What Binds You?!

As the Coptic year comes to an end, the Church invites us to examine our lives and ask a difficult question: What are you bound by? We can be bound by fear, anger, lust, unforgiveness, addiction, anxiety, relationships, habits, or sins that have become so familiar that we no longer remember what freedom feels like. But Jesus Christ came “to set the captives free.” In this sermon, we look at two very different kinds of bondage. The enemy seeks to bind us so that he can plunder our house and steal our freedom. But St. Paul shows us another kind of bondage when he declares that he is ready not only to be bound, but even to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Christian life is not simply about becoming “unbound.” It is about becoming bound to Christ. Through Baptism, Confession, and especially the Eucharist, Christ offers us the grace to leave the slavery of sin and live in the freedom and victory He has already given us. The question is whether we truly want to be free. Have we become comfortable with our bondage? Have we accepted certain sins as simply “who we are”? Are we willing to do whatever it takes to walk away from what keeps us from Christ? As we approach a new Coptic year, may we bring everything that binds us before God and pray: “Lord, loosen every bond of sin, and bind my heart completely to You.” “For you are He who loosens the bound, the hope of those who have no hope, the help of those who have no helper.” May we no longer be bound to sin, but bound to Christ.