Sure, Saul was tall and charismatic and popular. So were a lot of Israel's kings, no doubt. But God warned the people that their kings would look out for themselves first and their friends second; that they would raise taxes higher and higher; that their administrations would balloon out of control.
Sound familiar? It should. This is what happens with human rulers. Even now, even here in the United States, where our form of government is far more free than that of other nations. This is what happens.
I haven't been watching political ads much this year. They used to make me angry, but this year they make my heart ache. Every ad promises that a better life hinges on which candidate you vote for. Every ad promises change. Every ad promises more than any human being has a right to promise, let alone the ability to follow through on.
Every ad sounds like offering cosmetic surgery to cancer patients.
John McCain may be able to keep the troops in Iraq, but he will not be able to stop terrorism. Barack Obama may be able to change your health care plan, but he will not be able to keep you healthy. They are right: we need change. They are wrong about the kind of change we need most.
No matter who is elected on Tuesday, on Wednesday morning there will be people who wake up hating each other. There will be people who wake up with physical illnesses, people who wake up apathetic about their jobs, concerned about their relationships, afraid of what will happen to them in this economy. People with, at the ground level, the same concerns that people had back in the founding days of the United States. Or in the founding days of the nation of Israel, for that matter.
Who is going to protect us? Who is going to look out for us? Who is going to make us look good to everybody else?
Two thousand years ago, along came this blue collar worker from a backwoods town, with no ad campaign to speak of except for some guy dressed in camel skins. He didn't address the problems people brought to him, he told them they only really had one problem.
Our problem isn't that we don't look good enough. We don't need nose jobs or tummy tucks. Our problem is that we are not good enough. Like cancer, which turns the body's cells against themselves, our very selves are operating at odds to the way they are meant to operate. (It is said that, when asked to write an essay on what was wrong with the world, G.K. Chesterton replied, "I am.")
We stand guilty before God of violating our purposes. Our hearts need to be changed. And only God can do it...so it's a good thing he's already offered: "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh" (Exodus 36:26).
There is only one physician capable of this kind of heart transplant, and of cleansing us of the cancer of self-righteousness. The only conditions? That we acknowledge that we can't do it ourselves and that we ask him to do it for us. That we stop trying on our own and do it his way. It isn't painless; no surgery is. But there's no other cure.
If you'd rather opt for cosmetic change, there is no end to your options. Two men and their running mates have been throwing some of those at you for months now.
"The kingdom of God has come to you," the blue collar worker named Jesus said (Luke 11:20). And this kingdom is about power, not fancy speeches (I Cor. 4:20).
I'm so tired of fancy speeches.
2 comments:
Well said. Our pastor keeps telling the story in church, that in Jesus' day people were freaked out about Caesar and his power, and how the average person now knows very little about him. Earthly kingdoms come and go, and really matter very little in God's plans. Anyone who thinks Barack Obama or John McCain is going to save the world and change the course of human history is sorely mistaken.
So much is so well said in these few paragraphs ... both a blessing and a challenge to read. I feel thankful I can just click on a link to your blog and listen to your heart. You are a gifted communicator, Suz.
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