PROPERS: 07-04_Independence_Day_DL
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The Gospel Reading for today is John 8:31-42, The Truth Will Set You Free. In this Gospel, we learn that if you want to be free, to be all you want to be, you must begin by examining and reading the words about Jesus in the gospels. Then you need to “continue in His word” by thinking and pondering them as you apply it to your life experience. When you do this, Jesus says: “If you continue in my word, you will truly be my disciple.” Thus, there are those of us who outwardly will follow, but inwardly are not committed. On the other hand, there are those of us who outwardly follow Jesus’ teachings and see how relevant His teachings are to life and, thus experience true freedom as a disciple of Christ.
U.S.A. Independence Day
In the 1700s, America was 13 distinct colonies. Britain’s King George III enacted various laws and taxes on the colonial people without regard to hardship. Thus, the phrase “Taxation without representation is tyranny” was the rally. As the colonists rebelled, King George enacted more force on the colonists as well as the Stamp Act of 1765 which taxed all paper documents, i.e. newspapers, legal documents, ships’ papers, playing cards. In the fall 1768, British ships showed force by arriving in Boston Harbor. Tensions increased with the Boston Massacre in 1770. Then in 1773, the Boston Tea Party erupted, followed by the Revolutionary War in 1775. As more colonists desired independence, the Continental Congress finally met at the Pennsylvania State House, known as Independence Hall, in Philadelphia on June 7, 1776. During the meeting, Richard Henry Lee, the Virginia delegate, presented a motion calling for independence of the colonies from Britian. After debate, Congress rescheduled the vote on Lee’s resolution and selected a five-person committee to discuss and write the Declaration. Thus, the Declaration was prepared/written by the Committee of Five, of which Thomas Jefferson of Virginia was the principal author, and the other four members being John Adams of Massachusetts, Roger Sherman of Connecticut, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, and Robert R. Livingston of New York. On July 4th 1776, the United States of America proclaimed its independence from Great Britian with the signing the “Declaration of Independence,” and the Fourth of July holiday was seen as the official anniversary of United States independence.
