LIBERTY!

A delicate “little lady,” she is not. From her heel to the top of her head she measures 111 feet, 6 inches, weighs 225 tons and her waistline is a whopping 35 feet around. A face-to-face meeting with her in New York Harbor would be startling, as she sports a 17’3” visage from chin to cranium! Her index finger is 8 feet long, tipped by a 13 inch fingernail. At her feet lie the broken shackles of oppression and tyranny.

Lady Liberty, as she is often called (formal name: “Liberty Enlightening the World”), cuts quite an imposing figure. A gift from the people of France to celebrate the centennial of the American Declaration of Independence, the copper and steel statue was designed by French sculptor Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi and dedicated by President Grover Cleveland in October 1886 (the French were just a little late, as they intended to have it ready by July, ten years earlier). 

When the idea for the statue was proposed the deal was that France would cover the cost of the statue itself ($250,000) and the U.S. would take care of the base and pedestal ($280,000). Newspapers around the country called it a “local, New York project” and scoffed at the idea until publisher Joseph Pulitzer got behind the effort and encouraged benefit balls, theatrical productions and donations from schoolchildren around the country. Emma Lazarus’ poetic words inscribed on the statue’s pedestal were part of a fundraiser: "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door." 

Sadly, this symbol of freedom was closed to the public after the 9/11/01 terror attacks. But fortunately the pedestal and lower observation decks reopened in 2004 and visitors were finally re-admitted to the rest of it in 2009. This “enduring icon of freedom” was once again open for business. 

The cross of Jesus Christ is the ultimate “enduring icon of freedom” and will never be closed. It is always open to all. While it, too, is the object of scoffers, it stands tall as the symbol by which all may be granted true freedom in this life and that to come. Luke 4:18 records Jesus reciting words from Isaiah as He proclaimed, “The Spirit of the Lord is on me because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” True, lasting liberty!