Tag Politics

His Story Needs No Revision

Todd R 1 Comment

Journalism, particularly newspaper journalism, is sometimes referred to as “the first rough draft of history.”  This phrase is usually attributed to Philip Graham, former publisher of the Washington Post.  It’s a useful phrase because it is flattering to journalists to know that their work is important and meaningful, but also a reminder that their work is inherently imperfect and in need of later revision.  Particularly under deadline pressure, it is impossible to know all the relevant facts and potential angles of any story.  Unavoidable and expedient choices and compromises must be made.  The saying came to mind when I recently read Psalm 33:10-11, which says:

“The LORD brings the counsel of the nations to nothing;
            he frustrates the plans of the peoples.
The counsel of the LORD stands forever,
            the plans of his heart to all generations.”

As I’ve written before, total objectivity is “theoretically impossible for anyone but God Himself.”  The best any news reporting can do is cover a tiny piece of what happens in the world, screening it using whatever judgment they decide to use, and applying imperfect ethical standards.  As I’ve also written, “The dots of the pointillistic narrative are never the full picture and sometimes aren’t the right color.”  Thus is the “counsel of the nations” – incomplete by necessity, biased by choice, and morally imperfect by nature.

In contrast, what God says is true is always true, unlike the 24/7 news cycle where truth is constantly under revision.  The “counsel of the LORD” contains everything we need to know about His plans, is designed by His choice to benefit those He loves, and morally perfect because His nature is holy.  If better counsel existed, He would know about it.  His counsel reliably informs us about how He wants us to view the events of the world, rather than the other way around.  His plans frustrate and overcome the “plans of the peoples”, rather than the other way around.

When Jesus said on the cross that “it is finished,”[1] His payment for our sins was complete.  He lived a perfect life in our place, so that He could be a perfect sacrifice and atone for all the sins of His people in all times and all places.  This was not a rough first draft, but the flawless consummation of God’s plan for salvation “to all generations.”  Jesus made no flawed choices for the sake of expedience, and His work can be trusted at all times.  Whatever you see in the news today, the Good News of the kingdom of heaven is more important, more trustworthy, and provides comfort for your soul.

His Story is the first draft, but it is also the only draft because none other is needed.  His Story needs no revision.

Therefore:
“Our soul waits for the LORD;
            he is our help and our shield.
For our heart is glad in him,
            because we trust in his holy name.
Let your steadfast love, O LORD, be upon us,
            even as we hope in you.” – Psalm 33:20-22

[1] John 19:30

Praying for Our Leaders

Todd R 1 Comment

King David was known as a man who sought God’s will in all things, even though he often failed.  The Psalms record many of his prayers for God to guide him and make him a good leader.  Psalm 26 is one of these prayers, and verses 8-10 include good objectives for any leader:

“O LORD, I love the habitation of your house
            and the place where your glory dwells.
Do not sweep my soul away with sinners,
            nor my life with bloodthirsty men,
in whose hands are evil devices,
            and whose right hands are full of bribes.”

Sometimes we may not know how to pray “for kings and all who are in high positions,”[1] as Paul suggests, but in this cry to God, David gives us at least 3 things to pray about.  He lists qualities he wanted to pursue, and some he wanted to avoid, but which are good for any leader.  Therefore, on the model of Psalm 26, we can pray for the leaders of our countries and communities today.

We can pray for political leaders who:

  • worship God (who “love the habitation of your house”)
  • do not seek violence and vengeance (who are not “bloodthirsty men”), and
  • are not corrupted by money (whose hands are not “full of bribes”)

All leaders can use our prayers today!

[1] 1 Timothy 2:2

The Tribulation of the Cross, Part 1

Todd R 1 Comment

Do you ever get so frustrated with the world that you just want to check out?  I certainly do.  For example, as a blogger who posts to both Facebook and on WordPress, for me it is a lot easier to keep up with WordPress, since I can choose to see only what I want to see.  Facebook, on the other hand, exists to sell advertising and sometimes the best advertising is the kind that sparks emotion – even (or especially) bad emotions.

