When Democracy Isn't Enough
Commentary
One morning in 1872, David Livingstone wrote this in his diary: “March 19, my birthday. My Jesus, my king, my life, my all, I again dedicate my whole self to thee. Accept me, and grant, O gracious Father, that ere the year is gone I may finish my work. In Jesus’ name I ask it. Amen.”
Just one year later, servants came to check on their master’s delay. They found him on his knees in prayer. He was dead.
Livingstone’s testimony is powerful on many levels. But the one that is most striking is his claim upon Jesus as “my king.” This has been a common declaration of the church throughout the ages. Even in our era, when democratic social movements topple kings and weigh in against tyrannical regimes, the largest social organization in the entire human race, the Church of Jesus Christ, holds as one of its core tenets of belief that Jesus is king.
Why should Jesus be a king? He was born into a poor family during a time of foreign occupation of their country. He was never trained in schools of leadership, and had no desire to claim any throne. He seemed to alienate the rich and powerful, rebuffed the efforts of his disciples to start an armed rebellion, hushed the adulation of those who were the recipients of his mighty power, told the existing rulers that if he had a kingdom it was not in direct competition with theirs on their terms, and died an ignoble death meant for the worst of society’s scalawags.
Yet from the first connections people made with Jesus, he was often identified as king. Foreigners traveled hundreds of miles to Judea when he was born, telling folks along the way of their astrological readings and projections: a truly great international king had been born! Palestine’s powerful King Herod was afraid of Jesus, and felt he might be competing for the throne Herod had worked so hard to control. Jesus’ own words, while never clearly self-identifying him as a king, were constantly filled with language about the kingdom of heaven or the kingdom of God, of which he seemed to know a great deal more than anyone who was not directly connected with the key governing authority. And then, a Roman centurion assigned to Jesus’ execution squad, made the remarkable testimony, using language otherwise reserved only for the Emperor himself, that “surely this man was the Son of God.” Somehow people kept viewing Jesus as a king.
And the affirmations only continued after Jesus disappeared from the scene. He is above all principalities and powers, Paul wrote, and said that every knee in heaven and on earth would bow to him. John saw him as an all-powerful ruler (Revelation 1), and had a vision of him as conquering king (19). Even in their prayers, members of the early church addressed Jesus as “sovereign Lord,” a term that could hardly be less than royal acknowledgement (Acts 5).
2 Samuel 23:1-7 and Psalm 32:1-12 (13-18)
The Black Angel. That’s what Michael Christopher calls Herman Engel in his play. Herman Engel is a cruel man, an “angel” by name, but darkest black in his Nazi soul. During World War II, he led his army in a horrible massacre of French villages. And after the war, justice catches up with him at the Nuremberg trials. He is sent to jail.
But not long enough, according to Morrieaux. Morrieaux is a French journalist whose family lived in one of those villages. Only he survived the hand of the Black Angel. After thirty years in prison, Engel is released from prison. Morrieaux says that’s too good for him. He begins his plotting.
Engel rejoins his wife. They buy a little cottage in the mountains near Alsace and try to get away from it all for their few remaining years.
But they can’t get away from Morrieaux. He searches for survivors of other families slaughtered by Engel’s army. He tells them of Engel’s release and stirs within them the burning of revenge. He organizes them into a lynch mob. They plan to await the cover of darkness before they shoot and burn the horrid man who lives in the mountains.
But vengeance from a distance is not enough for Morrieaux. He must see the horror and pain in Engel’s eyes. He will go to the general under the guise of friendship. He will get the old fellow to talk about the war. He will open up all the crimes of the past and then turn on Engel as his comrades join him in balancing the scales of justice more equitably. They will dance around the Black Angel together as they send him to hell!
When Engel invites Morrieaux in, Morrieaux is a bit shaken. This is no monster, no demon from the dark side! This is an old man, confused about the past, lonely and heartbroken by the years of prison, wanting only to spend a short while with his wife and then die in peace. Morrieaux’s revenge begins to turn sour in his stomach. He came for the Black Angel of death, but meets only a troubled man, a human like himself.
Dusk catches them still deep in conversation. And then they hear the sounds of the mob, circling for the kill. Morrieaux hesitates. What should he do? Vengeance tastes bitter. So he opens himself up. He tells Engel of his plan, of the lynching plot, of the death that waits outside the door.
