Monday, January 23, 2017
532 - Let it Rain
Spirituality
Column No. 532
January 24, 2017
Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary
January 24, 2017
Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary
Let it Rain
By
Bob Walters
“In the Bible, it says rain is a sign
of God’s blessing.” – Franklin Graham’s well-timed adlib at the slightly damp 2017
U.S. presidential inauguration of Donald Trump.
There is a Saul of Tarsus quality to
Donald Trump’s surprising ascendency to the U.S. presidency. It is a true monument to cosmic unlikelihood.
Saul, of course, might be the New
Testament’s leading bad guy if not for Pontius Pilate, King Herod, Judas Iscariot
and Satan. Saul was a Jew, a
high-ranking Pharisee, a Roman citizen, educated in Greek and a most vigorous
persecutor of Christians in the early years following the crucifixion of Jesus
and the beginnings of the Church. We
meet Saul in Acts 8:1 supervising the stoning of St. Steven, the first
Christian martyr.
Then in Acts 9:1 as Saul is still “breathing out murderous threats against the
Lord’s disciples,” Jesus shows up, knocks him down, blinds him, challenges
him and all Saul can say is, “Who are
you, Lord?” Next thing you know,
Saul is preaching Christ, traveling widely and is himself severely persecuted
by the Jews. By Acts 13:9 he is known by
the familiar name St. Paul the Apostle, writer of nearly half the New Testament
and bedrock of the early church.
How did that guy become that
leader? How did he get from there to here?
Are we not wondering the same thing
about President Donald J. Trump? From
his bully pulpit the tough talking, free-tweeting, thrice-married New York real
estate and global construction billionaire, TV celebrity, and cultural icon of
extraordinary proportion – “You’re
Fired!” – somehow jiu-jitsued the entire American political system to capture
a barely-believable but unmistakably controlling interest in truth, justice and
the American Way. Disingenuous
politicians, agenda-driven media, snooty academics, crazy cultural fascists,
politically correct doctrinaires and self-righteous faux-philosophers of the
entertainment industry were all pounded with a very large and consequential
hammer of common sense, American reality and appropriate supplication to the
divine.
To these bullying modern Pharisees of
“correct” but dissembling thought, Trump – once approximately one of them – is now loathed; the “bad guy.” He is the threat, promise and unlikely
messenger of restoring a central truth to our American consciousness: that our
nation exists for “We the people.” And if
you really heard the inaugural prayers,
“We” – each person – exist for the glory of God. Shocking, and true.
Friday’s ceremony reportedly set a
record for the most prayers in a U.S. presidential inaugural. Fine. What
is undeniable is that scripture was quoted accurately and sincerely, Jesus
Christ was invoked by name and station, and God was honored before the attending
throngs, a divided nation and the entire world.
All I can say is, let it rain, Lord. Your truth is marching on … regardless.
Walters
(rlwcom@aol.com) mentions that on Saturday there were in D.C. both
a syncretistic pray-to-whatever-you-want prayer all-call and a “women’s rights”
anti-Trump march closed to pro-lifers.
O, for the Dr. King days when marches were God-fearing calls for human
rights, not self-righteous demonstrations in support of human wrongs.
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