(Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “250 to Eternity”, originally shared on July 3, 2026. It was the 420th video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)
Americans will celebrate our Independence Day this coming Saturday, July
4th. Christians celebrate it and an even greater day, our Dependence Day. Why?
“Two hundred
and fifty” may seem like a big number, but we are still a relatively young
country. I read some time ago that almost our entire history can be measured in
the lifetimes of five American presidents. Five.
Thomas
Jefferson, our third president, died when Abraham Lincoln was 17 years old.
Abraham Lincoln died when Woodrow Wilson was 8 years old. Woodrow Wilson died
when Ronald Reagan was 12 years old. And Ronald Reagan died when Barak Obama
was 42 years old, and Barak Obama is still alive. Almost five lifetimes.
I am 78 years
old. That means that I have been alive for pretty close to 1/3 of our country’s
entire history.
We also watched video on TV
showing the wildfires that are destroying land and homes and people because of
someone’s foolish use of illegal fireworks.
A 250th
anniversary is also known as a Semi Quincentennial celebration.
I remember the
celebration of our country’s Bi Centennial in 1976.
This year’s
celebration seems different. More muted. More commercial. Less about ideals and
more about power. Less about service and more about empire. Less about liberty
and justice for all and more about greed and money grubbing by the favored
rich.
We seem more
divided and less sure of ourselves than I can remember.
The most
encouraging thing about being an American today seems to be the positive
reaction of people who have come here from all over the world for the FIFA
World Cup!
I think that
that’s worth thinking about.
Benjamin
Franklin, one of our Founding Fathers, when asked what kind of government the
Continental Congress had formed answered, “A republic, if you can keep it.”
He said that,
“it would eventually fail and end in despotism if the citizens became so
corrupt that they required a heavy-handed, authoritarian ruler.”
Have we
achieved that level of corruption as a nation?
Do we care
more about feeling good about ourselves than about anyone or anything else, or
especially about living our virtues?
Does our
economy mean more to us than our liberty?
Can we give
the benefits of citizenship without also requiring the responsibilities of
citizenship and still be a country?
How much
freedom, and the benefits of living here, can we give to people who hate our
freedoms, and will take them away as soon as they achieve a majority?
Is the
American Dream something that is achievable through hard work, education,
sacrifice for the future, and by helping to build a community. Or is the
American Dream now an out of court settlement.
Some of us
might spend some time this week reflecting on how fragile our freedoms are,
what it took to gain them and to keep them, and how quickly a few hot heads can
burn everything down.
We’ll
celebrate the holiday with barbeques and parades, and some time off, and maybe
some fireworks.
We’ll lift our
phones to record those fireworks, or this year possibly synchronized drones,
but, as the meme I saw once said, “’Let’s watch this fireworks video I took a
year ago’, said no one ever.”
Our
celebrations are as fragile as our republic. Our laments are as significant as
our will to learn from them, and the witness we bring to our time has no
guarantees that it will be heard, as we see in the Gospel reading that will be
read in the vast majority of churches all over the world this coming Sunday, Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30. It begins with Jesus teaching his
disciples about John the Baptist,
16 “But to what will I compare this generation? It is like children sitting
in the marketplaces and calling to one another,
17 ‘We played the flute for you, and you did
not dance;
we wailed, and you did not mourn.’
18 For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a
demon’; 19 the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they
say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’
Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.”
Jesus compares his generation
to children imitating the biggest public events that they see: weddings and
funerals, dancing and mourning. And, like those children, and sometimes even
like us in our time, when his disciples brought the Gospel to that generation,
they got no response.
There is a resigned futility
here. Almost a sense of resignation, except for the last sentence, “Yet
wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.”
Jesus’ critics were focused on
earthly things. As in our culture, they were focused on themselves. They were
their own God.
Jesus is God. He
is God’s wisdom. What of a long line of God’s might acts could Jesus be
refereeing to? God was about to act decisively, once for all, on the cross.
Those who receive Jesus in
their true selves have lives that look like something. They are not our
virtues, because Christian virtues cannot be achieved. They can only be
received and lived in response to the cross.
Paul describes this Christian
life as the fruits of the Holy Spirit, in Galatians 5:22-25,
22 By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience,
kindness, generosity, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and
self-control. There is no law against such things. 24 And those
who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and
desires. 25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by
the Spirit.
We live by the Spirit, not by
the flesh (the human condition without Christ).
This is the true source of
America’s greatness.
Alexis de Tocqueville was a French diplomat and sociologist
who toured the United States in the early 1800’s to learn about America, and he
was deeply impressed with our singular democracy.
After looking for
the source of American greatness among the attributes and institutions of our
new country, he wrote, in his book Democracy in America, “Not until I
went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits flame with
righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America
is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America
will cease to be great.”
Let’s let that sink
in for a minute… “and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to
be great.”
Are we a good
nation, or have we reached the level of corruption that Benjamin Franklin
warned us about.
How do we end the
fragmentation, the loss of national unity and identity, the selfishness, the
might makes right ideology that has crept into our country, and even into the
church?
M.A.G.A. Make
America Good Again!
Make our pulpits
flame with righteousness again!
What is
righteousness in the Bible but the restoration of the right relationship with
the one true living God restored on the cross and given to all who will receive
it by Jesus Christ?
What is the
Christian life but living the transformed life by the Holy Spirit that comes
from within as a natural, unforced, outcome in response to that selfless
sacrifice of Jesus?
And yet, we have
piped and the world has not danced. We have wailed and the world has not
mourned.
