Public service announcement: While the world may seem to be falling around you, all is well.

There is understanding among citizens of what is happening. The center is slipping. A poet need not articulate the state of America. We do not need a literature class, or William Butler Yeats to explain it. Anyone living today can grasp what the poet was trying to say in “The Second Coming,” even if he did misread the tea leaves on the end times.

Yeats wrote the poem in 1918, after World War I, during a pandemic known as the Spanish Flu, in the twilight of the British empire. Sound familiar? The power structure was fading into decadence right along with the British rejection of God, just as it always does. When people lost their way, God retreats and the center falls apart. Three hundred years of lusting for power and wealth surfaced into the lust for pleasure and corruption. The “stable” world of London, built by wealth won through violence, was falling into the chaos to which all empires succumb, as America is now. The evil done to “gain the world” led to a collapse of belief and with it went morality. Gaining the world, as always, means losing your soul. When the mask of a godless social order slips away, people scramble for safety like insects exposed under a lifted rock. Here’s how Yeats saw it happening:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

Weeks could be spent on these lines. But do we need to spend time on it? We do not. We can just go on social media and see the best people lack conviction, while the worst people hurl invectives and spew anonymous hate in comment boxes. We don’t need Yeats, not when we are living in the time when this is happening before our eyes.

We can feel the center slipping and await the “blood-dimmed tide.” A small match will set this dried tinderbox ablaze. We don’t need Yeats to explain the poem now because he was a product of the same era that we have lived in for fifty years, where a people who rejected God fell into the spell of habitual sin, and then wondered what happened. Yeats soaked in the same tub that we are in. He lived a life of late-stage empire just as we have, trying to make a name for himself.

As Democrats and Republicans blame one another, and Right-wingers and Leftists hurl stock insults back and forth, and fascists and communists label each other with only a vague understanding of the actual meaning of the words, what is happening is the scramble for cover. Preparations are being made for the coming war as God retreats from the land, just as he did for the Egyptians, the Assyrians, the Persians, the Israelites, the Romans, the Germans, and the Soviets. The “passionate intensity” that we see online is just individuals placing their bets, finding their foxholes to hide in, with the hopes that the chips fall their way, that they have chosen the winning side. Fig leaves are being tried on and fit for size, in hopes that it marks them as an accepted teammate on the victorious side. With luck, their name won’t make the roster of the new enemies of the state.

What is happening is that people are trying to get out of the way of the swinging axe when it comes for blood, and it will swing. They think getting out of the way of the axe is by moving further from the center. A fragile state is felt. The pendulum appears most dangerous in the middle, and perhaps it won’t slice those who move off to one of the corners, away from the center. Moving far left or far right seems to be the only escape. So one side will cling to a version of “tradition,” claiming they want law and order (but with certain cheats allowed) and the other side wants to smash tradition and allow all things, where the only “sin” is whatever the old authority wanted. In either case, both sides are riddled with the same problem of pride and competition driving their choices, and by choosing a side they harbor anger and resentment toward the other. The zero sum game board is set and the only thing holding back the reign of terror is that that the grocery stores are still full of food today. The first rush to hoard during the Covid pandemic was for toilet paper. The second rush will be for guns and grain, and unfortunately, those who have the most guns can always just go ahead and take the grain.

Why am I mentioning all of this? Is this some sort of prophecy of pandemics, war, riots, and lies? No. Yes.

God knows all this is happening. He is allowing it to happen.

Is this God’s will?

Of course it is. It’s his world. It’s his universe. Christians are not called to solve all problems. They are called very explicitly to believe and be baptized and keep God’s commandments. Then, after that, to preach the most important news: that there is a savior who can transform our suffering. Jesus did not come to be Caesar or President, but to feed the poor and save souls. He did not come to save the rich and powerful, he came to save the poor and lost.

It’s important on election day to recall the lessons on why Jesus died. He came to take away the sins of the world. He did not come to end suffering. No, suffering is still here. We still have to deal with that. Even atheists have to deal with that problem. Jesus came to forgive our sins, but it wasn’t to remove all suffering. He didn’t come to make life easy, to put our feet up and order take-out. It was so we could understand suffering, and transform our suffering into something greater. He came to take away our sins and defeat death. He showed us how to live.

Most importantly, he came to defeat the devil. This is probably the least talked about reason that he came, which is odd, because this message is strewn all about the Gospels, from the temptations in the desert to the casting out of demons to his descending into hell. We do not get to eternal life without this victory over evil. Taking away our sins is great. Transforming our suffering - even better. But defeating death and evil - that is why he is the savior.

We still have to live out our lives here in the meantime, and with Jesus by our side, we can have total gratitude for every injury and insult that comes our way. That is the power of the Gospel. He was crucified so that we might live. The kingdom of God is among us. Be a joyful believer and pray for his grace, with the faith of a child.

Resist the urge to lay blame. The sinners are here, and you and I are among them. We are them. We’ve taken the same bites of fruit as Adam and Eve. The loss of innocence at an individual level plays out similarly to that of a whole nation. The world is always going to have suffering until God says otherwise, and there will always be dabblers and fools and seekers and lost souls. Just pray for them and give thanks that you might be found again every day. If our nation tries to crown itself as King and Creator, it will fall. There is only one truth, and that is the life of Christ, the lessons of the Cross, and the glory of the Resurrection.