“Let me help you!” he begs. “Let me get you away from here! Let me save your life!”
But now Engel hesitates. Yes, he says, I will let you save me. But on one condition. Will you forgive me? Will you release me from the burden of guilt that weighs me down, that floods my soul, that overwhelms my sleepless nights? Will you forgive me?
Save a life? That Morrieaux can do. That he wants to do. That he has to do. But release a soul? Let go of the bitterness, the burning hatred, the consuming passion for vengeance? Forgive Engel? Never!
Morrieaux leaves. Engel dies. And everyone loses.
Life without forgiveness is hell. Hell is the place where justice is never tempered by mercy, where relationships are never mended, where grudges grow and grace has taken a holiday. Hell is eternity apart from God’s forgiving love. And hell is the prison of unforgiveness into which we lock our enemies with no parole.
Hell. Unforgiveness. They’re both the same thing. That’s why David sings with such energy: “Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered!”
Says George Herbert: “He who cannot forgive others destroys the bridge over which he himself must pass!” You can see it in David’s lament. He’s made a mess of things with others around him, and now the bridge to God’s grace is gone. Like Morrieaux, his attitudes and actions have turned sour. Like Engel, he withers in a prison that traps his soul.
And only some power bigger than himself can put it all right again. Only some grace from outside, some compassion that goes beyond justice can open the door and let him live again. Only God.
“For God so loved the world . . . ”
Revelation 1:4b-8
John wrote that he was on the island of Patmos as he received these visions. Patmos was about fifty miles to the southwest of Ephesus, where John had been pastor and church leader for the previous three decades. Although the Book of Revelation does not mention the Roman emperor Domitian, early church sources indicate that an empire-wide persecution of Christians took place during his reign (81–96 A.D.). Tertullian added a note about this in Chapter XXXVI of his On the Prescription of Heretics, stating that, in Rome, “the Apostle John was first plunged, unhurt, into boiling oil, and thence remitted to his island-exile.”
There is evidence on Patmos today that the island had been a quarry for building stones during Roman times, and that slave labor was used in this arduous work. However, it came to be that John was on Patmos, he remained vitally connected to both his resurrected friend Jesus, and to the congregations back on the mainland of Asia Minor, who were praying for him.
In the opening vision, Jesus was identified as the Creator and consummator (“the first and the last”), and was shown symbolically in the temple (walking among the lamp stands), bringing the glory of God into the human arena. While Jesus was clearly human in his physical features, these have been translated by his resurrection (Revelation 1:18) so that they pummel the observer with transcendent power and glory.
Each of the seven letters that followed this encounter (Revelation 2–3) began with a self-description by Jesus, in which some aspect of his revealed glory in chapter 1 was reiterated. The letters are a mixture of warning and encouragement, clearly articulating the experiences of actual congregations living in the first century. They appear to be representative messages, so that even as they speak directly to these seven churches, they communicate Jesus’ ongoing relationship to all congregations generally.
John 18:33-37
Once King George and Queen Elizabeth went to a London theater to see a Noel Coward/Gertrude Lawrence production. As they entered the royal box, the whole audience rose to its feet to honor them. Standing in the wings, Gertrude Lawrence said, “What an entrance!”
And Noel Coward added, “What a part!”
What a part God has to play in the drama of time and space! Says Joan of Arc in the first installment of Shakespeare’s King Henry VI: “Glory is like a circle in the water, which never ceaseth to enlarge itself ” (I.ii). For human rulers, she pointed out, that was disastrous. Eventually the reach would exceed the substance.
But what a part for God! Even when God entered our human arena in the disguise of a mere mortal, the regency of divinity leaked everywhere through Jesus. Pilate had to acknowledge that, in his encounter with the one brought to him by the Jewish leaders.
Every element of creation, from the star-spangled skies to the thumb-sucking baby, stands and shouts at God’s entrance. Still, among the circles of expanding glory, humanity often heaves a mixed applause toward heaven. This is why Pilate is so quizzical. Elizabeth Barrett Browning put it this way:
Earth’s crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God;
But only he who sees takes off his shoes;
The rest sit round and pluck blackberries.
In other words, our ability to see God is quite directly related to our understanding of ourselves. Those who carelessly toss aside human life will never worship God as they stuff blackberries into their mouths. John Calvin started his magnificent survey of the Christian faith, The Institutes of the Christian Religion, by reflecting that our knowledge of ourselves and our knowledge of God are so intertwined that the one has little power to grow without the other.
