Oh, no - Not Another Election

The iconic Brenda from Bristol has the entire nation in stitches - and nodding in agreement - with her expression of disgust at the calling of yet another election: “You’re joking? Not another one. ... I can’t stand this. There’s too much politics going on at the moment. Why does she [Prime Minister Theresa May] need to do it?”

In my worst moments I might echo her views. That was especially the case when I examined the voting paper for our local Parish Council elections (I vote by post, as I find polling booths too intimidating) and saw a list of 17 names, most of which I had never heard of, and had to somehow select up to 15. And that is just one of three elections in the space of six weeks.

However, we are extremely fortunate and favoured to live in a democracy. I would hate to have to rub along in a dictatorship where the ruling warlord portrays himself as the “father of the people”, benevolently patronising his little “children”. All the while, you find, he has been inflicting the most brutal oppression on any who dare to dissent.

There is much argument about whether the Bible model for a church is democratic or not. In my Congregational church stream it is important that the members’ meeting is the ultimate decision-making body. Allowance is made, of course, for church leaders to use their discretion in delicate pastoral matters or ones where a swift response is required. The danger is that an assertive meeting may hamper or thwart a pastor who actually has Bible warrant and divine authority for a certain course of action. In that way a church can go counter to God’s will.

In many cases a democratic constitution would have brought disaster in the history of God’s people. Let us say the Exodus from Egypt to the Promised Land was put to the vote. The majority might well have voted to take the people right back to Egypt!

Many Reformed Christians would say that God’s preferred type of government for His people is theocracy. There the church is run, not by committee or by popular mandate, but by God Himself.

Of course, God is unlikely to send down instructions about what colour to paint the walls. Someone has to take decisions on matters where the Bible has nothing to say. But in practice that means that someone on the human side of the organisation needs to wield day to day power. And therein lies the problem. Churches that claim to be organised as “theocracies” can easily spawn leaders who come over as the benevolent dictators I mentioned earlier, patronising their spiritual “children” and displaying alarming levels of abuse in the process.

As Sir Winston Churchill once said,  
“Democracy is the worst system devised by the wit of man, except for all the others.”

Let’s not be cynical about democracy. Those who offer themselves to be voted on by us are likely to have something of a love for people. After all, they must be prepared for rejection by the people if they lose the election, and willing to accept the decision with good grace.

Isn’t there a small echo of our Saviour in that? The Lord Jesus Christ was on a divinely-appointed mission to save humankind. But he was prepared to face utter rejection and scorn from precisely the people He had come to redeem. Did He do it gladly and with grace? Supremely so.

“... Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
“Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted” (Hebrews 12:2-3 ESV).

“Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him” (Philippians 2:5-9).

Do, please, support our democratic process. It is at least as likely to fulfil God’s purpose as any other type of government.

Bread of the Presence

It is a mysterious story which repeatedly breaks into the flow of the Bible and then disappears again. We find ourselves hearing at least an echo of God’s mind about the life and sacrificial death of the Lord Jesus. Here, then, is the story of Easter from a totally unexpected angle.

It concerns a strange Jewish institution called the Bread of the Presence. The account begins with a command of God through Moses in Leviticus chapter 24. God decrees that there is to be a table of pure gold in the Jewish Tabernacle (the precursor to the Jerusalem Temple) that would always have two piles of six bread cakes on it. The bread would be a food offering, but would stay on the table rather than be offered like an animal sacrifice. Every Sabbath day a new consignment would be neatly placed on the table and the old apparently eaten by the priests, and only the priests, as it was most holy.

We then move on to a curious incident that took place in some desperate days for David, the future King of Israel, and his followers (1 Samuel 21). Persecuted and beleaguered by King Saul in the waning days of Saul’s kingship, David desperately needs food for some of his young men. He asks the priest Ahimelech for whatever he can spare.  All there is is the Bread of the Presence, which the priest calls holy bread. He can only supply it if the young men are ritually clean. David assures him that they are. The priest then gives him the bread. In effect, ordinary soldiers are being treated as though they were privileged like priests.

Jesus uses this story as an effective argument against those who were criticizing the actions of His disciples. On one occasion these disciples were plucking some ears of corn from local cornfields for food. This was acceptable practice except that it was the Sabbath that day, when “work” was forbidden. The Pharisees challenged Jesus. Jesus replied,

“Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, he and those who were with him: how he entered the house of God and took and ate the bread of the Presence, which is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and also gave it to those with him?” And he said to them, “The Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath” (Luke 6:3-5 ESV).

With this one brief story a number of key points emerges. Here are just some:

    •    God’s Presence is for ever with His people. Jesus is Immanuel, “God with us”.
    •    Jesus says, “I am the Bread”. He is the living Bread from heaven, spiritual food to make us alive and nourish us.
    •    This is holy bread. With the Lord Jesus we are handling holy things.
    •    Jesus is our great High Priest, who makes His followers “a kingdom and priests to our God” (Revelation 5:10).
    •    Jesus is a merciful High Priest. He sets aside the strictness of God’s law to still our pangs of hunger and make us clean before God.
    •    In the Presence of God with us, and our coming to Him in the Lord Jesus, we have an eternal covenant. Holy Communion is now the sign of this.

Thank God for the rich meaning of that far-off piece of ceremony, the Bread of the Presence. May we present ourselves with reverence and Easter hope to our awesome, holy yet merciful God, the Father of Jesus Christ who gave His life as spiritual food for us and rose again.