On days like today, some get offended that I would remind us that no matter what happens today, “Jesus is still Lord.”
I’m often told that this statement — on a day like this — minimizes people’s pain, disappointment, or oppression, that it stifles a legitimate need to lament, that it enables pietistic withdraw when we should be standing firm and demanding change.
But I don’t see it that way.
But, but, but..
I have heard those on the Right cry out that the lives of the unborn are at stake, that saving America from a socialist takeover is at stake, that future of our civilization is at stake, and that a trite phrase like “Jesus is Lord” is of course true but merely distract from life and death issues for the here and now.
I have heard on the Left complaints that people are suffering under the oppression of white nationalism, that minorities are being blocked from voting, that the nature of our democratic freedoms are at stake, and that spiritualized declarations that “The Lamb is still on the throne” minimize our responsibilities as human beings to fellow human beings.
TO WHICH I RESPOND…
Perhaps it is not so much that saying “Jesus is Lord” minimizes all those other issues, but that all those other issues have eclipsed the radicalness of a living FAITH, a practical, embattled FIDELITY to the ONE who would calls us to live as if God raised the death, as if God has the victory over sin, evil, and death, to live as if it is really true that we are more than overcomers in all things because God has overcome all things.
That “Jesus is still Lord” should always be the CENTER and the growing EDGE of our lives, not just one of several truths that our actions and emotions are build around.
Indeed, I would go so far as to say that for American Christians on the Right and the Left to roll an eye to declarations of “Jesus is still Lord” on a day like this is to FUNDAMENTALLY deny our union with the GLOBAL CHURCH, for whom Christians suffer daily and yet rejoice that “Jesus is Lord”, it is to take for granted the immense blessing that we even have a stake in our own political future. To grow impatient with reminders that “Jesus is Lord” just shows how normative (dare I say, colonialist) American Christians of the Right and Left believe themselves be on the stage of GLOBAL CHRISTIANITY.
And to conclude, to believe that saying “Jesus is Lord” minimizes the days like these is exactly to minimize the message of the book of Revelation, which boils down to something like, “No matter what is happening in the world, no matter how bad or how unjust, how oppressive or exploitative, the LAMB is and will be ON THE THRONE, and all the saints ARE and WILL BE worshipping, because worship is the response before the LAMB.”
So, on a day like this, I will boldly say, without reservation, embarrassment, or qualification, that JESUS IS STILL LORD.