Thursday, December 11, 2003
Luke 3:4

When I think about the righteous leaders of yesteryear, it is easy to think that I would have followed them if I'd been there to do it. The choice seems easy, as I gaze through my retrospectoscope. Certainly, I would have followed Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Mohammed, Martin Luther, John Wesley, Woodrow Wilson, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Luther King, or any of the others in that pantheon of heroes whom death has rendered safe for admiration.

You can't get into baseball's Hall of Fame until you've been out of the game for five years. For the Pantheon of Public Heroes, it takes a little longer. We only canonize those who won't be making any new demands on our sense of justice. Once death silences them, we're sure they've hammered us with their last harangue. We begin to feel safe. Then we call the bronze foundry and order up a statue.

But can we, tender and soft as we are, take up our cross and follow today's Christ? Ay, there's the rub. Hear again the words of James Russell Lowell:

By the light of burning heretics Christ's bleeding feet I track,
Toiling up new Calvaries ever with the cross that turns not back,
And these mounts of anguish number how each generation learned
One new word of that grand Credo which in prophet-hearts hath burned
Since the first man stood God-conquered with his face to heaven upturned.

For Humanity sweeps onward: where today the martyr stands,
On the morrow, crouches Judas with the silver in his hands.
Far in front the cross stands ready and the crackling faggots burn,
While the hooting mob of yesterday in silent awe return
To glean up the scattered ashes into History's golden urn.

Perhaps you know this verse:

Then to side with Truth is noble when we share her wretched crust,
Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and 'tis prosperous to be just;
Then it is the brave man chooses, while the coward stands aside,
Doubting in his abject spirit, till his Lord is crucified,
And the multitude make virtue of the faith they had denied.

This day, look for God's new Messiah. Good candidates:

• people pursued by hooting mobs;
• speakers making demands every responsible person knows must be rejected;
• somebody you're pretty sure should be arrested and prosecuted to the full extent of the law;
• folks tied to stakes with lots of combustible material around.

Mark Bromley

All contents copyright 2003 by the Wisconsin Chapter of the Methodist Federation for Social Action. Permission is granted to United Methodist congregations, individuals and groups to reproduce and distribute this devotional without charge. All other use requires the advance permission of the editor.