I remember once when I had been giving a talk to the R.A.F., an old, hard-bitten officer got up and said, ‘I’ve no use for all that stuff. But, mind you, I’m a religious man too. I know there’s a God. I’ve felt Him: out alone in the desert at night: the tremendous mystery. And that’s just why I don’t believe all your neat little dogmas and formulas about Him. To anyone who’s met the real thing they all seem so petty and pedantic and unreal!’…Now in a sense I quite agreed with that man. I think he had probably had a real experience of God in the desert. And when he turned from that experience to the Christian creeds, I think he really was turning from something real to something less real. In the same way, if a man has once looked at the Atlantic from the beach, and then goes and looks at a map of the Atlantic, he also will be turning from something real to something less real: turning from real waves to a bit of coloured paper. But here comes the point. The map is admittedly only coloured paper, but there are two things you have to remember about it. In the first place, it is based on what hundreds and thousands of people have found out by sailing the real Atlantic. In that way it has behind it masses of experience just as real as the one you could have from the beach; only, while yours would be a single glimpse, the map fits all those different experiences together. In the second place, if you want to go anywhere, the map is absolutely necessary. As long as you are content with walks on the beach, your own glimpses are far more fun than looking at a map. But the map is going to be more use than walks on the beach if you want to get to America.
~ CS Lewis, Mere Christianity
Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by Him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good. For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God. Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor. Servants, be subject to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle but also to the unjust. For this is a gracious thing, when, mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly. For what credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God. For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in His steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in His mouth. When He was reviled, He did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but continued entrusting Himself to Him who judges justly. He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By His wounds you have been healed. For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.
~ The Rock, in 1 Peter 2
Oh beloved, it is true.
The world seems like it is real. And to a certain extent, it is. But to think that the systems used to keep things going, are all that there is – is to make a terrible mistake. But, it is difficult to see beyond what we see with our eyes and touch with our hands.
External influences are nearly impossible to disregard, unless we go into some irrational revolution against them. Seems the going with them spoils us to flatness and becoming part of the machine. But just the same, it seems that going into a revolution against the gears of politics gets us dismissed or killed. George Orwell had it nearly right, in 1984.
Welcome to the conundrum of the middle age of this fool of a writer. We really want to try and think that getting things right on this plane, will make things right overall. But, it is just not true.
Can we see it?
For many of us, we sense the despair that comes from putting our hope in the horses or chariots of politics. Some of this despair is what drove me deeper into my spiritual walk. And it was actually in going down through this despair, that I found something completely other.
It was here that I found the power for good and change for which I had been looking…
In the past, I thought that my newfound relationship with Jesus was just going to be a way to escape my addiction. This was true, but He is so much more. He was the Reality behind the most lofty goals of any human endeavor.
I found Jesus to be the most (at the same time) revolutionary and unifying force I had ever encountered. Everything about the way He did things was so backwards to the thinking of the day (and even our day). A gentle Man, who didn’t even bruise the reeds He walked past by the water’s edge, crushed the pillars of two major world systems through His Life, Death, Resurrection, Ascension, and the descent of His Holy Spirit into those who would simply trust Him and obey His call.
Further, this same Jesus, crushed another whole system that we cannot even see with our physical eyes. He triumphed over every accusation against each of us, and put all this demonic rambling to open shame through the shame of His death. Basically, Jesus kicked the Devil’s ass so bad, that he will never recover or stand against the work He (Jesus) is doing in and through His beloved friends now alive on this earth.
So yes, everything here is so full of logical fallacies that I would be laughed out of a philosophy forum. But, there you have it. Because of just one truth, actually The Truth, we see the systems of this world for what they are. They are necessary. But they are not enough.
Tonight is your night, beloved. Time to put your hope in something other than politics.
The hope of the nation is not in its forms of government, not in the wisdom and equity of its executive, nor in the justice and purity of its administration, so much as in the elevation and redemption of individual character among its people.
~Bishop Henry Codman Potter (1834-1908)
As I wrote this entry, I remembered a brother who wrote a great little book, “King – The Subversive Life and Death of Jesus,” by Jeff Cook. Look it up on Amazon.
