For “you were like sheep going astray,” but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls. – 1 Peter 2:25

Today’s Scripture Reading (March 19, 2018): 1 Peter 2

Pastor Brian Zahnd insists that “The majority is almost always wrong. The crowd is untruth. Scapegoating is demonic.” If he is right, then what does that indicate for the populist movements that seem to be springing up all over the world. Can the will of the people really be trusted? I am not sure that I know the answer to the question. I am not undemocratic, I believe in free and fair elections. President Trump’s “jokes” about consolidating power and becoming “President for Life” fill me with more fear than you can imagine, and yet I have to admit that I often don’t know what is best for my country. And I am not sure that any one person really does. Leadership of a nation cannot be given to any populist movement because we will invariably get it wrong. While I think that Trump’s “drain the swamp” has appeal, even I know that a swamp serves a purpose in our ecological system. I do not need a politician who will do what I think is right; I need a politician who I can trust to do right things.

It was interesting as President Trump ramped up his rhetoric threatening a new trade war a couple of weeks ago, we started to relive Trade Wars of the past. And one of the quotes remembered by the news media (or fake news depending on which side of the argument you might be on) was from President Richard Nixon. (Now there is a president we need to emulate, who doesn’t need a little Tricky Dicky on their side – sarcasm in case you missed it.) According to Nixon, he engaged in Trade Wars to get the votes of the uninformed. And that forms the problem of the populist movement; it is based on the votes of the uninformed. But the other side of the problem is equally as daunting. We have no idea who it is that we can trust to do the right thing.

Peter closes off this section of his letter by expounding on Isaiah 53, a section of Isaiah’s prophecy that we know as the “Suffering Servant” passage. Partially based on Peter’s letter, Christians have long considered the “Suffering Servant” passage of Isaiah to be a prophecy about Jesus. And Isaiah writes this about the people –

We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to our own way;
and the Lord has laid on him 

the iniquity of us all (Isaiah 53:6).

All of us have taken a path not meant for us. We have done what seems right to us. And yet it is wrong. Isaiah’s words aptly sum up the contemporary populist movements. It seemed right, but it isn’t. But Isaiah stresses that the penalty of our wrong behavior is not laid on us who have gone astray, but rather on the mysterious “Suffering Servant.”

Peter’s message is that we know the identity of the “Suffering Servant;” it is Jesus. And even though we struggle with who it is that we can trust in our governments, ultimately we know that we can trust the one on whom God has placed “the iniquity of us all” with our lives. The Suffering Servant is also our Shepherd and the Overseer of our souls. He is the one who can be trusted with all that we don’t understand about this life. And even if we have wandered away, there is still a path that takes us back home again.  

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: 1 Peter 3