The Ballet Box and the Hope of Change
The Ballot Box and The Promise of Change
Americans will go to the polls on Tuesday, November 3, to cast their ballot for the next President. Voting for leaders at the local, state, and national level is both a privilege and a responsibility. Most citizens cast their vote with expectation, focused on their wishes for the future of the city, state, or nation. Voters anticipate some kind of economic, political, or social change that will improve their own or the nation’s future. Casting a ballot is an expression of that hope for better things, for future change.
It’s easy, though, to get disillusioned about the political process. Our expectations and assumptions rarely are fully realized, regardless of the outcome. That is the nature of the political process.
This week, we participate in a very competitive and divisive political battle for the leaders of our nation for the next four years. The nation is deeply divided. The stakes seem so high. The struggle to win is adversarial in nature. The results will likely be contested for months. In the wake of the election, we will see and hear expressions of anger, rage, hatred, disappointment, disillusionment, and doom. It may be the better part of wisdom, then, to remind ourselves of the comfort found in a few unchanging truths from Scripture.
First, lasting change, real change, begins with individuals. In hearts. One person, life-on-life, one at a time. Nations, cities, communities and families change as individual people slowly change from within - change in values, morals, thoughts, emotions, priorities and purposes of life.
The First Door
Mark’s gospel addresses how and where that kind of change starts - change in people’s lives can begin each day at a simple common place- the door of your home.
In the gospel of Mark, we find two doors, the first door in chapter 1, a simple setting where great change took place in people’s lives, where Jesus was conspicuously present, resulting in good news for an entire city.
When Jesus departed from the synagogue in Capernaum, he went to the home of Peter and Andrew, where Pete’s mother-in-law was sick in bed with a fever. Jesus touched her hand and she was immediately healed, “and began to serve” her houseguests, a mark of true discipleship and recovery. After the sun had set, meaning that the Sabbath (Mark 1:21) was over, and it was now the first day of the week, the whole town gathered at the door and Jesus healed many who had various diseases and expelled many demons.
Did you read that? The whole town at the door. Just the door: unpretentious, unimpressive, simple, no razzle dazzle, no stage, no lights, no smoke. Just a door. Mark 1:33
Peter opened the door of his home to Jesus and as a result, that door became a place of healing and freedom for many, his home a palace of mercy, his house a hospital for the sick and oppressed.
The whole town gathered. All kinds of were welcome. Lower class, upper class, middle class, women, children, men, poor, rich. Not at the door to the local synagogue or a religious temple or to the door of a chapel or concert hall with lights and smoke - but at the door of a simple home, a home like yours.
What brought the change in the city of Capernaum? An election? A change of political party in the palace? Where did it occur? At the ballot box? No, Mark shows us that people’s lives are changed at a door where Jesus stands.
So, consider the impact your home will have on those inside your door, your children, as you raise them, living your life daily, transparently before them, modeling patience, sacrificial love, and faithfulness to Jesus. Think about the effect on your children or grandchildren as they observe you leaving through your door to demonstrate active concern for the disadvantaged, the poor, the immigrant, and the prisoner.
Consider the impact your home could have in your neighborhood, as you step out of your door to quietly and faithfully look for ways to be a good neighbor to those who live around you, modeling graciousness, generosity, patience and kindness. Think about the real impact when you open up your door to men and women who are hopeless, troubled, weak, addicted, depressed, or without a loving home.
Lasting change occurs in the lives of men, women, and boys and girls when they are impacted by individual people, up close, in relationship. There are multiple words for it - discipled, developed, mentored, face-to-face, one-on-one, and in a small group setting, just inside your front door.
That is the method Jesus used in Mark’s Gospel to develop, shape, and prepare his own hand-picked disciples. Jesus’ method is none other than God’s method. It is the divinely inspired method demonstrated in all four Gospels, yet it remains the greatest secret in the church. You don’t need to impress people or entertain them on a glitzy stage with smoke and lights - just open your life, your heart, your door, and impact them life-on-life, modeling a genuine faith in the Savior and love for them.
Second truth: As Jesus’ followers and citizens of a democratic nation, we should enthusiastically and thankfully participate in the right and privilege of voting. We should become engaged as we are able and motivated and make prayerful and careful, thoughtful choices at the ballot box on Tuesday. But we should not allow ourselves to take that further, misguided step in expectation and allow our ultimate hope for a better nation or city to rest in a political or election outcome or a particular leader.
Mark shows us that the welfare of an entire city was improved because Jesus came to the door of Peter’s house, not because a new mayor was elected at the ballot box for the city of Capernaum. Widespread and lasting change—relief from misery, suffering, and bondage - occurred at a door because Jesus was there.
And so, regardless of the outcome of the upcoming election, we can continue to make a redemptive difference and see meaningful, lasting change in people’s lives by reconsidering the door of our homes. Our hope for a better city, a better nation, still remains in the simple, unadorned places where Jesus stands.
The Second Door
But let’s not forget another important door at the other end of Mark’s Gospel. Just as with the episode of the first door, the conclusion of the Sabbath triggered new hope at a second door. Three women arrived at the tomb of Jesus at sunrise, on the first day of the week. Unexpectedly, they found the door[1] of the tomb wide open, but this time Jesus was conspicuously absent. As the young man at the tomb explained to them, “Do not be alarmed. You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has been raised. He is not here. Look, there is the place where they laid him.” (Mark 16:6).
The empty tomb of the resurrected Jesus, revealed by the open door, stands as the basis of our hope for authentic life today and for eternal life with God after death.
What is our hope in life and death?
Christ alone, Christ alone
What is our only confidence?
That our souls to Him belong
Who holds our days within His hand?
What comes, apart from His command?
And what will keep us to the end
The love of Christ, in which we stand
O sing hallelujah!
Our hope springs eternal
O sing hallelujah!
Now and ever we confess
Christ our hope in life and death
What truth can calm the troubled soul?
God is good, God is good
Where is His grace and goodness known?
In our great Redeemer's blood
Who holds our faith when fears arise?
Who stands above the stormy trial?
Who sends the waves that bring us night
Unto the shore, the rock of Christ?
O sing hallelujah!
Our hope springs eternal
O sing hallelujah!
Now and ever we confess
Christ our hope in life and death
Unto the grave, what will we sing?
"Christ, He lives; Christ, He lives!"
And what reward will heaven bring?
Everlasting life with Him
There we will rise to meet the Lord
Then sin and death will be destroyed
And we will feast in endless joy
When Christ is ours forevermore
O sing hallelujah!
Our hope springs eternal
O sing hallelujah!
Now and ever we confess
Christ our hope in life and death
- by Keith Getty and Matt Pappa
Thank you for reading.
[1] English versions of this verse translate the phrase as “the entrance to the tomb.” But the Greek text intentionally uses the same term for door as in Mark 1:33. “The door to the tomb.” Doors act as bookends for the Gospel of Mark.