How to Buck a King

By faith Moses' parents hid him for three months after he was born, because they saw he was no ordinary child, and they were not afraid of the king's edict. (Hebrews 11:23)   The character of any person, government, or culture is displayed in highest relief by the way they treat their weak and vulnerable ones.  Under Herod in Matthew 2—the baby boys and toddlers were killed as a means of stamping out any claims of God's Messiah coming to the kingship.  In Pharaoh's Egypt, a similar policy is taken to stamp out the threat of the God's people of promise—they were multiplying too fast.  God very often entrusts himself and his people to weakness, rather than strength, because as Paul put it in speaking about his thorn in the flesh—it is when we are weak that we remember God's strength is sufficient for us. For someone to be unafraid of a king's edict—whether that be the edict of an ancient emperor or a modern day elected President or Prime Minister—it means they have a view of reality that extends beyond what can be seen.  They understand that there is a yet higher power behind the thin veneer of this present moment—a God who still rules and reigns as Sovereign Lord King over this earth.  Faith is not just a hope in heaven after death or at the end of time.  Faith sees God.  Right here, right now—on the move.  Our hope does not lie in heaven—our hope is in God.  And God is not only in heaven at the end of time, but also right here with us, among us on earth in our time.  That is what gives terrified parents the capacity to defy an earthly king's order—what gives weak people strength.  They believe that God saves—not just later at the end of time—but in the here and now of life as it is lived. Christians too live by the rules and assumptions of a different culture and kingdom: the kingdom of God.  In this kingdom, we are able to extend mercy in a world of hard lines; offer hospitality in a world of mistrust, and speak forgiveness in a world of grievance.  We can produce these counter-cultural acts because we draw on a source outside the reality brought to us through our screens.  Faith sees the God of mercy, forgiveness, and hospitality offering these graces to us—setting a table for us in the presence of our enemies.  Faith hears the call to go and do likewise.  Faith trusts that this same God is with us as we go. This is how daring acts of saving and preserving life against the grain of the politics and culture of the day are done.  Moses' parents didn't do this simply because Moses was a cute baby or because they were abnormally unafraid—no, they did it because they had faith in God.  The God who they trusted would see their plight and hear their cries.  A God who would set things right.  A God who creates and sustains life against any whims of ruthless rulers.  Do you see this God?  Will you act out in this kind of faith?  By time heaven comes round—it'll be too late to try.  Faith is not lived in the future, but in the present.   As you journey on, go with the blessing of God:     May the peace of the Lord Christ go with you : wherever he may send you. May he guide you through the wilderness : protect you through the storm. May he bring you home rejoicing : at the wonders he has shown you. May he bring you home rejoicing : once again into our doors.