas had shown him kindness and given him hope. He had stood up for him when no one else did. So as he’s watching Nicholas leave, he throws aside all fears…
“The form in the darkness moved, rose, advanced and dropped upon its knees at his feet. It was Smike.
“Why do you kneel to me?” asked Nicholas.
“To beg of you to take me with you-anywhere-everywhere-to the worlds end-to the churchyard grave.” replied Smike, clinging to his hand. “Let me, oh do let me. You are my home-my kind friend-take me with you, I pray. May I? May I go with you?” asked Smike timidly. “I will be your faithful hard-working servant, I will indeed. I want nothing. No clothes,” added the poor creature, drawing his rags together; “these will do very well. I only want to be near you.”
I only want to be near you.
So many of us come to Christ with a list.
“Thank you for saving me. Now heal me. Now fix my marriage. Now take away my addictions. Now give me wealth.”
How many of us when we realize the depth of Christ’s grace fall on our knees and cry out to him,
“I don’t care where you take me-I don’t care if you take me to the grave. I don’t care if my circumstances get better, I don’t care if they get worse. I don’t need anything from you, I just need you.
If I can go wherever I want to go, let me go with you.
I only want to be near you.”
I ache for more of this heart.
A heart like the slave girl, who understood that the value of freedom was worthless without the one who set her free. A heart like Smike, who was willing to follow the one he loved even unto death.
These two stories are but pale comparisons to the glory and majesty of the gospel and what Christ has done for us. He has paid a price that no man could ever pay. He has set us free from the bondage of sin and death. He has rescued our lives from the grave.
He loved us when we hated him and were of no use to him.
He redeemed us.
I don’t know about you, but I choose to go with the one who set me free.
Whether by still waters or through dark valleys, wherever he goes, I’m going too.
I only want to be near him.
