The Footnote Does Not Clean It

On the sixth of October a city council meeting opened with a prayer. The man at the microphone was not the mayor. He was a resident who had sat on that council before. He asked the room to stand. He said, Let us pray. Dear dark father. He spoke of standing unbowed by old doctrines, and of eating of the tree of knowledge. He closed with, It is done. Hail Satan. The next day he told the local paper that the prayer has nothing to do with belief in a satanic being. The group he stands with says the same thing. A metaphor, they say. A symbol of rebellion. A character from a poem. Not a person. Not a power. Not someone who can hear a hail. Brian Hahn sits with the distance between those two sentences. One was spoken in the room. One was printed afterward. A metaphor does not erase an echo. The garden already heard this pitch — not an altar first, but a question about a limit, then an offer to eat. A man who says he worships the adversary warns the room. A man who prays the name and then calls it literature keeps the posture and removes the alarm. You do not have to believe in the fisherman to be on the hook. The words do the work. The footnote manages the audience. This is not a charge against a town, and it is not a Canadian council. The same text, or a close cousin of it, has opened other American meetings under an open list. Snarling at “the city” will not survive the recording. After a pastor asked that the hail not be welcomed, the mayor called for a moment of silence. The warning is in the words. The room is asked to become careful, not cruel. Do not return the hail. Do not make the meeting a brawl. Do not take up a flag. Christianity is not a costume. Do not hunt the speaker. Some who stand with that group are there for a lawsuit, a club, or a church that failed them. A wound is not a reason to hail the rebel. Bad authority is not healed by a worse one. And if the footnote made the alarm go down, that relief is the lure working. The Cross does not flatter the will. It tells the truth about the will, and offers a death and a mercy the will did not write. You are not your own. You were bought with a price. A symbol is not a safe place to stay. Come off the picture. The work is finished in Christ, not in a metaphor that borrows His enemy’s name. This is not a debate and it is not a rally. A Soft Place to Land is a faith-based conversation that is encouraging and unhurried — a safe space from political anger. You do not have to snarl to stay awake. You do not have to go naive to stay kind. One sentence to carry out of the room: The footnote does not clean it. Hear the words. Do not return the hail. Come to the Cross. Watch. Do not be naive. Do not be cruel. The name was used. The door is not a better argument. The door is repentance, and the blood. The written word behind this conversation lives at jaxsonharlan.com/the-footnote-does-not-clean-it/ Come back next time. We will keep the light on. Hosted by Brian Hahn. From Jaxson Harlan Ministry / Jaxson Radio. May you go from here unhurried. May you remember you are held. And if a hard name was spoken near you, or a soft footnote tried to tidy it, may you hear the words as they were spoken, and come to the blood that already answered the rebel — while it still speaks mercy, and not only witness. Reference links to include Written word: https://jaxsonharlan.com/the-footnote-does-not-clean-it/ Podcast home: https://jaxsonharlan.com/the-podcast/ Jaxson Harlan Radio / public podcast page: https://a6.asurahosting.com/public/jaxson_harlan_radio/podcast/1f1b7950-8f20-690c-aefa-152a6b87aa16