While Facebook is great for keeping up with friends and family, it recently started adding a ton of posts with statements like “The time is coming when good people will have to do bad things to very bad people,” along with other sarcastic, angry, and bitter political posts.  After a few days they must have tweaked their method again, and most of these went away.  Like many, I like to have my comfortable space where I’m in control, and I didn’t want to be on Facebook while knowing they were trying (and, sadly, succeeding) at manipulating my emotions.  I started feeling sarcastic, angry, and bitter, which was by their design.  Sometimes I ask myself why I am even there?

Some surprising advice comes in Philippians 2:6-8, where Paul writes about Jesus that, “though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.  And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”  In times when I want to check out from the uncomfortable parts of living in this world, these verses remind me that Jesus, as God, might have taken an attitude of preferring to stay in a comfortable space where He could be in control, but instead He jumped into the mess that is this world we see every day to show the world what love is.

Another verse that calls this to mind is the familiar John 3:16 – “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”

When I’m struggling to face the world as I see it, I ask about John 3:16, “Exactly which world did Jesus love enough to die for?”  The answer is this one.  The world He died for is the one where sex, anger, bitter tribalism, and political partisanship sells.  The one with a lot of sarcastic, angry, and bitter people.  The one with a lot of people who are more like us than we’d usually like to admit.  The one where it’s easy for our love to grow cold if we focus on the problems, and not on the cross, where God took the punishment for all of it.

To be continued tomorrow…

He Who Sits in the Heavens Laughs

Todd R 3 Comments

Are you frustrated with politics?  Maybe the politicians you prefer are not currently in power and you are disappointed or angry.  Maybe you are just tired of political divisiveness.  Maybe you are tired of the 24/7 barrage of bad news online and on TV.  There are many ways politics can be draining and rob us of peace and joy, and a lot of it seems very un-Christlike.

One of my favorite Bible passages to read when I feel this way is Psalm 2, which begins with these verses (1-3):

“Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain?
The kings of the earth set themselves,
and the rulers take counsel together,
            against the LORD and against his Anointed, saying,
Let us burst their bonds apart
            and cast away their cords from us”

The Psalm refers to the rebellion of nations, peoples, kings, and rulers against the “bonds” and “cords” of “the Lord” and “his Anointed”, or God the Father and God the Son.  All nations have always been rivals, not just with each other, but also with the kingdom of God.  Within nations, political parties also have fierce rivalries.

The ultimate example of the nations’ rebellion is referenced when the first two verses from the Psalm are quoted in Acts 4:25-26, followed by: “for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand and our plan had predestined to take place.”  The crucifixion of Jesus was the result of a massive conspiracy, including possibly six separate trials by both Jewish and Roman authorities.  The Jews hated Him because He was not the political messiah that would lead an insurrection against Rome.  The Romans, led by Pilate, answered the call to crucify Him, to avoid a Jewish riot that would result in their punishment or removal by higher Roman authorities.  So Jesus, who was not guilty of what He was charged with and also is the only human to never participate in insurrection against His Father, was crucified and died.

Jesus was a threat to Jewish and Roman authority and had to go, and they literally succeeded in killing God.  Brutally.  Imagine if you saw that on the news.  There’s nothing worse than this on today’s news or happening in the world today.  But then Psalm 2:4 tells us:

“He who sits in the heavens laughs;
the Lord holds them in derision.”

A Surprising Victory

Surprising even His followers, on the third day, Jesus was resurrected from the dead, and after a few weeks, was raised “far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come.”  (Ephesians 1:21).  This Jesus is the one laughing in heaven, and He can laugh because He knows any and all nations are no threat to Him and His kingdom.

All rulers and nations opposed to God are doomed to fail, because even killing God was not good enough to keep Him down.  Jesus laughs because He knows His plan will work.  In Matthew 16:18, Jesus told Peter that “I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”

In Acts 4 above, Peter and John quote Psalm 2 after they were released by the religious rulers of Jerusalem, and they testify that Jesus’ enemies only do “whatever your hand and our plan had predestined to take place.”  Peter and John were eyewitnesses to the resurrected Jesus and knew that all the powers of the world could not keep Him down.  They knew that Jesus was exalted and laughing at any opposition to Him, and therefore, to them.  They rejoiced that the same God who had resurrected Jesus had freed them from prison!

