You have real freedom through the gospel of Jesus Christ, a freedom that doesn’t rest on founders, votes, or power plays.
Regarding politics, people tend to look one of two ways: to the past or present, to bring back the good old days, or to usher in a grand new age. The present, along with my immediate neighbor, often gets forgotten in all this. The here-and-now becomes little more than lament and battleground.
God’s people in the Old Testament knew what it was to be cut off from the past and pine for the future. God wouldn’t let them get lost in either, however. He wanted them to remember, he wanted them to hope, but he also wanted them to live. Through Jeremiah, the LORD told those who would soon be in exile:
Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare (Jer. 29:5-7).
As citizens of two kingdoms, as those who long for heaven yet dwell now on earth, we can often feel like exiles, and we do well to take the Lord’s advice to heart. We do well to seek the good of our nation, but we should also never forget that God came into history to save us for more than the here and now.
In John 18, John shows us Jesus, the fulfillment of all the promises of old, on trial for his work as our Savior to give us a future. He stands condemned by the church, now at the mercy of the state. He does so silently and passively, disturbingly so. Most of the heroes of our novels, movies, and songs are warriors. They fight force with force, power with power. What, then, should we make of our Lord Jesus? This confounded the ancients as it still confounds us.
For these and for us, he set aside his power for the sake of love. He exercised his freedom in service.
The Corinthian congregation had an unfortunate obsession with power and status. To them, St. Paul, the chief of sinners, so often persecuted for his faith, honest in his humble assessment of his gifts, wrote, “[Christ] is not weak in dealing with you, but is powerful among you. For he was crucified in weakness, but lives by the power of God. For we also are weak in him, but in dealing with you we will live with him by the power of God” (2 Cor. 13:3-4).
When anyone else would have folded, when anyone else would have left us to our own dark fate in hell, Christ stood his ground and received an unjust verdict. He didn’t fight back because he was fighting the most important fight of all history. He stood there and took it to save the very ones who sought his death, the very human race that had ruined his Father’s creation, those born in fallen enmity toward him. For these and for us, he set aside his power for the sake of love. He exercised his freedom in service.
We are dual citizens: we are born citizens of an earthly kingdom and born again as citizens of a heavenly one. We live in both, here and now. Like Christ, though, we are called to prioritize love over power and exercise freedom for service. Why? Because you have what you need. You have the past fulfilled. You have the future promised. And you have a present that is all gift and grace, which makes you a gift and grace to others. You have real freedom through the gospel of Jesus Christ, a freedom that doesn’t rest on founders, votes, or power plays. You have a freedom that casts out fear and gives you back the moment. In Christ, you have a power to use for your neighbor and not against him or her, whomever he or she may be, and a strength made perfect in weakness in our meek and gentle Christ.
God has blessed us. God does bless us. God will bless us. He does all this in Christ, the Christ we see before us today, accused for our innocence, condemned for our pardon, afflicted for our peace. Whether it’s an election year or not, that is the church’s past, present, and future: strength in weakness, service in freedom, and all in love in Christ. Amen.
