The Only Way Up Is Down: Boris & Jesus

We’ve all got a problem with authority.

In an election campaign, everyone knows that we need leaders. There’s a lot that’s not right in the world and we can’t put it right unless some people have the authority to change things. Even if things were going well, you can’t have a united human community without leadership that exercises some kind of authority. But the big question is, what kind of leadership? What kind of authority?

I couldn’t help thinking last night about Boris Johnson growing up saying he wanted to be the ‘World King’. And then cleverly manoeuvring himself across to the Leave camp when he saw an opportunity in the referendum. And then working his way into the perfect position to oust Theresa May and win the leadership. It basically feels to me like whatever you think of his policies, it’s pretty hard to deny that our Prime Minister was pretty willing to do anything to get that power. It’s pretty hard to avoid getting the impression that he wanted to be Prime Minister for his own sake, rather than for anyone else’s. I imagine that even my friends who are committed Conservatives feel a bit uneasy about that – to be honest I imagine quite a few of the Cabinet feel a bit uneasy about it. I think Plato said at some point that the only person wise enough to be King would not want to be King – but it feels like we’re a long way away from authority being thrust upon someone who doesn’t really want it for themselves but will accept out of duty and the desire for the common good. A very long way.

And yet I think we all know that we need leaders, that authority is actually deep down a good thing, because authority can unite and it can heal. If the right person has it.

And so I couldn’t help thinking last night about how glad I am that Jesus is real, and he is the one who has ultimate authority and one day will exercise it fully. That’s just such good news. Why? Because where many politicians are essentially willing to cause damage to others in order to get power for themselves, Jesus is the opposite. He was willing to suffer immense damage to himself, in order to use his power for the benefit of others. Where we tend to scramble our way up the ladder, he lovingly climbs down – down to being born into poverty, down onto his knees to wash our feet, down into the hellish depths of death itself – so that he can lift us up. 

I love this poem which is one of the very earliest songs written about who Jesus was:

In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

who, being in very nature God,
    did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
rather, he made himself nothing
    by taking the very nature of a servant,
    being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
    he humbled himself
    by becoming obedient to death –
        even death on a cross!

Isn’t that amazing? Jesus is in very nature God. He’s the Eternal Son of God, equal with God the Father in the unity of the Spirit forever – but what does he do with all that authority? He doesn’t grasp at it for his own advantage. He kneels, he stoops, he serves. And in the mystery of mysteries his ultimate act of service, his deepest way to do good to the world is to let himself die naked and humiliated, in tortured agony. And the poem goes on:

Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
    and gave him the name that is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
    in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
    to the glory of God the Father.

And I don’t know about you, but if it was just the second half I think something in me would feel uneasy about someone having all that authority, all that power, all those knees bowing before him. But the thing is, Jesus knelt first. Jesus climbed down, all the way into the dirt, all the way into the depth of that death, out of love for us. And if that’s what he’s like, then its such such good news that he has all the authority. He’s the only one we could ever trust to wield it. And it’s such good news that one day he will exercise that authority fully, and every knee will bow before him, mine included.

And of course if we grasp that, if we start right now to trust and follow the King who kneels to wash our feet, then we learn how to wash other people’s feet. We learn to have the same mindset, as the poem invites us to at the start. And I reckon that’s exactly what this hurting world needs right now.