Presence Weekly 5/28/2024

³⁵ And as Jesus taught in the temple, he said, “How can the scribes say that the Christ is the son of David? ³⁶ David himself, in the Holy Spirit, declared, 

“ ‘The LORD said to my Lord, 
sit at my right hand,
until I put your enemies under your feet.” ’ 

³⁷ David himself calls him Lord. So how is he his son?” And the great throng heard him gladly. Mark 12:35–37.

Yesterday was Memorial Day. I called my dad who served two tours in Vietnam. Of course, I also talk to him on Veteran’s Day to thank him for his service. But when I call on Memorial Day, it’s to tell him that I am sorry for the friends he lost in that war. He has three or four over which he still mourns their sacrifice. He had the opportunity to see their names on the Vietnam Memorial when he was here for an Honor Flight a few years ago but also says that he wishes that he knew what they died for. 

When Jesus asks, “How can the scribes say the Christ is the son of David,” he is asking a technical and theological question regarding how the scribes can say that the one anointed to deliver the people of God is the son of David. Certainly. With this question, Jesus is prophetically asking them to explode their idea of the king who will deliver them. He also asks them to consider the priest who will deliver them. Jesus’s use of Psalm 110 (from which the above verse is pulled) is brilliant because Psalm 110 fuses together the idea of a Davidic King with a Chief Priest. In verse 4 of Psalm 110, it says, “The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind, ‘You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.’” As the riddle unfolds, it becomes clear that this priest is the same as David’s lord. 

Notice that the Davidic king’s promise of an everlasting kingdom in Psalm 110 also includes a promise of an everlasting priest. But who is this dude, Melchizedek? He appears briefly in Genesis 14 to bless Abraham. Melchizedek was also King of Salem. This is important because to say that the promised king will come from the “order of Melchizedek” is to say he will not come from the line of Aaron (the brother of Moses) or the Levites – the primary priestly line of the Bible. In other words, the Everlasting Priest we need will end the line of Levite priests who run the sacrificial system and the temple. 

This idea would have gone down like a sideways Dorito with his present audience.

But Jesus is the Priest we need. The Old Testament sacrifices can not truly atone for our sins in a once-and-for-all way. That is why they went on and on and on for centuries. Jesus is the priest we need because he will not only offer the sacrifice, he will be the sacrifice. He will be the sacrifice to end all sacrifices. After that, there will be no need for the Levite priest or temple sacrifice. This act of once-and-for-all atonement is the action that brings true freedom and it is not clouded by indiscernible political motives weighted by popular opinion. 

Slavery is a concept that was well known in Scripture. The Israelites suffered under the chattel slavery of the Egyptians and imposed indentured servitude on others. Even in the time of Jesus, the Roman Empire utilized and benefited from the economy of slavery. Slavery, in all its forms, is counter to the flourishing of people created in the image of God. Slavery to anything truncates lives and does lasting damage to all who participate. That is especially true of slavery to sin and the shame that comes from it.

Now, it is possible to set someone free from slavery and yet have that freedom go unrecognized. Such is what often happened in the American South.

In the past decade, there have been two great movies about slavery. The first is Django Unchained, in which the slave Django is on a quest to reclaim his wife. At the beginning of his quest, his freedom is purchased by a traveling bounty hunter. Throughout the film, Django is asked to prove that he is legally free and that he has been purchased out of slavery. The other film is 12 Years A Slave. This is the true story of Samuel Northrop, a free man, who is lured into a trap and sold into slavery and then spends years waiting for someone to step forward and declare that he is actually legally free. Throughout both films, the main characters need someone to prove to others that they are, indeed, free. 

 Thankfully, Jesus is the priest we need because his sacrifice legally frees us from the penalty and slavery of sin and truly delivers us. But unlike Django and Samuel Northrop, we do not need Jesus to tell others we are free, we need him to tell us we are free – that we have been delivered. 

What this allows us to do is to check our baggage at the counter. But perhaps that is a bad metaphor. Jesus is the priest you need because he stands at the baggage counter and offers to take your bags from you but never intends to give them back. Most large airports have an unclaimed baggage area. So does Christianity. It’s called the cross. It’s where all of our (enslaving) baggage belongs. 

Perhaps you look at yourself and say, “I have been told things that have hurt me. I have done things that have hurt me and hurt others. How can I ever be free from that?” You can be free from that in Christ. That does not mean that the earthly penalty disappears or that the earthly implications go away entirely. But as we embrace Jesus as the priest we need, we can move forward in freedom. When we can do that, we can come into his courts with praise and thanksgiving in our hearts. To lift up holy hands in worship. We can do that because the priest you need has made a sacrifice that has met the legal requirements of the law. 

The public square has a way of bringing out the best and worst in people. It has a way of indebting people to others, sometimes out of shame. For others, life in the public square is all about trying to free ourselves from the voices in our heads who are making daily statements about our self-worth and value. Slavery, in other words, is a clear and present danger for many in Washington and the wider public square. 