C. S. Lewis thought of that. He wondered why we humans, who have so much to live for here, might ever be enticed to long for “heaven” or “eternal life.” Often religion turns worship of God into a duty that exacts a tax of begrudging acknowledgment from us. We have to go to church. We must be good. We are obligated to pray.
But such feelings arise from the pagan notion that we can somehow increase the majesty of our tribal god in the clash of worldly power plays. Rather, says Lewis, it is God’s amazing thoughts about us that make biblical religion special. It is God who creates us in his image. It is God who loves us when we are unlovely. It is God who declares us to be kings and queens. It is God who thinks wonderful thoughts about us, even when we can’t be bothered to think much of ourselves.
When the German prince, George II, became king of Great Britain, he had a special fondness for the music of his fellow countryman, George Frideric Handel. At the premiere concert of Handel’s Messiah in 1743, the king and the crowds were deeply moved by the glory and grace of the masterpiece. When the musicians swelled the “Hallelujah” chorus, and thundered those mighty words, “And he shall reign for ever and ever!” King George (whose English wasn’t all that great) jumped to his feet, thinking they sang of him! The whole crowd followed suit—for a different reason, of course, and a different king!
The comedy of that moment reflects the strange conversation of our gospel reading. Although Jesus seems to many to be a mere man, God in heaven claps his hands and shouts of our greatness. And in the expanding circles of God’s glory, we rise, singing the “Hallelujah” chorus.
Application
There’s a little story tucked away in the pages of Edward Gibbon’s seven-volume work, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. It tells of a humble little monk named Telemachus living out in the farming regions of Asia.
Telemachus had no great ambitions in life. He loved his little garden, and tilled it through the changing seasons. But one day in the year 391 he felt a sense of urgency, a call of God’s direction in his life. Although he didn’t know why, he felt that God wanted him to go to Rome, the heart and soul of the empire. In fact, the feelings of such a call frightened him, but he went anyway, praying along the way for God’s direction.
When he finally got to the city, it was in an uproar! The armies of Rome had just come home from the battlefield in victory, and the crowds were turning out for a great celebration. They flowed through the streets like a tidal wave, and Telemachus was caught in their frenzy and carried into the Coliseum.
He had never seen a gladiator contest before, but now his heart sickened. Down in the arena, men hacked at each other with swords and clubs. The crowds roared at the sight of blood, and urged their favorites on to the death.
Telemachus couldn’t stand it. He knew it was wrong; this wasn’t the way God wanted people to live or to die. So little Telemachus worked his way through the crowds to the wall down by the arena. “In the name of Christ, forbear!” he shouted.
Nobody heard him, so he crawled up onto the wall and shouted again: “In the name of Christ, forbear!” This time the few who heard him only laughed. But Telemachus was not to be ignored. He jumped into the arena, and ran through the sands toward the gladiators. “In the name of Christ, forbear!”
The crowds laughed at the silly little man, and threw stones at him. Telemachus, however, was on a mission. He threw himself between two gladiators to stop their fighting. “In the name of Christ, forbear!” he cried.
The warriors turned on him. They cut his body from shoulder to stomach, and he fell onto the sand with the blood running out of his life.
The gladiators were stunned, and stopped to watch him die. Then the crowds fell back in silence, and, for a moment, no one in the coliseum moved. Telemachus’ final words rang in their memories: “In the name of Christ, forbear!” At last they moved, slowly at first, but growing in numbers. The masses of Rome filed out of the coliseum that day, and the historian Theodoret reports that never again was a gladiator contest held there! All because of the witness and the testimony of a single Christian who had the glow-in-the-dark power of grace and God’s goodness.
A new king with a new way of nurturing human thriving was now sitting on the throne.
Alternative Application (John 18:33-37)
They all were looking for a king
To slay their foes and lift them high;
Thou cam’st a little Baby thing
That made a woman cry.
O Son of Man, to right my lot
Naught but Thy presence can avail;
Yet on the road Thy wheels are not,
Nor on the sea Thy sail.
My fancied ways why should’st Thou heed?
Thou com’st down Thine own secret stair;
Com’st down to answer all my need,
Yes, every bygone prayer.
