Kiss the Son

Yesterday the Church began the season of Epiphany. The season’s start is marked by the Magi, in all their worldly wealth and power, bowing at the feet of Jesus, the King of kings. These were pagans whose desire for truth lead them out of idolatry into an intimate encounter with the true God of the universe. 

Yesterday the Church also joined the watching world in observing, and grieving, the opposite movement—not a forsaking of idolatry, but a further descent into idolatry. The deplorable chaos and violence that scarred our capital was a symptom of a deeper, spiritual chaos and violence. It arose within people whose hearts have made idols out of things like tribal power, a political person or party, or the white race. 

Psalm 2 opens with a question: “Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain?” (1). The answer is given: Because they rebel against God and His King. Then God speaks: “As for me, I have set my King on Zion, my holy hill” (6). The Psalmist concludes: “Now therefore, O kings, be wise; be warned, O rulers of the earth. Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him” (10-12). 

It may sound absurd to some modern people that the Bible attributes the raging chaos of the nations to idolatry – a refusal to bend the knee and kiss Christ the Son. But it does. Why? Because the rage of the world is a spiritual sickness, one that will go on raging until we find blessed refuge in the King of kings who conquers nations with peace from the inside out, heart by heart. 

As grievous as yesterday’s events were, our judgement might be slightly restrained by a recognition that those perpetrating them are more like you and I than we care to admit. We, too, harbor idols that lash out when they are threatened. How to diagnose your own idols? Ask yourself: What causes you to swing way beyond the boundaries of the teachings of Jesus? As one pastor I know summarized:  

When we find ourselves acting or speaking in a way that violates the way of Jesus and biblical teaching (which is not hard to say about yesterday’s riot, starting with voluminous cursing of the police), we are elevating someTHING or someONE higher than the LORD in our affections, and attempting to get it by means other than His.[1] 

As we pray for our nation and her deep divisions, I pray that at Church of the Advent, this Epiphany we would be marked by the Magi’s road – walking away from our idols and finding ourselves gathered with all our gifts bowed at Jesus’s feet. Kiss the Son! There is your blessed refuge. 

God’s peace,

Jordan+

[1] https://mikemoses.typepad.com/purple_pastor/2021/01/violence-in-our-capitol-pastor-mike-to-lfc-huntersville.html