King of Kings

         It sometimes doesn't feel all that much like it, but we win in the end, those of us who love Jesus, express that love with others openly, and believe he was raised from the dead.

The author of the letter to the Philippians said it this way: “Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

What is hard to understand about that?

Those who persevere will be rewarded with the most wonderful extension into eternal life. There is nothing that is hard to understand about those statements.

But believing them…

Allowing that belief to seep through us into the joy that should accompany that belief seems to be hard, very hard.

Let’s look at what Evangelical America, which can be broken down as White Protestant America, has fought in some small and some large ways about and lost to an advancing culture in the past, oh, 30 years or so.

They fight about racism, xenophobia, and bigotry, about Islam and about same-sex marriage. Earlier it was communism and Playboys in 7-11’s. Before that it was stopping the Equal Rights Amendment. Before that it was Blue Laws on Sundays. Further back, it was the dangers of Catholicism, secret societies, or alcohol. Don’t even think about dancing, either. 

We fought within our own structures, and we fought others who were on the “other” side of whatever the argument was.

But never, and I really mean never, have the disagreements been so personal and hateful and often.

Why? Social media, particularly Facebook.

I didn’t participate last Friday, the day after the shootings in Dallas, because I knew what was coming and wanted to have no part in in.

Look, I know no one makes us read everything posted, but some were so terrible I couldn’t help myself.

Just as an example, a cop in Overland, Kansas was fired after posting a threatening message on the Facebook page of a Dallas women.

Hate spewed on both sides all day.

And yet somehow President Obama says we are not as far apart as we think we are in this country.

I could not possibly disagree more. I think we’ve never been farther apart.

But I also think one day we will be drawn together, and some will bow whom have never bowed before the King of Kings.