Right Ruler

So barring some hanging chad, by this time next week we will have elected a new president and weighed in on other important matters of state. While we may not often think of it, elections like this tap into our longings. Here is how Richard Lovelace in Renewal as a Way of Life puts it:

“Every four years the American people elect a new president with the hope that somehow this will make things better. Economic downturns, crop failures, moral declines and worsening international conditions are all blamed on presidents – who in most cases have little control over events. In the hearts of the people is a groping, inarticulate conviction that if the right ruler would only come along, the world would be healed of all its wounds. Creation is headless and desperately searching for its head.”

It is this desperate search for our Head that forms the plot of the OT and the NT. It is the revelation of the Right Ruler that is the climax of the Biblical story. The one who can heal our deepest wounds is the one that Paul has been talking about in Colossians:

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. (Col. 1:15-19)

So next week we may have elected a new president, but we still have King Jesus on the throne, our Head and the absolute Right Ruler.

To the King!