Hope For a Healthier, Happier New Year
By Richard Doster
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Now, at the end of a year most of us won’t miss, we look forward to a new and better one. With faith, hope, and never ceasing prayer, we’re eager for better health, restored community, open schools, thriving restaurants and businesses. The day is nearly here — we can feel it — when we’ll know again the joy of hugging our best friends on Sunday mornings.

A life that brims with that kind of hope will, from the world’s perspective, look a little different.

Jesus demonstrated what a “different life” looks like throughout Scripture, but most vividly, perhaps, in John 18:33-38. This is where Jesus is on trial and Pilate, the Roman ruler, needs to know if he claims to be a king. For Pilate, this is the make-or-break issue, so he posed the question directly: “Are you the King of the Jews?” Rather than providing a simple answer, Jesus provides more significant information; he tells Pilate, “My kingdom is not of this world.” It’s one of those shrewd replies Jesus is known for; it puzzles the questioner, prompting more questions and, when pondered for a while, changes the way we see things.

When we look at the whole of this conversation, we see that Jesus’ reply wasn’t about geography. As theologian N.T. Wright points out, His reply wasn’t about where His kingdom would come; it was about how. Jesus went on to explain, “If my kingdom were of this world, my followers would fight to prevent me being handed over.” That’s how “the world’s” kingdoms take power: they raise armies and gather weapons and the strong overpower the weak. But in this exchange, Christ is telling Pilate that His power comes from a different source. His kingdom is not from this world; rather His authority comes from God, who also happens to be the creator, sustainer, and ruler of the universe. Jesus is telling Pilot that his kingdom is real, but that it expands by a strategy nobody’s ever seen before.

In the coming year, in our disease-plagued, angry, and divided world, let’s keep in mind that Jesus doesn’t depend on political parties, or cable news channels, or big tech’s blessing. To the contrary, His kingdom comes through humility. As author James Davison Hunter pointed out, Jesus, the one who spoke the universe into existence, voluntarily became a man. He took on the nature of a servant. He endured insult and humiliation, and he did it out of love — for fallen mankind and the whole of His creation. Christ doesn’t overcome by force, but through compassion.

“Let’s imitate Jesus, who never coerced people, but instead fed them, healed them, taught them, and shared with them the truth of His saving grace.”

And that, Hunter said, is why sympathy was both the source of His power and the weapon he wielded most often. As we talk with friends and enemies, let’s imitate Jesus, who never coerced people, but instead fed them, healed them, taught them, and shared with them the truth of His saving grace. He came to earth “not to be served, but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45).

Unlike the power brokers of this world, Jesus never wormed His way into society’s upper echelons, striving to gain favor with the rich and well-connected. He won hearts by serving people who were afraid, hungry, poor, disgraced, demon-possessed, blind, and crippled. He came to make us fully human — physically, spiritually, and intellectually. Christ triumphs by freeing people, not constraining them. He triumphs — not by manipulating people, but by giving of Himself and using His power to serve those He loved. The same should be true of His people — especially in this coming year of renewal.

Theologian Al Wolters continues, going on to explain that when Christ inaugurated His kingdom, His strategy wasn’t to build himself up, it was to pour himself out (Philippians 2:7). His disciples would do likewise, and thereby expand the kingdom by the same paradoxical wisdom.

When Jesus tells Pilate that His kingdom isn’t from this world, he’s telling him that as time presses on, God’s people will infiltrate every sphere. They’ll go into business, but — armed with faith, love, and hope — they’ll conduct business for the sake of their neighbors. They’ll move into politics but, because they understand God’s purpose for government, they’ll empower others, not themselves. As a part of Christ’s kingdom strategy, God’s people won’t shy away from science, education, and the arts — they’ll charge in, pursuing truth and revealing God’s wisdom to a culture that yearns for meaning.

For the next 12 months let’s make a concerted effort to occupy every sector, aware that we’re to keep ourselves “unspotted from the world” (James 1:27), but aware, too, that we’re not to withdraw; we’re not even to avoid the world’s messiest and most sinful parts. We’re to occupy every sphere, knowing that in our cities, towns, and country we’re the leaven that’s “hid in three measures of flour, till it was all leavened” (Matthew 13: 33). Let’s permeate our part of the world from the inside out, as Wolters puts it — slowly perhaps, and at times even imperceptibly — but relentlessly engaged in Christ’s battle to restore His created order.

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