How do we
live with integrity, obedient to His command to love one another and to make
disciples of all peoples, seeking only to do God’s will?
Through the
transformative work of Jesus on the cross.
But sometimes, I wonder if we
should just write off this generation as evil and adulterous (spiritual
infidelity) as in Matthew 12:39,
39 But he answered them, “An evil and adulterous generation asks for a
sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.
Except that Jesus
doesn’t give up on his generation. At the end of this verse, he refers to the
sign of Jonah in Jesus’ coming death, burial, and resurrection.
Proclaiming that message is our
mission to this generation, because Jesus has revealed God, the Father, the
Son, and the Holy Spirit to us, as we see as the Gospel for this Sunday
continues in Matthew 11:25-27,
25 At that time Jesus said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth,
because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have
revealed them to infants; 26 yes, Father, for such was your
gracious will. 27 All things have been handed over to me by my
Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father
except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.
I saw an exchange between two
people online the other day.
One said, “I don’t believe that
God exists. There just isn’t enough evidence.”
The other said, “Let’s do a
little thought experiment. Of all the knowledge in the universe, about how much
do you think that you know?”
“Excuse me,” the first person
said.
“Of all the things that could
possibly be known, what percentage would you say that you know.”
“About 5%,” the first person
said.
“I think that you’re being a
little generous,” the second person said, “but let’s say that you know 10% of
everything that can be known in the universe.
“Don’t you think that it’s
possible that the evidence you seek might be within that 90% of the knowledge
in the universe that you don’t yet know?”
“What do you mean,” said the
first person.
“I mean that, when you come to
a problem you can’t solve, do you assume that there is no answer and give up,
or do you keep looking?”
Jesus says that the things of
God have been hidden from the wise and the intelligent and have been revealed
to infants.
Why?
I think it’s because people who
know that they don’t know are more likely to receive instruction than people
who think that they already know everything.
In the same way, people who
think that they are good people who don’t need Jesus are less likely to receive
him and be made new by Him than people who know that they are sinners and need
a Savior.
God has been revealed to us on
the cross. How can we make America good again? How can we reveal God to the
world? Here are five ways:
1. One. The world doesn’t respond to the Good News because it doesn’t know the
bad news. That comes first.
2. Two. Most people in Christian, or post-Christian, cultures come to Christ
by their 18th birthday. They see what is important to their parents,
and they imitate their parents’ belief and behavior.
3. Three. Adults come to Christ by the testimony of a credible witness. Who
trusts you to tell them the truth when they need to hear it?
4. Four. Be fishers of human beings. Go to where the people are and bring the
Gospel to them as they are.
5. Five. Know that you are never alone. As Jesus says to us and to the unsaved
in the conclusion of this week’s Gospel reading, in Matthew 11:28-30,
28 “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and
I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from
me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
God has not given up on you. He
is carrying your load.
Even when we are unfaithful,
God is faithful. God is steadfast, and his steadfast love endures forever.
As we celebrate the 250th
anniversary of our republic, one of the most important contributions Christians
have to offer is 16th church reformer Martin Luther’s theology of
the Two Kingdoms.
How can Christians who live in
the already here but not yet perfected reign of God live and contribute as good
citizens of their country?
Luther taught that God ruled the world
through two kingdoms, outwardly through the kingdom of this world
through law, the civil authority, and the “sword” to maintain order and curb
sin in a fallen world, and through the kingdom of God at work inwardly in the spiritual
kingdom through the gospel of faith and grace to grant eternal life.
Both kingdoms are to be measured by what God
is calling them to do. And, as Christians are citizens of both kingdoms, we are
to call the temporal (earthly) kingdom to always act in accord with the will of
God. That is the biblical definition of “justice”.
This coming Saturday we will
not celebrate the triumph of force. The Revolutionary War ended on September 3,
1783.
We will celebrate the
codification of a set of ideas that have guided nations for 250 years: that all
men are created equal, that they are given rights by their Creator that cannot
be taken away from them. That is, that we are creations, not some random
outcome of the evolution of our DNA.
Good can only come from God. It
needs no justification. Otherwise, it’s just someone’s opinion.
It seems odd to me that the
FIFA World Cup is taking place in North America, including the United States of
America, at the same time that our 250th Anniversary as a nation is
taking place. And yet, Christians celebrate the greatest victory in the history
of the universe every day!
We’re about three-quarters of
the way through the tournament and we’ve already seen dramatic upsets, unfair
penalties, increasing tension, intense drama and rapturous joy. We’ve seen
patriotism, laughter and tears, good sportsmanship and bad, ridiculous pricing,
and heroic performances.
Sally and I have celebrated the
victories of our country’s team, Team USA, and the teams of our ancestors,
Norway and England.
Yet we haven’t yet seen
anything compared to what was, and to what is and to what is to come.
Christ has won the greatest
struggle of our lives for us. We didn’t do it; we couldn’t do it. We didn’t
earn it; we can’t earn it. We depend upon Him.
Christ won the victory over
sin, death, and the power of the devil that had beaten us. We depend upon
Jesus.
The day he gave his life for us
showed us what it took to be made free forever. Three days later he took his
life back again as a promise that we, too, shall rise.
We couldn’t do it. We are
completely dependent upon him for eternal life. We needed a savior, and we have
one in Jesus Christ. We declare our dependence on Him every day! It’s
what puts every day that we are on this earth in the perspective of eternity!
We are celebrating many things
this week, but the most important one is our Dependence Day, our dependence on
Jesus Christ for new life and eternal salvation. It has been given for all who
receive it.
Receive it.
And share the good news.
