Sabbath Thought - Hope vs. Politics

Imagine yourself in Roman Palestine (Judea) in 29AD.  The nation was full of eager anticipation of the promised Messiah.  The prophecies of Daniel were well known and the timing of those prophecies clearly showed that the nation would soon see the Messiah.  Judea had gone through centuries of occupation and rule by other world powers.  For a brief time, the priestly family of the Maccabees had secured autonomy once again, but the Romans smashed any reality of Judea being an independent sovereign nation for the foreseeable future.  And yet the hope was that this promised Messiah would restore Judea as a nation.  With this focus then, almost the whole nation missed it when that very Messiah arrived.

Jesus Christ was not the Messiah they wanted to see.  Judea wanted a lion.  They wanted an individual who would throw off the Romans, who would be valiant in battles, who would rule as a king like they were familiar with.  Instead, Christ arrived as a lamb who would be lead to slaughter.  In spite of His preaching and teaching of God's Word and reveling the Father to them, they rejected Him as the cornerstone of something bigger God was now building.  We live in a very similar time now.

People look for a strong leader, but what that leader would look like is not universally agreed upon.  The attitude of this nation, and the world around us, is getting more acrimonious with each passing year.  While there has always been a degree of dislike and even vitriol in politics, at the end of the day there was still a level of civility and even unity as a nation.  That has been gone for some decades now, and the polarization and deep disagreements are tearing this nation apart.  Is a "messiah" even possible people will ask.

Added to all of this is a question that Nicodemus asked of Jesus Christ - "What is truth?"  He genuinely wanted to know, as do people today.  But, whom do we believe?  News outlets are owned by corporations and the primary goal is always to drive viewership in order to make money - not necessarily to tell the truth.  And so people fill in the gaps of what is going on in the world with opinion and personal theories.  What should we do?  What should be the perspective and outlook of God's people?

Our calling is a calling of hope!  Christ didn't come to unmask the wrong deeds of the leadership of that time.  He didn't come to address the grievances of the people of Judea.  He didn't come as a powerful leader to throw off the Romans and rule as a typical physical king.  He came as someone the populace of the day never expected.  He came to make possible a Kingdom that would not fail like every other kingdom has.  He came with a message - the Gospel - of the Kingdom of God!  Everything in God's Word points to this.

As the world begins to climb out of this COVID-19 crisis, it is anyone's guess what will change.  God's people are to be a people not driven by fear or to be caught up in the politics of the world around us.  God is working out His purpose even as most of the world is looking for something different.

Remember the hope God has given to His people.  Remember the hope that we can have trust and confidence in because we live and rehearse it in His Holy Days.

I wish you a very meaningful Sabbath and Holy Day,

Dan Dowd

29 May, 2020