“The Jews had been living in their great story for, they believed, well over a thousand years. Their story, like a great costume drama going on over many generations, stretched back to Abraham, Moses, David, and other heroes of the distant past. But it was all going to come to its great climax, they believed, any moment now. It was a single story, and they were at its leading edge. This story is unique in the ancient world. Even the Romans had not thought of themselves in this way, with the sense of a great story now at last reaching its climax, until Augustus and his court poets uses the idea in their propaganda.” (“The Jewish Storm”, Simply Jesus,  N. T. Wright, p. 32)

I find this last comment interesting – that even the Romans did not think of them selves having a story that stretched back into antiquity that was building to a great triumph – a time when one king, one lone king would lead them into a future that had been going somewhere for thousands of years. The Kings of Rome had ruled from 753 BCE to 509 BCE when the last one was overthrown. Kings like Romulus and Ancus Marcius ruled each for a period of about 35 years before they were killed, or just died. Over the centuries there would be other titles for their rulers, like consul, proconsul, and Caesar, but their only direction seemed to be survival or domination, to hold onto rule and to conquer the world.

The Jews, the Israelites, had a different idea. They were holding on for their King of Kings to finally come – the one prophesied for so many years – and they trusted G-d to fulfill his promise. Hey trusted that G-d would come to rule the world, and make things right again. And this promise stretches back into antiquity. As Americans, our story stretches back 240 some years – and today we are as dis-united as possibly we have ever been. We can only hope that Messiah comes soon – or human leaders who follow the teachings of Jesus to the letter.

Pastor Dave