If others assume their invincibility, their divinity, that there is no Higher Power or eternal justice between them and God, then there is no longer a distinction between heaven and hell. Let them have their beliefs, but never abandon yours. All that glitters is not gold.

When the constraints are all gone, when the police and planners can can no longer hold back the riot, know that God’s will is playing out. Money and power can play games with perception for a while, but the truth will always come out in the end. As Jesus warned us, the yeast of the the Pharisees is hypocrisy and the leaven seeps into the whole of the bread. Once everyone catches on to what the top people in society are doing to win, then the middle class follows suit. That is where the personal resistance must happen. Do not follow. Do not pursue. Stay with the Gospel and reject all polished apples presented to you.

When right and wrong becomes blurred, what will you do? What happens when the drag queen becomes the preacher? (I’m not making this up, this has already happened. In that case, you find a new church.) When sin is brought to the center, what happens to the center? What happens when the strip joint is elevated over holy places? What happens when our leaders don’t believe in sin? What happens when they no longer believe in God? What happens when marriage is no longer about a sacrament, a man and a woman becoming one flesh, but just a contract? What happens when we just rename things?

Fortunately for us, we don’t have to ask these questions, we will just get to observe it in action, in living history. For those who believe, that is where the test will be. The test will be how you reacted when the world fell down around you. When the chaos comes, like the Great Flood, will you be in the ark, or will you be squabbling for the last high spot on a teetering sandcastle amid the rushing waters?

Will you rush to take up the sword? Will your main concern be winning a war? Will it be power you are ultimately after, or humility before the Lord? Because on that day neither Democrats nor Republicans will be there to save you. More than likely they will be there to kill you, and like St. Paul, St. Timothy, St. Lawrence, you can meet them with joy.

You will know if you followed Him on the last day, right after the last exhale of breath from your lungs. Because it’s not what you win here, but whether you endured in the faith to the end. The toys you have here, the boats and the cars and the conquests and the political victories, will be as useful as the toys you gathered in your crib as a baby. Jesus asked us to take up our cross and follow him, not gather up comforts and settle. You will know your faith meant something, not if you win, not by the number of men you outlasted; you will meet Jesus if you do what he asked: if you prayed, believed, fasted, gave to the poor, and carried the message forward. If you healed the sick and kept his commandments. He did ask you to worry about who is governor, or state representative, or senator. He explicitly said that he did not care about Caesar or Pilate, as their power here was only given to them from above. So it is with any election outcome here today.

The Great Commission was not given to the apostles to gain earthly power. It was done to heal the sick, to bring the message of salvation. Those who need Him know Him. He calls them to him. Rest assured tonight that the winner of the election will not offer salvation. The winner today will offer some cheap trinket instead of the Pearl of Great Value that Jesus offers. In fact, if you follow Him correctly, the earthly powers will come to hate you and mock you, not love you. We can see it happening now. And for Christians who are wringing their hands right now about the comfort of a Christian society slipping, they have confused their comfort and wealth with Jesus Christ himself.

Be reminded - the God who came to live among us was without a place to lay his head. He served the poor and found the lost. He died on a Cross, hanging in public for three hours naked, suffocating with nails driven through his hands and feet. We are Sadducees and Pharisees, not Christians. We seem to have forgotten that to be Christian should not be cool, and a cross is not a fashion symbol but an instrument of execution. A church that follows this culture to fit in with the times will be orphaned in a short while. The churches that change their doctrine to fit the moment are just another fidget spinner or social media app. They come and go. They are as far from Christ as were Herod, Caiaphas, and Pilate. To buy into the zeitgeist is to forget the lessons learned from two millennia of being vilified and attacked from all sides. Whenever we mumble our way through the Nicene Creed we forget the blood and tears that forged those words, starting with St. Stephen all the way to the martyrs in Nigeria this week.

To fall into the trap of politics is to forget the entire purpose of God’s incarnation as a fully human and fully divine person named Jesus. Those who claim to be powerful here, whether it’s the Democrats or the Republicans, whether it’s Trump or Biden, or whatever name comes next in the list of presidents, they are not ruling. They have their scraps here, but no real power. Jesus ascended into heaven and he rules from there. Never forget that God is ruling this world and whatever temporary suffering we have here is prelude to the great joy that awaits us.

After all, what’s the worst they can do? Take away your social media? You should be so lucky. What’s worse than that? Take away your money. Yes, and set you free.

The worst they can do is kill you. And then the joke is on them.

The person who loves Christ and belongs to Christ, the worst they can do to you is kill you, and when that happens you go to rule and reign with Him... That’s the promise that we have in this vision.

So if we really understand what the Ascension is about, this should give us a lot more confidence in the way that we live our life. This is where St. Paul got his confidence, despite the shipwrecks and the beatings and the persecution and the hatred and the mocking he took. He knew that for him to live was Christ and to die was gain, and so he didn’t have to be afraid of anything or anyone. Anything anyone did to him would ultimately work for his benefit, for his blessings and his glory, and blessings and glory that are eternal, over against sufferings that are temporary, even if they go on for our whole lives here on this earth.

If we really have this vision before us, then all of a sudden we don’t have to worry about who’s president. We don’t have to worry about whether certain bills pass Congress. We don’t really have to worry about anything any more, because we serve and more importantly are loved by the God who rules over all of it. (Fr. Stephen de Young)

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