Free and Brave

Our national anthem – “The Star Spangled Banner” by Francis Scott Key
O! say, can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming:
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming,
And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there;
O! say, does that Star-spangled Banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

From judgenap.com – When Francis Scott Key wrote the words “the land of the free and the home of the brave” in 1814, he did so in a poem called “The Defense of Fort McHenry.” The battle of Fort McHenry in Baltimore was a decisive one in which Americans truly demonstrated bravery and fought for freedom.

This was the War of 1812, the origins of which are lost to history. The British government claimed that President James Madison had designs on the British king’s lands in Canada, and so it attacked the U.S. The Americans argued that the British government’s stated reason for its attack was a pretense, as its real goal was to re-capture what many Britons still considered to be their colonies.

They thought this even though the Treaty of Paris, signed by the United States and Great Britain in 1783, unambiguously recognized the United States of America as a free, independent and sovereign nation.

Notwithstanding its origins, the War of 1812 brought Americans perilously close to being British subjects again. Both the U.S. Capitol and the White House were burned and severely damaged, with President and Mrs. Madison narrowly escaped.

After the British tired of the war and went home, Key’s poem was set to the tune of a drinking song, popular among British soldiers and sailors. It was re-named “The Star-Spangled Banner,” and it became a popular patriotic piece meant to commemorate American freedom and the bravery of those who fought to preserve it. A century later, it became our national anthem.

God in His grace and mercy, kept America independent that she might be a blessing to peoples all over the world, BUT it came at a cost then and yet now.

The last words of that last line of our National Anthem are of extreme importance – “the land of the free and the home of the brave.”

Far too often we embrace and celebrate the first part of that statement – the land of the free – and neglect or don’t understand the last part – “the home of the brave”.

We love our freedom.  We celebrate our freedom.  We wish that others could experience our freedoms.  Some of our precious freedoms are captured in the first two Amendments to our Constitution:  no government sanctioned religion, freedom of speech and press, the right to assemble and petition, and the right to own guns.  What special freedoms we have and do enjoy!

But, freedoms are not free!  Our freedoms came because of the brave and our freedoms will only continue because of the brave.  In order for one to be brave, there must be danger – evil, threats and attacks.  Freedom must be defended.  We live, move and have our freedoms because there are ones who are brave.  Our country exists because it is the “home of the brave.”  And for some of those brave, their home is in the earth – they have stood up and died and now rest in death.  The home of many brave ones today is the grave.

We live in the “land of the free and the home of the brave”!  Thank you, Lord!