Liberation

This morning falls in a strange place on the Church calendar. This past Thursday was Ascension Day, the day we remember that, as the Nicene Creed puts it, Jesus ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of the Father. Next Sunday is Pentecost, another major feast, which marks the coming of the Holy Spirit and the birth of the Church.

But today? Today, we’re in between. Waiting. Waiting for what comes next.

And in a way, this whole Easter season has been a walk through that kind of in-between space. We’ve been following the story of the early Church through the pages of the Book of Acts.

We’ve remembered how the resurrection was first met with fear and wonder and confusion. We’ve talked about how the Church began not in cathedrals or even in public squares, but on the margins—on a riverbank, in quiet homes, in unexpected places.

And we’ve remembered that this new community didn’t grow because things were easy. It grew because the Spirit was at work, even in difficulty. Even in danger.

Last week, we met Lydia—an outsider in her own way: a woman, a Gentile, a merchant. She heard the message Paul preached, and “the Lord opened her heart.” She and her household were baptized, and she offered her home as a place of hospitality. A quiet moment on the riverbank became the first church in Europe.

But the story of the Church didn’t stay quiet. It never does, it seems.

The very next story in Acts takes us to a prison—still in the same town where Paul met Lydia, but no longer on a pleasant riverbank. Paul and Silas have been beaten, arrested, and thrown into the deepest cell. Their feet are locked in stocks. And yet—at midnight, wounded and bound, they begin to pray and sing hymns.

They don’t sing because everything is going their way. They don’t sing because they know how their story will end. But still they sing.

And then the earth quakes. The doors swing open. The chains fall off. Now they’re free even as the world defines that term.

But then they make an odd choice. They don’t run.

And that moment—that choice—not to flee, not to vanish into the night—becomes a turning point.

Because the jailer, waking to find the doors open, assumes the worst. Under Roman law, a jailer who loses his prisoners would probably pay with his life. He’s terrified, despairing. He prepares to take his own life.

But Paul calls out: “Do not harm yourself, for we are all here.”

And just like Lydia before him, the jailer’s heart is opened. He falls trembling at their feet. And by dawn, he’s washed their wounds. They’ve broken bread together. He and his whole household have been baptized.

It’s a story of salvation. But what kind of salvation?

In much of popular Christian conversation, “salvation” is a word that gets boiled down to something very individual and very private. It becomes about a personal relationship with Jesus. About avoiding sin and getting into heaven.

But in scripture, salvation is a lot more than that. Salvation is also liberation.

Think of the Exodus. Of prisoners set free. Of captives released.

Think of Mary singing, “He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, and has lifted up the lowly.”

Think of Jesus, beginning his public ministry by reading these words: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Think of resurrection itself—God’s ultimate act of liberation from death.

The Gospel isn’t just good advice to the privileged to be a little more generous than they might otherwise be. It’s good news for the oppressed. It’s the announcement that God has entered into human history on the side of the suffering and the poor and those who are cast down—and that their liberation is part of what salvation means.

But here’s something else to notice in today’s lesson from Acts: God promises liberation, yes. But God’s liberation can come even before the prison doors open.

Paul and Silas sing before they are released. They sing before the chains fall off. Because, in the deepest sense, they’re already free.

Not free from pain. Not free from injustice. But free from fear.

They know who they are. They know who they belong to. They haven’t given Rome the power to define them. They haven’t let despair steal their identity.

Freedom, in the Christian sense, isn’t just about escape. It’s about dignity. About hope. About not being ruled by hatred or fear.

It’s the kind of freedom the abolitionist Harriet Tubman chose. She escaped slavery but she went back into danger again and again to rescue others.

It’s the kind of freedom Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote about from a Nazi prison cell, after he returned to Germany from a place of safety in the United States. He wrote that “freedom comes only through deeds, not through thoughts taking wing.”

And it’s the kind of freedom Paul and Silas showed to their jailer—not just by preaching, but by staying. By not running. By showing him, in the very moment he was about to give up on life, that he wasn’t alone.

At the end of today’s lesson, the jailer’s world hasn’t changed. He’s still vulnerable to Roman law. Maybe more so, after taking prisoners into his own home. But now he’s not afraid.

The sort of salvation the jailer found is the sort of salvation we can all look for. That’s the sort of liberation each one of us can claim.

Not escape. But presence. Not a magic fix to all that’s wrong in the world. But a Spirit-led refusal to let fear have the last word.

So what does that mean for us?

It means salvation isn’t just about what happens after we die. It’s about how we live. It’s about whether we stand with the imprisoned, the wounded, the afraid. It’s about whether we remember who we are—even in the dark.

Sometimes, liberation looks like walking away from what binds us. But sometimes it looks like staying—with open eyes and willing hearts—because someone else’s freedom depends on ours.

We don’t stay because we are trapped. We stay because we’re already free. And because we have work to do.