It’s a common attitude: “I’m just one person with no control of events in such a big, broken, overwhelming world. But God is in control and I trust in God.” As if Jesus entrusted us with no control over our destiny and that of future generations.
In a confrontational episode concerning the woman at the well, Jesus famously wrote some words in the sand. As far as anybody knows, that was the extent of his writing life.
Yet he was an author in a unique genre, for he was “the Author,” as Peter called him, “of Life.”
Consider but a few of the names Jesus is called in the Bible.
The Son of God. The Son of Man. The Son of David.
The Groom. The Liberator. The Prince of Peace. The Shepherd. The Good Shepherd.
Immanuel. The Lamb of God. The King of Kings. I Am.
The Rock. The Cornerstone. The Mediator. The Redeemer. The Christ.
The Servant of God. The Master. The Savior. The Arm of God. The Head, the Body.
The Door. The Bread. The Morning Star.
The Truth. The Light.
The Way.
And… well, this fascinating list of descriptive labels goes on and on.
But I’ve always been especially intrigued by label Peter tagged him with: “the Author of life.”
In the name of Jesus Christ and by the healing power of God, Peter and John had just enabled a crippled man to stand up and walk. The poor guy proceeded to jump with joy in praise to God.
The very Israelites who witnessed this miracle, who had once called for the death of Jesus and the release of a murderer, were staring menacing holes through the two healers.
As they stared, Peter called them out — and harshly.
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3:12 When Peter saw it, he addressed the people, “You Israelites, why do you wonder at this, or why do you stare at us, as though by our own power or piety we had made him walk?
3:13 The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our ancestors has glorified his servant Jesus, whom you handed over and rejected in the presence of Pilate, though he had decided to release him.
3:14 But you rejected the Holy and Righteous One and asked to have a murderer given to you,
3:15 and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses. (See Acts 3:12-19 here.)
The Author of life.
This is the powerful author who wrote, “The pen is mightier than the sword” in a play about a Catholic Cardinal who believed in the power of the pen over the sword.
Maybe that interesting turn-of-phrase resonates with me because I’ve always loved to read or watch interviews with, and articles about, writers. Probably because I wanted to be a writer all my life and always will.
An author is a creator.
And author has the authority speak persuasively and passionately, not just for himself, but also for other people — including those who have no power or authority and are vulnerable to those who do.
An author has enormous power. (“The pen,” it is famously said in a 19th century play, “is mightier than the sword.”*) An author has command of language and language, like imagination, is power.
Figuratively speaking, Jesus wrote a sort of script for us to live by and, more importantly, to act out in our lives. Though we know how the story ultimately ends with the return of Jesus, it’s also an open-ended script.
We’re the co-authors of life with Jesus, which is to say that, with Jesus, we’re to be and act on the side of life, not the side of suffering, torture, death and evil in all its ugly manifestations.
I hear people say all the time — and seemingly more every day now that the world seems to be spinning so dangerously out of control — that “God is in control.”
What will be will be. Que sera, sera.
As if we have no control over our own destinies and the destiny of God’s entire good, green Creation. As if the only thing we can do is go to church and say our prayers and leave everything in the hands of God to fix.
I submit that we do have power, in the name of God, to fix the broken world to the fullest extent of our human abilities.
By the power vested in us in our baptism, we do have control over events. We have more than prayer and worship and generally being good people. We in fact have a responsibility to respond to poverty, illness, violence and injustice with life-giving action.
There is such a thing as what a Methodist writer called in the title of a fine book “Responsible Grace.”
It can’t be said enough in these confused times that Jesus initiated the kingdom of Heaven and God on Earth, leaving it to us to advance the kingdom of heaven on Earth.
Jesus left us with a call to action, not to passiveness in the face of so much misery and suffering and violence and injustice in the world.
We are co-authors — co-creators — with Jesus.
Absolutely, positively yes — God is in control! In the great big cosmic scheme of things, the future is in God’s hands!
But here’s an important footnote:
*Jesus us left us to be his hands and feet until his return to make all things as perfectly perfect as things are in heaven.
We can trust in God because God is in control.
But God trusts in us to respond in obedience to Jesus, who called us to life-sustaining action.
He wrote us a script that contained an action plan, complete with an instructional guide.
It’s know as “The Way.”
For those worried about the future of America and the world and the world their children and their children will be left with, nothing gets corrected and better by watching from the church bleachers.
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*”The pen is mightier than the sword” was a phrase authored by the mighty fine author Edward Bulwer-Lytton in his historical 1839 play about the great French Cardinal (who later in life became a great French politician)Richelieu: or, the Conspiracy.
The Cardinal’s full line was this:
True, This! —
Beneath the rule of men entirely great
The pen is mightier than the sword. Behold
The arch-enchanters wand! — itself is nothing! —
But taking sorcery from the master-hand
To paralyse the Cæsars, and to strike
The loud earth breathless! — Take away the sword —
States can be saved without it!