George MacDonald wrote this poem for friends: friends of his, and friends of Jesus. We own it too, because George MacDonald believed, through his “romantic theology,” that God truly wanted all of us to become friends through Jesus.
Just one year later, servants came to check on their master’s delay. They found him on his knees in prayer. He was dead.
Livingstone’s testimony is powerful on many levels. But the one that is most striking is his claim upon Jesus as “my king.” This has been a common declaration of the church throughout the ages. Even in our era, when democratic social movements topple kings and weigh in against tyrannical regimes, the largest social organization in the entire human race, the Church of Jesus Christ, holds as one of its core tenets of belief that Jesus is king.
Why should Jesus be a king? He was born into a poor family during a time of foreign occupation of their country. He was never trained in schools of leadership, and had no desire to claim any throne. He seemed to alienate the rich and powerful, rebuffed the efforts of his disciples to start an armed rebellion, hushed the adulation of those who were the recipients of his mighty power, told the existing rulers that if he had a kingdom it was not in direct competition with theirs on their terms, and died an ignoble death meant for the worst of society’s scalawags.
Yet from the first connections people made with Jesus, he was often identified as king. Foreigners traveled hundreds of miles to Judea when he was born, telling folks along the way of their astrological readings and projections: a truly great international king had been born! Palestine’s powerful King Herod was afraid of Jesus, and felt he might be competing for the throne Herod had worked so hard to control. Jesus’ own words, while never clearly self-identifying him as a king, were constantly filled with language about the kingdom of heaven or the kingdom of God, of which he seemed to know a great deal more than anyone who was not directly connected with the key governing authority. And then, a Roman centurion assigned to Jesus’ execution squad, made the remarkable testimony, using language otherwise reserved only for the Emperor himself, that “surely this man was the Son of God.” Somehow people kept viewing Jesus as a king.
And the affirmations only continued after Jesus disappeared from the scene. He is above all principalities and powers, Paul wrote, and said that every knee in heaven and on earth would bow to him. John saw him as an all-powerful ruler (Revelation 1), and had a vision of him as conquering king (19). Even in their prayers, members of the early church addressed Jesus as “sovereign Lord,” a term that could hardly be less than royal acknowledgement (Acts 5).
2 Samuel 23:1-7 and Psalm 32:1-12 (13-18)
The Black Angel. That’s what Michael Christopher calls Herman Engel in his play. Herman Engel is a cruel man, an “angel” by name, but darkest black in his Nazi soul. During World War II, he led his army in a horrible massacre of French villages. And after the war, justice catches up with him at the Nuremberg trials. He is sent to jail.
But not long enough, according to Morrieaux. Morrieaux is a French journalist whose family lived in one of those villages. Only he survived the hand of the Black Angel. After thirty years in prison, Engel is released from prison. Morrieaux says that’s too good for him. He begins his plotting.
Engel rejoins his wife. They buy a little cottage in the mountains near Alsace and try to get away from it all for their few remaining years.
But they can’t get away from Morrieaux. He searches for survivors of other families slaughtered by Engel’s army. He tells them of Engel’s release and stirs within them the burning of revenge. He organizes them into a lynch mob. They plan to await the cover of darkness before they shoot and burn the horrid man who lives in the mountains.
But vengeance from a distance is not enough for Morrieaux. He must see the horror and pain in Engel’s eyes. He will go to the general under the guise of friendship. He will get the old fellow to talk about the war. He will open up all the crimes of the past and then turn on Engel as his comrades join him in balancing the scales of justice more equitably. They will dance around the Black Angel together as they send him to hell!
When Engel invites Morrieaux in, Morrieaux is a bit shaken. This is no monster, no demon from the dark side! This is an old man, confused about the past, lonely and heartbroken by the years of prison, wanting only to spend a short while with his wife and then die in peace. Morrieaux’s revenge begins to turn sour in his stomach. He came for the Black Angel of death, but meets only a troubled man, a human like himself.
Dusk catches them still deep in conversation. And then they hear the sounds of the mob, circling for the kill. Morrieaux hesitates. What should he do? Vengeance tastes bitter. So he opens himself up. He tells Engel of his plan, of the lynching plot, of the death that waits outside the door.
“Let me help you!” he begs. “Let me get you away from here! Let me save your life!”
