Like much of the world, I watched the events that unfolded in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday evening and struggled to identify (much less manage) a powerful mix of emotional responses.
Now I find myself endlessly repeating two questions:
“What did that mean?”
“What happens next?”
Meaning
Meaning almost always requires context. But what context exists for what just happened?
The extent of property destruction and the number of lives lost on Wednesday cannot begin to compare to what / who was lost on 9/11. Nor can it compare to the devastation meted out on 12/7/1941 at Pearl Harbor. But those infamous dates in recent history are the closest I can come to context for Wednesday’s events. Shock, revulsion, the sense of a massive-scale violation of something precious… enough common ground to connect the dates.
Historic Perspective
But here’s where context provides clarifying perspective: 9/11 and Pearl Harbor are remembered as days when Americans were attacked without provocation by foreign entities bent solely on destruction of America and Americans. But 1/6/2021 was the day on which Americans – encouraged by their President – attacked their fellow Americans and the very institutions and processes that constitute “American-ness.”
Further, Pearl Harbor and 9/11, tragic and horrific as they were, became rallying points for the nation. Citizens united – praying and caring for one another, determining to persist in national courage, rallying resources to defend against a common enemy. How could such uniting be possible now (even without Covid), when the “enemy” is our fellow Americans?
Competing Agendas
Explanations of the attack on the Capitol as an inevitable outcome of years of divisive polemic – or, as the byproduct of months of official accommodation of lawlessness – are both true. And both incomplete.
Yes, the fomenting of conspiracy theories and encouragement of sedition helped create chaos; and yes, recent accommodation of lawlessness and systematic “erasing” of history did likewise. But neither (partisan) perspective offers any actionable insight. And contrary to current cultural fashion, “blame” has never and can never be a satisfying goal.
A Prophetic Vision
E.D. Hirsch’s book “How to Educate a Citizen: the Power of Shared Knowledge to Unify a Nation” was published in September of 2020. In it, Hirsch argues that, absent a national curriculum that creates a common culture of understanding and appreciation for American history and government, we are doomed to sub-divide into ever more disparate silos of self-interest. Tribalism – and all the hostilities it foments – is the default of a diverse population, Hirsch argues. Without something beyond ourselves about which we agree to agree, we must devolve into ourselves and thereby disagree ad infinitum.
Hirsch’s argument (supported by reams of statistical evidence) suggests that what we saw played out on Wednesday in our capitol was the inevitable explosion occurring from the collision of fiercely held, mutually exclusive interpretations of “American values.” Indeed, Wednesday’s events elevate Hirsch’s words to the level of prophecy.
Next…?
As to what will happen next, context suggests there is more pain to come. Aftershocks follow earthquakes; poisonous ash falls after an eruption; wars followed Pearl Harbor and 9/11. We don’t know details about how 1/6/2021 will play out, but we do know the playing out will be hard and costly.
Another look
This blogsite is called “Why Jesus” and those words have special significance at times like this. Where, in this present mess of secular strife and murderously contradictory ideologies, does the “why” of Jesus matter?
Let’s start with a coincidence that introduces different context. The attack on the Capital occurred January 6th, which in the church calendar is the Feast of Epiphany and commemorates the visit of the Magi.
Remember the Magi? Wise, wealthy foreigners come from the East to pay homage to the infant Christ?
Pilgrimage
The Magi were visionary pilgrims who had to navigate vast distances of treacherous terrain in their determined pursuit of the one who was born “King of the Jews.”
The Magi are mysterious men, specifically not Jewish and not local but also specifically not anyone / anything specific. Even their names – Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazar – were assigned to them by much later Church tradition rather than given in scripture. Their national status, and the multiple boundaries between kingdoms they crossed in transit, simply don’t figure in their story. The Magi feature in scripture as the prototype of Christianity – people for whom the quest toward Christ, rather than ethnic or political or even family origin, is definitional.
Herod – the puppet king of Rome reigning in Judea, whose murderous megalomania meant no one was safe from him – tried to intervene and appropriate the Magi’s quest. Someone born “King of the Jews” constituted a threat to Herod’s positional power, at least in Herod’s paranoid imagination. He needed to know the whereabouts of the baby. He told the Magi as much.
How did they respond? They literally worked around him. No violence, no direct confrontation, no showdown of heavenly vs. earthly power – just the Magi worshiping the Christ child and heading home by a different road, one that circumnavigated Herod. (After their departure and the hasty escape to Egypt of the holy family, Herod responded in a classically worldly way to a perceived threat which he could not locate with precision: mass slaughter of local babies. The infant Jesus and the Magi escaped Herod, but the cost of corrupt power is always innocent blood.)
Freedom to follow
Seeing what happened on January 6th as those who are first and foremost followers of the One who was “born King of the Jews” frees us.
Yes, we must give our best to the building up of the nation to which we have been assigned by God; but we are able to do so as citizens of Heaven.
Under the Sovereign authority of the only perfect law, we are at liberty to love, to encourage, and to work toward an eternal future that is wholly, holy certain.
In the days and weeks ahead, as the events of 1/6/2021 continue to reverberate in headlines and heartaches, claiming citizenship in Christ, and purpose and commitment like the Magi, will steady us.
The apostle Paul, who spent much of his adult life at odds with both the religious and civic authorities around him, reminds us of our true identity and our real destination:
28 There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.
(Galatians 3:28)
9 Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have stripped off the old self with its practices 10 and have clothed yourselves with the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator. 11 In that renewal there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all!
(Colossians 3:9 – 11)
20 But our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.
(Philippians 3:20)
38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
(Romans 8:38 – 39)
