Chronicles

 January 23, 2021

With nearly every regime change, the party that comes into power reverses the policies of its predecessor, often so completely that the monuments and symbols of the former are deliberately and completely erased. The new government flexes its muscles for a few years before the tables are turned and the suppressed subculture that has been percolating beneath the surface explodes in a pent-up burst of political energy that engulfs and overwhelms its oppressors. And the cycle begins all over again. 

One might think I’m speaking of our most recent transfer of power. It does, after all, have all the same earmarks: reversing of policies, cancelling former agreements, even attempting to erase all reference to the now former president.

It’s not current events I’m describing, but the kings of Judah from around 800-400 BC. A king is said to be good or bad depending on his adherence to the ancient Torah, and although the Judaic kings were all of the line of David, their policies flip-flopped from father to son. Reading the stories in 2 Chronicles is a depressing litany of rulers leading with integrity and justice followed by others whose only concern was amassing power and living in complete debauchery. Back and forth it went, century by century, until the kingdom was wiped off the map by the Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzer. 

Such reading would not give much hope for today except for one solitary fact: God refused to give up on his people, and had a plan for their redemption. And although we as a nation cannot claim to be God’s own people, our own nation’s tendency to carom from right to left and back again mirrors the Old Testament story in such a way that makes me believe we aren’t yet in the Apocalypse. Those who demonize the other side and those who act as if all were lost don’t know the full story. Life has its ebbs and flows, its mountain highs and valley lows, but as the old Gospel song says, “The God of the mountains is still God in the valleys.” And for his unchanging faithfulness, I am grateful tonight.