Across the Pastor’s Desk by Don Rose

 

Though this may come as a surprise and a revelation to some, the last — the only — hope for Christians in the United States, and throughout the world for that matter, is Jesus the Christ. To suggest otherwise is to promote idolatry, and though idolatry has its appeal, it is never the good news of God’s love revealed in the one and only savior.

Even the Bible itself can become idolatrous when it is venerated more than the one to which it is called to witness.

Part of this confusion comes from the recognition that though the Bible continues to be a perennial best seller in its many forms and translations, it continues to be one of the least read and understood of all books. Biblical illiteracy is rampant in a nation in which the Bible is available to anyone who desires one.

To have a Bible on the shelf or on the coffee table does not make an individual a student of the Bible. To be able to quote isolated passages of scripture, often taken out of context, does not make one a Bible scholar or authority.

To study the Bible is to know that the god of Christianity is not a god of any one particular group of people or geographical location. This is the god of all creation, of all nations and peoples.

To study the Bible is to know that all people have sinned and fall short of the glory of God as the Apostle Paul wrote.

To study the Bible to know that no one is more worthy or deserving in God’s eyes than anyone else.

To study the Bible is to know that God loves the whole world, even those who do not recognize or believe in God.

To study the Bible is to hear God’s word of love for all people, not for a select few.

To study the Bible is to know the story of God’s desire for a different way of doing things than the human forms to which people cling so dearly.

To study the Bible is to know that God gives value and worth, particularly to those whom the world has declared to be worthless.

To study the Bible is to know that God calls humanity to a new and different way of being as it lives into the promise of the fulfillment of the reality of the kingdom of God.

Now, as throughout the ages, help for God’s people is not to be found in any one human being, nation, institution or economic system. As God’s people have witnessed throughout the ages, help comes in the name of the Lord. The hope of God’s people rests in the faithfulness of God. God promises to be present. God promises receive and to welcome. God promises to renew. Christians believe God has most clearly revealed God’s self and God’s purpose in the Incarnate One. Therein lies the only hope for people everywhere.

Don Rose is the pastor of Mansfield Lutheran Church in Alden and United Lutheran Church in Walters.