But now Engel hesitates. Yes, he says, I will let you save me. But on one condition. Will you forgive me? Will you release me from the burden of guilt that weighs me down, that floods my soul, that overwhelms my sleepless nights? Will you forgive me?
Save a life? That Morrieaux can do. That he wants to do. That he has to do. But release a soul? Let go of the bitterness, the burning hatred, the consuming passion for vengeance? Forgive Engel? Never!
Morrieaux leaves. Engel dies. And everyone loses.
Life without forgiveness is hell. Hell is the place where justice is never tempered by mercy, where relationships are never mended, where grudges grow and grace has taken a holiday. Hell is eternity apart from God’s forgiving love. And hell is the prison of unforgiveness into which we lock our enemies with no parole.
Hell. Unforgiveness. They’re both the same thing. That’s why David sings with such energy: “Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered!”
Says George Herbert: “He who cannot forgive others destroys the bridge over which he himself must pass!” You can see it in David’s lament. He’s made a mess of things with others around him, and now the bridge to God’s grace is gone. Like Morrieaux, his attitudes and actions have turned sour. Like Engel, he withers in a prison that traps his soul.
And only some power bigger than himself can put it all right again. Only some grace from outside, some compassion that goes beyond justice can open the door and let him live again. Only God.
“For God so loved the world . . . ”
Revelation 1:4b-8
John wrote that he was on the island of Patmos as he received these visions. Patmos was about fifty miles to the southwest of Ephesus, where John had been pastor and church leader for the previous three decades. Although the Book of Revelation does not mention the Roman emperor Domitian, early church sources indicate that an empire-wide persecution of Christians took place during his reign (81–96 A.D.). Tertullian added a note about this in Chapter XXXVI of his On the Prescription of Heretics, stating that, in Rome, “the Apostle John was first plunged, unhurt, into boiling oil, and thence remitted to his island-exile.”
There is evidence on Patmos today that the island had been a quarry for building stones during Roman times, and that slave labor was used in this arduous work. However, it came to be that John was on Patmos, he remained vitally connected to both his resurrected friend Jesus, and to the congregations back on the mainland of Asia Minor, who were praying for him.
In the opening vision, Jesus was identified as the Creator and consummator (“the first and the last”), and was shown symbolically in the temple (walking among the lamp stands), bringing the glory of God into the human arena. While Jesus was clearly human in his physical features, these have been translated by his resurrection (Revelation 1:18) so that they pummel the observer with transcendent power and glory.
Each of the seven letters that followed this encounter (Revelation 2–3) began with a self-description by Jesus, in which some aspect of his revealed glory in chapter 1 was reiterated. The letters are a mixture of warning and encouragement, clearly articulating the experiences of actual congregations living in the first century. They appear to be representative messages, so that even as they speak directly to these seven churches, they communicate Jesus’ ongoing relationship to all congregations generally.
John 18:33-37
Once King George and Queen Elizabeth went to a London theater to see a Noel Coward/Gertrude Lawrence production. As they entered the royal box, the whole audience rose to its feet to honor them. Standing in the wings, Gertrude Lawrence said, “What an entrance!”
And Noel Coward added, “What a part!”
What a part God has to play in the drama of time and space! Says Joan of Arc in the first installment of Shakespeare’s King Henry VI: “Glory is like a circle in the water, which never ceaseth to enlarge itself ” (I.ii). For human rulers, she pointed out, that was disastrous. Eventually the reach would exceed the substance.
But what a part for God! Even when God entered our human arena in the disguise of a mere mortal, the regency of divinity leaked everywhere through Jesus. Pilate had to acknowledge that, in his encounter with the one brought to him by the Jewish leaders.
Every element of creation, from the star-spangled skies to the thumb-sucking baby, stands and shouts at God’s entrance. Still, among the circles of expanding glory, humanity often heaves a mixed applause toward heaven. This is why Pilate is so quizzical. Elizabeth Barrett Browning put it this way:
Earth’s crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God;
But only he who sees takes off his shoes;
The rest sit round and pluck blackberries.
In other words, our ability to see God is quite directly related to our understanding of ourselves. Those who carelessly toss aside human life will never worship God as they stuff blackberries into their mouths. John Calvin started his magnificent survey of the Christian faith, The Institutes of the Christian Religion, by reflecting that our knowledge of ourselves and our knowledge of God are so intertwined that the one has little power to grow without the other.
