The other week I was at a big Christian music festival in our area. Between the artists they had different ads, prizes, etc. It was a hot summer day filled with all of the Christian marketing and materialism that I could handle... all those things that annoy me about the culture the western church has substituted for Christianity - but that’s another blog, so I’ll try to focus here.
“Let’s take this land back for Jesus!” I heard shouted after a state representative for Indiana was introduced. The representative then kept going on and on about voting and taking the land back for Jesus. She gave a rambling speech about how this is a Christian nation and by voting we could restore it to what it was supposed to be. “This is your nation so take it back,” she implored. I was confused - was it Jesus’ land or ours? In any case, I was unconvinced. She was obviously catering to the audience, but in her statements and in the indignant amens I heard in the crowd I heard something frighteningly familiar.
Jesus was often surrounded by a crowd of people who were shouting and trying to convince him to take the land of Israel. It was rightfully his, right? These lousy liberals....um I mean Romans, had taken over the land and it was the duty of the spiritual leaders to purge the country of the scourge of the foreign occupiers. The pagans.
But, Jesus didn’t do as they wished. In fact, he treated the Romans with respect and value just like everyone else. After he had resisted long enough, the people were willing to crucify him because he wasn’t fitting their understanding of the Messiah - both personally and politically.
Many of the Jews were so blinded by nationalism that they couldn’t accept the kingdom Jesus had come to usher and offer. A kingdom that wasn’t won with violence or furthered by exerting power over others. Jesus never forced his will on anyone. He taught that transformation in this kingdom didn’t come through external regulations and authority, but rather through an encounter with him that changes our hearts, and through his Spirit that gives us the ability to walk in his ways. The way of restoration and wholeness, of holiness and love. Humility and servanthood.
I think Jesus still resists cries to take over because it’s not in his nature. He is God. It is his world. But his ways don’t change, and his kingdom does not look like a kingdom of this world (no matter how great we think America is).
The kingdom of God always looks like Jesus. You can’t coerce it. You can’t vote it into power. It only comes in the way he came. It changes people the way he changed people, with power that no worldly government can wield and with humility, grace, and peace that no government wants.
If we say we follow him, then we need to be about the kingdom Jesus taught about.
