July 11, 2016
Chaos burns bridges… and builds platforms.
We’ve had chaos this week, in downtown Dallas. Blocks from the place where John F. Kennedy was shot, 53 years ago, another lone sniper has incited chaos and conflict across a country that is already polarized because of politics and policing.
Bridges are burning; people have stopped talking and started shouting. Opposing positions are becoming hardened, and the light has been extinguished in the darkness of mistrust and malice.
But, platforms are hastily constructed… and gadfly celebrities are drawn to the cause célébre, offering their biases in the guise of wisdom.
One of the chants offered by some of the marching mobs today is telling: “No justice; no peace.” The Martin Luther King, Jr. era of peaceful protest has passed over the horizon of history; today, the intractable demand assumes that unless the angry crowd gets its demands – fueled by the first-video-on-Facebook-wins phenomenon – the violence will begin.
Nationwide unrest is not a modern malady; it’s been around, as long as power has been misused. The people of Israel were living in oppressive circumstances, and their pushback had been long suppressed by the “cops” – the Roman military enforcers who had become part of their life sentence – in a country that had become a penal colony under a succession of Caesars who saw the Jews as inferior chattel.
When you have unjust oppression in the prison of life with no possibility of parole, you’re looking for a Savior. There’s the backdrop for this amazing introduction:
“Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside. He was teaching in their synagogues, and everyone praised him. He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written: ‘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.’ Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. He began by saying to them, ‘Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.’” (Luke 4:14-21)
Transport yourself back about 1980 years, and grab a clipboard. Park in a public place – anywhere around Israel – and take a survey: ask people how they’re doing with their current government situation, and its affects on their daily life. “No justice; no peace” may not have been their catch phrase, but the sentiment would have been there, just below their rage…
Jesus was sent to the worst of situations, with the promise of peace that was not dependent on “justice” (where, exactly, do you find that, in a fallen world?). Justice is fleeting; peace is everlasting.
His message: what you really need is a personal solution, between you and God. Find good news – the Gospel – in a bad news world. Break out of the prison of ideas in which most people rot and die. Get eyes that can see truth, in a world full of blind victims. Live free from the oppression that most people just accept… and hear God’s approval and favor above the screams of the multitude.
Find a platform, and announce God’s continuing solution. America needs us to do that…
Bob Shank