Day 3 • The Week of Hope

Scripture Readings:
Psalm 79
Micah 4:6-13
Revelation 18:1-10

Our world loves the strong and powerful. So much of our entertainment and the stories we love revolves around a mighty warrior or a powerful hero conquering anything in their path in their quest for victory. Even most “underdog” narratives are centered on the use of strength and power to achieve the grand finale. Our world loves the strong and powerful.

At times throughout history, and even in our own time today, Christianity has fallen in love with the strong and powerful. We exchange saints, who put God and neighbor at the center of their own stories, for heroes who are the center of their story and our story. When this exchange happens with Jesus, we begin to see him as the hero of the Bible pursuing his own victory rather than the revelation of a God who prefers to place the cause of the poor, the powerless, and the oppressed at the center of God’s kingdom. With this exchange complete, we envision Jesus as having more in common with Alexander the Great than with Mother Theresa.

This narrative of the “strongman” Jesus then causes us to advocate for the strong and powerful in our world, even over and above the poor and powerless. We look for politicians and leaders who will bring victory for us rather than search for others who also want to defend the cause of the most vulnerable. What is more, we even begin to measure our own self-worth by what these categories of strong and powerful.

In Micah 4:6-7 (MSG), God says, “On that great day, “I will round up all the hurt and homeless, everyone I have bruised or banished. I will transform the battered into a company of the elite. I will make a strong nation out of the long lost, a showcase exhibit of God’s rule in action, as I rule from Mount Zion, from here to eternity.” This paints a powerful picture of God’s way of bringing about the kingdom in this world. It is not through mighty warriors or powerful heroes but through the bruised, the banished, the hurt, and the homeless. Not only is this theme all throughout our readings for today, but it is also central to Christ’s earthly ministry. God loves the poor and the powerless.

Paul put it this way, “But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong (1 Cor 1:27). Like ushering in salvation through a prince who rides a donkey into town rather than a warhorse and who took up a cross rather than a sword. Who gathered the poor and the sick rather than a military brigade and who would rather die for his enemies than kill them. This is just total foolishness according to the world’s definition of strength and power, but it is the way of God’s victory.

When we miss this, we not only risk missing how God is already at work among the poor and the vulnerable towards reconciliation, but we risk trying to bring the ways of God through the ways of force the world so often sees as strong. If the Christmas story is any indication of God’s way of power, beginning in a peasant’s manger rather than an emperor’s throne, one thing is certain: we can easily miss the power of God when we are looking for it in the ways we have been told to define power.

Reflection Steps:

How do you define power and strength? An easy way to answer this question is to write out a list of people you admire. What picture of strength and power do these individuals give you? Where would you place them on a scale between Rmabo and Mr. Rogers? Put another way, how did they display power in this world by forcing their own way or by lifting others up? After thinking on this for a while, take a few moments to then consider how you display power. Have you been told that you are weak because you’re sensitive and in tune with your emotions? Or have you been called bossy simply because you are clear and direct? In what ways have you been told to conform to certain acceptable standards of power? In what ways have you not been allowed to express yourself because you weren’t accepted as powerful? As you ponder all this, contrast your answers with how you see God's defining power in the Christmas story.