A Longing For A Better World
God is a God of order and justice. From creation itself, he spoke light into darkness and brought form to the formless (Genesis 1:1–4). From Babel to Pentecost, he has shaped language, culture, and boundaries for human flourishing (Genesis 11:7–9; Acts 2:5–11). He has even appointed rulers and governments to restrain evil and preserve good (Daniel 2:21; Romans 13:1). And yet one day these boundaries and governments will disappear, and all of God’s people will dwell together in a single “holy city … coming down out of heaven from God” (Revelation 21:2). For though kings and presidents hold borrowed authority, Christ reigns above them all. He is the “King of kings and Lord of lords” (Revelation 19:16), and his desire is that human authority would be “not a terror to good conduct, but to bad” (Romans 13:3).
When smoke billows just blocks from where we gather on Sunday mornings, anger and fear are natural responses. When an elected official in our city is handcuffed, it is unsettling. When it seems that order is pursued through force and fear, we grieve—not only because of how it feels or who it harms, but because this is not how God restores order to his world (see Zechariah 4:6).
The Scriptures remind us that “God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance” (Romans 2:4). True transformation, healing, and justice flow not from violence or coercion but from the self-giving love of Christ. Jesus exercises his cosmic authority not by causing suffering but by bearing it on the cross (Isaiah 53:4–5; Philippians 2:8–11).
On days like these, we should honor our feelings. We should be “quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger” (James 1:19). We should protest peacefully and engage the democratic process that God has entrusted to us in this nation (Jeremiah 29:7), especially advocating for those who cannot advocate for themselves (Proverbs 31:8–9). We should “seek justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with [our] God” (Micah 6:8).
But there is one more thing we must do: we should long for a better world. We should long for the day when every tribe and tongue become one people (Revelation 7:9–10). We should long for the day when every king and queen, every president and mayor, and every human authority is no longer necessary—for Jesus, the King of kings and Lord of lords, will dwell with us, and we “will be his people, and God himself will be with [us as our] God” (Revelation 21:3).
“The church lives in Advent. That is to say, the church lives between two times. We live between the time of Christ’s first coming and his second coming. We are not called to be optimistic, but to live in hope. Hope is not founded on what we can see. Hope is founded on the promise of God, and that promise is that Christ will come again and set the world to rights.”*
As the Church has said for generations, Come, Lord Jesus, come.
*Fleming Rutledge, Advent: The Once and Future Coming of Jesus Christ