Although Jesus never answers the question of how the Christ can be the Son of David, Jesus’s riddle is begging them to see that Jesus is the Christ (Prophet, Priest, and King) they need. Jesus the prophet did not come to offer advice, he came to offer the good news that we can be delivered and that real flourishing is possible. This is why Jesus is the prophet we need. Jesus the King did not come to bring about a nationalistic empire but to inaugurate the kingdom of God under his rule, to lead us into it, and to protect us from slavery again! This is why Jesus is the king we need. Jesus the priest did not come to continue the sacrifices that reflected the ongoing bondage to sin but to offer the final sacrifice that frees us and sets us free for real worship. This is why Jesus is the priest we need. 

 Today this earth is filled with people who need to be delivered, people who are being delivered, and people who will be delivered. But that delivery will only come through the Jesus we need. My prayer is that the Jesus we need will become the Jesus we want. 

Not only in an election year - but always.

• Monday: Morning: Job 1, James 1, Psalm 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125 // Evening: Job 2, Mark 1:14-31, Psalm 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125
• Tuesday: Morning: Job 3, James 2:1-13, Psalm 132, 133, 134, 135 // Evening: Job 4, Mark 1:32-45, Psalm 132, 133, 134, 135
• Wednesday: Morning: Job 5, James 2:14-26, Psalm 139, 140 // Evening: Job 6, Mark 2:1-22, Psalm 139, 140
• Thursday: Morning: Job 7, James 3, Psalm 144, 145, 146// Evening: Job 8, Mark 2:23-3:12, Psalm 144, 145, 146
• Friday: Morning: Job 9, James 4, Psalm 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134// Evening: Job 10, Mark 3:13-35, Psalm 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134
• Saturday: Morning: Job 11, James 5, Psalm 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 // Evening: Job 12, Mark 4: 1-34, Psalm 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
• Sunday: Morning: Joshua 2, Mark 2:23-3:19, Psalm 9, 10, 11 // Evening: 1 Samuel 16:1-13, Acts 2:1-21, Psalm 9, 10, 11

• Cabinet Agency: Office of the Administration for Children and Families (HHS) and their Federal role in improving the safety, permanency, and well-being of children through leadership, support for necessary services, and productive partnerships with states, tribes, and communities.
• Think Tank, Lobby group, NGO: The Child Welfare League of America as they focus on families, caregivers, communities, and policies that care for and support children who may have experienced abuse, neglect, family disruption, or a range of other factors that jeopardize their safety, permanence, or well-being.
• • A word about ideologies. The selection of these organizations is not based on mutual affinity but on the belief that prayer is the most we can ever do to participate in Christ’s mission of making all things new.
• Congressional Delegation: For the Congressional delegation of California.
• News Events: Tonight’s Washington, D.C. pre-release screening of the film, Sound of Hope: The Story of Possum Trot which Faithful Presence is invited to attend. The state delegations of Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Kentucky who are working to direct federal emergency response to their states after this weekend's deadly tornadoes. The Securities and Exchange Commission’s initiative to modernize and enhance the rules that govern the treatment of consumers’ nonpublic personal information by certain financial institutions. 
• Personal Requests: For someone resettling their family back in the United States after many years overseas. For someone tired from travel. For someone involved in a policy dispute with a coworker. For someone trying to balance work, family, and graduate studies. For our new intern, Margaret Couloubitisis who starts today. For someone starting a new job. 
• • A word about anonymity: Washington is a small town. To protect each individual’s identity yet facilitate prayer, details are intentionally vague. However, each represents specific people we are currently engaged with. 

• Tuesday, May 28th, 6-10 pm, AEI and the Christian Alliance for Orphans are co-sponsoring a private movie screening of Sound of Hope: The Story of Possum Trot, which offers an example of how applying the four questions of Faithful Presence can make a life-changing difference.
• Wednesday, May 29, the Center for American Progress hosts a virtual event with expert panelists discussing the implications of the decisions being handed down by the Supreme Court in the next month.
• Thursday, May 30, the Cato Institute is hosting  Jonathan Fortier, director of Lib​er​tar​i​an​ism​.org, for a discussion with author Jeffrey Rosen and Michael Poliakoff, president of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni on Rosen’s new book, Pursuit of Happiness.
• Friday & Saturday, The Family Drive-In in Stephen’s City, VA is showing Furiosa and Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (excellent!), as well as The Garfield Movie and If.

In what I can only say is one of my favorite reads this year, Shirley Mullen delivers a well-documented work on something that seems so central but forgotten by those who call themselves Christians - forming and holding the center. Claiming the Courageous Middle: Daring to Live and Work Together for a More Hopeful Future contends that the church has given up its God-given role of the middle way, which means having to deal with conflict on at least two sides, for the easier position on one of the poles. Mullen gives time and space to the various forces that have moved the church from its proper post while providing a sobering assessment of the result.

Dr. Mullen, retired President of Houghton College, writes, "The church's inability or unwillingness to make room for complexity and ambiguity has been costly to the church's intellectual and moral authority in the modern [read: present] period."

I highly recommend this work to everyone who cares about the public witness of the church