Desire of Nations

By: Chuck Colson and Catherine Larson|Published: January 14, 2009 1:16 PM   The eyes of the world are on America as the first African-American takes the oath of office to serve as President of the United States. Fittingly, Barack Obama takes that oath on the day following the observance of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, realizing at least in part that great civil rights leader’s dream of a day when “this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.’” A friend of mine with a lot of experience working in Africa told me how ecstatic friends of his in Kenya were at the outcome of America’s election. That person commented that in Africa, someone from the minority tribe could never peacefully take over and rule the majority. There isn’t a strong enough sense of national identity for that to happen, he explained. In fact, in the area of Kenya where Obama’s father was born is home to the Luo tribe. According to NPR correspondent, Ofeibea Quist-Arcton, “So far in Kenya, there has never been a Luo president. For years, people have said that a Luo had a better chance of becoming president of the United States than the president of Kenya. Apparently, they were right.” America has done something that has sent shockwaves around the world. And in so doing, it has given us a historic and unusual moment where there is an unprecedented amount of good will for us among many other nations—nations with whom we must cooperate on many important issues. There are many things in Obama’s administration that I will resist strongly. The President-elect, along with his newly strengthened allies in Congress, opposes almost every pro-life and pro-family position conservative Evangelicals and conservative Catholics have fought for so hard. But still, I will be praying for him. First, I will pray because it is my Christian duty. But also, I pray because the eyes of the world are watching him. I pray that he would totally surrender himself to Christ and fully embrace a biblical worldview. I encourage you to pray also. Pray that he will be able to promote economic recovery, protect security, and guide this nation wisely. I will pray for his success. But my expectations will also be tempered. GREAT EXPECTATIONS One of the grave dangers in the outpouring of good will that America is currently experiencing as a result of Obama’s historic victory and now inauguration is that of creating unrealistic expectations. One South African commentator, Jameson Maluleke, mused at the “Obamania” he is currently seeing in his homeland: Millions of African peasants are honestly convinced that once Obama is comfortably settled on his powerful throne he will create a peaceful climate on the continent by cracking a whip to chase away a swarm of parasitic insects called warlords. . . . Robert Mugabe will be given an option to retire in peace or face a Saddam Hussein fate. Obama will not stop there; he will build a Utopia . . . that would make every African become an archrival of . . . Bill Gates. They honestly reason that with President Obama at the helm, visiting the US will be as easy as getting in and out of one's hut - there would be no hassles, as we would be exempted from carrying unnecessary credentials such as passports and identity documents. Obama will, in due course, establish thousands of charitable organizations to feed, clothe and shelter all Africa, thus pushing away the frontiers of poverty. In his tenure, medical scientists will be compelled to discover an AIDS cure that will permanently eradicate the virus in a human body. Born a philanthropist, Obama will talk sense into the heads of all world economic giants not to compel Africa to repay its debts. Another journalist who returned from Africa before the election noted that many educated people thought that if the United States elected Obama he would pave all the roads in Africa. Brett Schaefer, a fellow at the Heritage Foundation in Washington is quoted in the National Post as saying, "Obama will be forced to temper unrealistic African expectations for his administration. In truth, having those expectations unrealized would be good for Africa. Africans have too long been encouraged to look abroad for their salvation.” If you ask me, Americans—and even Christians—have too often done something similar. We’ve looked to the Oval Office for our salvation. I’ve said it before and will say it again: the Kingdom of God will not come aboard Air Force One. There are two kingdoms as St. Augustine so famously described: the city of God and the city of man, each has its respective responsibilities in the Christian understanding. Christians should be earnestly praying for Obama, but we cannot expect him to solve all our problems. HARD-WIRED FOR A SAVIOR This past Christmas, I noticed a peculiar phrase in the carols, “desire of nations.” First it appeared in Come Thou Long Expected Jesus. The hymn-writer Charles Wesley penned the lyrics, “dear desire of every nation, joy of every longing heart.” Flip over a few pages to Hark the Herald Angel Sing, and you’ll see Charles Wesley must not have been able to get this phrase out of his mind. In those lyrics you find: “Come, Desire of nations come,/ Fix in us Thy humble home.” In fact, you just can’t get away from that phrase in the carols. It appears again in O Come, O Come Emmanuel, translated by John Mason Neale from the 8th century Latin hymn and in the lyrics of James Montgomery’s Angels from the Realms of Glory. Each time, “Desire of nations” is used as a name for Christ. Curious to discover the original context of the phrase, I opened up my Bible to Haggai. We learn from the first chapter of this book that the Jews had been negligent in rebuilding the temple. They had built their own homes first and embellished them, and in their delay, they had run out of wealth to be allotted for God’s house. (Sound familiar today?) The prophet, after scolding them, reminds them that the glory of this second temple will surpass Solomon’s temple, not because of its adornment, but because of who dwells in it: “For thus saith the LORD of hosts; Yet once, it is a little while, and I will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land; And I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations shall come: and I will fill this house with glory, saith the LORD of hosts.”(Haggai 2:6-7). The “desire of all nations” will fill that temple with the glory of His presence. In a sermon by the Puritan preacher, John Flavell, he expounds on what this strange little phrase tells us about the person of Christ. He points out several truths we can take away from this name. First, Christ is the desire of all nations because he is “a common remedy for sins and miseries of his people.” Second, he is sufficient to “supply the needs of the whole world.” Third, could we compare that internal desire of every human heart, we would see “all their desires, like so many needles touched by one and the same loadstone, move toward Jesus Christ.” And finally, the name implies “the vast extent his kingdom has, and shall have in all the world.” No mere man could so supply the needs of all the world. No mere man could be that which fulfills the desire of all people. How foolish we are then to have expectations for a President which sound so much like expectations for a Savior. Over the coming months and years, those who have put too high of expectations on Obama are undoubtedly going to be disappointed. As Christians, our response should not be “we told you so.” Instead, we need to point them to this truth. No president, Democrat, Republican or any other stripe, is going to supply all our needs. No world leader is going to deliver us from all our problems. But the good news is this. There is a real Savior, who is going to fulfill the desire of all nations. His reign will not be for a term, or a lifetime, but for all eternity. We need to offer the disillusioned and the longing, a chance to bow their hearts to the Desire of all Nations, before the day in which every man, woman, and child—citizen, president or king—will bow the knee.

01/14/09