C. S. Lewis thought of that. He wondered why we humans, who have so much to live for here, might ever be enticed to long for “heaven” or “eternal life.” Often religion turns worship of God into a duty that exacts a tax of begrudging acknowledgment from us. We have to go to church. We must be good. We are obligated to pray.
But such feelings arise from the pagan notion that we can somehow increase the majesty of our tribal god in the clash of worldly power plays. Rather, says Lewis, it is God’s amazing thoughts about us that make biblical religion special. It is God who creates us in his image. It is God who loves us when we are unlovely. It is God who declares us to be kings and queens. It is God who thinks wonderful thoughts about us, even when we can’t be bothered to think much of ourselves.
When the German prince, George II, became king of Great Britain, he had a special fondness for the music of his fellow countryman, George Frideric Handel. At the premiere concert of Handel’s Messiah in 1743, the king and the crowds were deeply moved by the glory and grace of the masterpiece. When the musicians swelled the “Hallelujah” chorus, and thundered those mighty words, “And he shall reign for ever and ever!” King George (whose English wasn’t all that great) jumped to his feet, thinking they sang of him! The whole crowd followed suit—for a different reason, of course, and a different king!
The comedy of that moment reflects the strange conversation of our gospel reading. Although Jesus seems to many to be a mere man, God in heaven claps his hands and shouts of our greatness. And in the expanding circles of God’s glory, we rise, singing the “Hallelujah” chorus.
Application
There’s a little story tucked away in the pages of Edward Gibbon’s seven-volume work, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. It tells of a humble little monk named Telemachus living out in the farming regions of Asia.
Telemachus had no great ambitions in life. He loved his little garden, and tilled it through the changing seasons. But one day in the year 391 he felt a sense of urgency, a call of God’s direction in his life. Although he didn’t know why, he felt that God wanted him to go to Rome, the heart and soul of the empire. In fact, the feelings of such a call frightened him, but he went anyway, praying along the way for God’s direction.
When he finally got to the city, it was in an uproar! The armies of Rome had just come home from the battlefield in victory, and the crowds were turning out for a great celebration. They flowed through the streets like a tidal wave, and Telemachus was caught in their frenzy and carried into the Coliseum.
He had never seen a gladiator contest before, but now his heart sickened. Down in the arena, men hacked at each other with swords and clubs. The crowds roared at the sight of blood, and urged their favorites on to the death.
Telemachus couldn’t stand it. He knew it was wrong; this wasn’t the way God wanted people to live or to die. So little Telemachus worked his way through the crowds to the wall down by the arena. “In the name of Christ, forbear!” he shouted.
Nobody heard him, so he crawled up onto the wall and shouted again: “In the name of Christ, forbear!” This time the few who heard him only laughed. But Telemachus was not to be ignored. He jumped into the arena, and ran through the sands toward the gladiators. “In the name of Christ, forbear!”
The crowds laughed at the silly little man, and threw stones at him. Telemachus, however, was on a mission. He threw himself between two gladiators to stop their fighting. “In the name of Christ, forbear!” he cried.
The warriors turned on him. They cut his body from shoulder to stomach, and he fell onto the sand with the blood running out of his life.
The gladiators were stunned, and stopped to watch him die. Then the crowds fell back in silence, and, for a moment, no one in the coliseum moved. Telemachus’ final words rang in their memories: “In the name of Christ, forbear!” At last they moved, slowly at first, but growing in numbers. The masses of Rome filed out of the coliseum that day, and the historian Theodoret reports that never again was a gladiator contest held there! All because of the witness and the testimony of a single Christian who had the glow-in-the-dark power of grace and God’s goodness.
A new king with a new way of nurturing human thriving was now sitting on the throne.
Alternative Application (John 18:33-37)
They all were looking for a king
To slay their foes and lift them high;
Thou cam’st a little Baby thing
That made a woman cry.
O Son of Man, to right my lot
Naught but Thy presence can avail;
Yet on the road Thy wheels are not,
Nor on the sea Thy sail.
My fancied ways why should’st Thou heed?
Thou com’st down Thine own secret stair;
Com’st down to answer all my need,
Yes, every bygone prayer.
George MacDonald wrote this poem for friends: friends of his, and friends of Jesus. We own it too, because George MacDonald believed, through his “romantic theology,” that God truly wanted all of us to become friends through Jesus.