Therefore, take comfort that Jesus, knowing all the evil and rebellion of the world that we may feel threatened by or anxious about, laughs.  All who challenge God are ultimately powerless even if they once “succeeded” in killing Him.

“He who sits in the heavens laughs” reminds us that Jesus is laughing with supreme confidence at whatever political mess we find ourselves in – He is not threatened, and He is in charge.  We can trust Jesus, our King laughing in heaven, who says: “I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.  My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.” – John 10:28-29.

Amen

The Love of a Good Samaritan

Todd R 1 Comment

The parable of the Good Samaritan is well-known, even by those who aren’t Christian.  Briefly, it goes like this: a man is robbed, beaten, and left for dead on the side of a road.  First a priest, and then a Levite, passed him by.  But a Samaritan, a member of a group despised by many Jews, stopped and helped the man, getting him to help and paying the necessary expenses.

Jesus told the parable in response to a man who said to inherit eternal life, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.”[1]  But then “desiring to justify himself,” he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”  He was looking for loopholes, for people he did not need to love.

Now, there are multiple words in New Testament Greek that translate as “love” in our English Bibles, and the love being discussed in this parable is agape love.  This love is a self-sacrificial love that puts the interests of others above the interests of self, even if those others don’t love you.  Agape motivates acts of benevolence or charity and is epitomized by the cross.

So, why did the priest and the Levite not love the man left on the side of the road?  These men were very religious and should have been interested in doing the right thing according to God.

It could have been that if the man actually looked dead, or would be soon, they didn’t want to risk becoming ceremonially “unclean.”  Numbers 19:11-13 says:

“Whoever touches the dead body of any person shall be unclean seven days.  He shall cleanse himself with the water on the third day and on the seventh day, and so be clean. But if he does not cleanse himself on the third day and on the seventh day, he will not become clean.  Whoever touches a dead person, the body of anyone who has died, and does not cleanse himself, defiles the tabernacle of the LORD, and that person shall be cut off from Israel; because the water for impurity was not thrown on him, he shall be unclean. His uncleanness is still on him.”

The last thing they may have wanted to do was defile the Temple, or to be kept away from worship for seven whole days.  They had to keep up appearances after all.

It might have been that they just didn’t consider the man to be their neighbor, or a member of their “tribe”.  The Reformation Study Bible notes that “First-century Jews had various ideas about who was included in the category of ‘neighbor,’ whether marking its boundaries by community or clan affinities or by religious party affiliation (a Pharisee’s neighbors would be other Pharisees). Yet at its widest extent, the circle of “neighbors” was confined to Israel.”  Tribalism was alive and well in ancient Israel, and neither Samaritans nor near-dead men in need of help belonged.

In either case, they passed by the person because they had rules that told them it was ok to desert him.  These rules may have been faulty applications of Scripture, or just cultural rules, but the rules resulted in situations where it was preferred to not love someone, even in very desperate need.

A lesson Jesus wanted us to take from the parable is that the person who loves whoever needs love, even if they are a Samaritan or from a different “tribe” than ours, is the one who will inherit eternal life.  We don’t get to decide who is our neighbor, and therefore who to love.

American culture is increasingly condemning any rules restricting who we should have erotic love (Greek eros) for, but it is also increasingly welcoming of rules limiting who we should have sacrificial love (agape) for.  American culture is also increasingly permissive of hate toward people in other political parties or those who don’t think the same way about issues.  We are getting better at identifying our enemies, while getting worse at loving them.

However, from the story of the Good Samaritan, Jesus makes clear that any rules that tell us when it ok to ignore agape love are bad rules.  In true righteousness, Jesus would rather die on the cross than leave a man stranded on the side of the road to follow some rule.  Jesus was the only one who could live a perfect life of live, but He also said, “Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.”[2] Therefore, show agape love to your neighbor, no matter who they are.  Be the good neighbor.  And when (not if) you can’t, trust in God’s mercy and his love for you, which never fails.

[1] Luke 10:27
[2] Luke 14:27