Author’s Note: Here’s the basic format I’m going to adopt for these devotionals. The Revised Common Lectionary (RCL) has a Daily Lectionary that assigns Scripture readings to each day of the church year. Each week, I’ll be perusing those texts to select one I find intriguing or inspiring or challenging to share with you. It may be the Tuesday texts, the Saturday texts, or perhaps even one of the Sunday texts that I didn’t preach on. (If you’re curious about the Sunday text I did preach on, you’ll have my sermon manuscript posted here for that.)
I find a certain irony in having Psalm 52 as one of the lectionary texts this week. A polemical psalm, a hostile psalm that carries a dire warning to people of wealth, power, and strength. And yet here we are in the midst of campaign season. Already this week, two more have thrown their hat into the ring for the upcoming Presidential election, two more into an already crowded field of candidates of both parties, all vying for the position of “leader of the free world.” Each one of them, without exception, is a person of wealth, power, and strength.
This was four years ago, a crowded field then against a sitting incumbent. This time the field is even more wide open.
We are political animals and it is very easy for us to place high expectations on our favored candidate, to place hope in their hands that they will make our nation better and stronger. We’ve seen this before and we’ll see it again. Our current President was lauded into office as something akin to the Second Coming by his supporters. More conservative pundits are almost frantic in their search for a new Ronald Reagan. But what gets lost in the midst of the hype is the recognition that these people, whatever their political positions and beliefs, are still human beings. They are as prone to error or greatness as much as any of us and the more we place them on a pedestal, the more likely they will disappoint.
The grand vision of a new world that John of Patmos witnesses in Revelation is not something that will come about of human effort. Human limitations and sin would never allow such an idyllic future from coming to pass. We’re too disagreeable, too flawed, too human to create that perfect world, no matter what our political ideologies or idealism. It takes a God that is beyond our human limitations and human divisions to create such a world.
But that is what we have. As the weeks pass, each of those very human political candidates will outline their vision for America’s future. God, however, has already shown us his vision of the world’s future. There’s a big difference. The candidate who wins may still never see his or her vision come to pass. But God’s vision will come to pass, since what is required to bring it about has already been done through Christ’s death and resurrection. “It is finished” Jesus declared from the cross. That idyllic world has been won. All that’s left really is the wait.
Whatever happens in our world and in our nation over the coming months and years will not change what God has done. Come November 2016, we may find ourselves delighted or disappointed with our new human leaders, convinced of a future glory or catastrophe. But beyond even our most hyperbolic hopes and fears, there is a far greater future. The one God has ordained for his world and for us. His vision, a vision of peace and love, a world where there are no more tears, no more division, no more pain, and no more sorrow. All won through Christ. Amen.
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