A New Song for a New Year

By Drew Gilliland
Program & Research Associate, G.L.O.B.A.L. Justice

As I was reflecting on what to write for this post, a line that is repeated throughout the Bible (but especially in the Psalms, in Isaiah, and in Revelation) came to mind: “Sing to the Lord a new song!”

The first time this phrase is written is in Psalm 33, a psalm very fitting for us who are involved in doing justice as part of loving God and loving other people. Before continuing, please take a minute to read it. 

I don’t know about you, but I often find it difficult to shout for joy in the Lord and sing a new song to Him. The burdens of this world and my own inadequacies can feel overwhelming to me. But that is often because I am forgetting who God is – and this psalm is an excellent reminder. Why should we shout and sing? Because his word is true and faithful. It will not fail, and the true Word – Jesus himself – is ever-faithful. God loves justice and proved it through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. He loves it when we work for the good of others, because it’s what he himself did and does. When we do justice, we join in the work of God. What a humbling thought.

“We are blessed because we are given the ability to partake of his great vision to renew all things, and to be part of his restorative work.”

And why do we work for justice? It comes from knowledge of what God has always wanted for his creation, which he himself made. He placed the stars where they are, breathing into existence their fiery plasma and gases. He controls the raw power of the oceans. When I look at the stars and hear the crashing of the waves of the sea, I am indeed in awe, as the psalmist says in verse 8. But he didn’t stop there. He created the plants, the animals, and us. And He wanted us to live in perfect relationship with himself, with ourselves, with each other, and with his creation. It was all “very good” as we lived to work alongside Him to shape his raw world into something even better. But, as you know, we fell because we were deceived by Satan. But God has always had a plan, and his creative power has never ceased working in our world to bring about the reconciliation of all things to Him.

As our Father is this grand Creator, we can surely trust him to frustrate the plans of the nations – plans to conquer and to oppress, to harm and to destroy. In contrast, it is His eternal plan, as shown in the entirety of Scripture that is sure. It alone is true, like an arrow flying straight towards its target. It is a plan of restoration and judgment. And we are his people, his nation, and his heritage. We are blessed because we are given the ability to partake of his great vision to renew all things, and to be part of his restorative work. 

Some people want to see things change and trust in the wrong things – their war machines or their algorithms, their financial clout or their cultural & political capital. These cannot save. They are a false hope for salvation; in all their might, they “cannot rescue.” 

Sisters and brothers, let us fear the Lord, worshipping him in awe with a new song in our hearts, birthed by Christ and carried to fruition by the Holy Spirit. Let our souls wait upon the Lord, for He is our help and our shield. Because we can trust Him and be glad!

Advent: I Heard the Bells

By Drew Gilliland
Program & Research Associate, G.L.O.B.A.L. Justice

A couple of years ago, when I was in Ireland getting my Master’s degree in sociology, I remember December being very heavy. The content I was digesting was emotionally difficult; one cannot help but feel discouraged when analyzing the way our societies work. The pain, injustice, and the dark systemic forces of our world, whether human-made or spiritual, seem overwhelmingly powerful and deeply rooted.

It was in this state of mind that I came across a hymn while walking down the main village road in Blackrock, a quiet suburb south of Dublin. The sun was shining in the morning (a rare winter sight in Ireland) and I had my headphones in as I walked to the local coffee shop. The words struck me as I strode past the beautiful Catholic church across the street from my house. 

“I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old familiar carols play
And wild and sweet the words repeat
Peace on Earth, good-will to men.”

The Advent season which we are entering is a time of hope, pointing our eyes to the hope we have in Christ – a wild and sweet hope, as the song says. But the presence of hope also indicates that there are dire conditions that make hope necessary. One only needs to scan news headlines to begin to feel overwhelmed by the problems in our world. Two stanzas later, that old familiar dread and pain resonated within me as these words played:

“And in despair, I bowed my head
’There is no peace on Earth,’ I said
For hate is strong and mocks the song
Of peace on Earth, good-will to men.”

In the original poem, penned by an abolitionist whose son was a Union Army lieutenant wounded in the Civil War, two additional stanzas vividly describe the brutality of conflict and of the human condition. 

“Then from each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound
The carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearth-stones of a continent,
And made forlorn
The households born
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!”

This section of the poems reminds me of the famous quote from The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky: “God and the devil are fighting there, and the battlefield is the human heart.” Each of us, our societies, and our physical world bear the scars of this war. Just this week, there have been earthquakes and floods, bombings and protests, details of systematic Chinese brainwashing camps for Uighur Muslims, apocalyptic climate change warnings, a frighteningly high death rate for young Americans like myself, reports of wars and conflicts, and new details of housing segregation, racism, and hatred in our country. And this doesn’t mention the countless stories of difficulty and pain each individual bears on a daily basis. The barrage never seems to end. 

Indeed, there is no peace on Earth. I, too, bow my head in despair. Hate is strong and does seem to mock the song of peace on Earth, good-will to men. It is as one Yemeni man, whose daughter desperately needed medical care in a war zone, said: “We’re just waiting for doom or for a breakthrough from heaven.”

In this moment of being overwhelmed yet again by the weight of the world’s myriad problems, the song’s next stanzas pierced the darkness in my soul.

“Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
God is not dead; nor doth he sleep!
The Wrong shall fail
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men!

Till, ringing, singing on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime,
A chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!”

I remembered the coming of Jesus and the overwhelmingly beautiful truth that God sees you. He sees me. He sees the troubles of this world. He is not dead – he is the living God. He is the God of the resurrection. He is the God who has come to restore all things. “Aslan is on the move.” The night will turn to day. The cosmic Wrong – the prince of the power of the air, the ruler of this world, sin and death – shall fail. The cosmic Right – the fiercely creative love of God, who has come to take away the sins of the world and give live abundantly – shall prevail. God is not the silent clockmaker envisioned by Enlightenment thinkers. He is present and active, moving even as we speak. And we, as the church, are participating in his work of justice in anticipation of his second coming. 

This is Advent: living in the reality of the already and the not-yet. We acknowledge the present reality of pain and brokenness in this world, and yet we know that the real reality is the New Earth and the New Jerusalem, when God will reside with his people and they with him. And he will wipe every tear from our eyes, and pain and sin and death will be no more. So, this is my Advent prayer:

“O come, O come Emmanuel
And ransom captive Israel
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appears.

Rejoice! Rejoice! 
Emmanuel shall come to thee O Israel…”

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Thanks to the work of Fleming Rutledge in her book Advent: The Once and Future Coming of Jesus Christ. It has been an invaluable resource to me.

Living in a Posture of Gratitude

By Drew Gilliland
Program & Research Associate, G.L.O.B.A.L. Justice

It’s almost Thanksgiving, one of our society’s most revered and simultaneously (and ironically) overlooked holidays. There may be contentions over its origins, but the notion that we should take a day to be thankful for what we’ve been given has tremendous life-changing potential. 

Our society is arguably the most-connected, fastest-moving, always-on society the world has ever known. With newsfeed updates, phone notifications, the ever-present barrage of ads, and the mixing of old and new music, TV shows, and movies, we as a people rarely, if ever, actually take a moment to sit. We’re always chasing happiness, success, recognition, profits, power, pleasure, etc. We are collectively spinning our wheels most of the time, with injustice and outrage and loneliness and division to show for it. It’s no wonder that BuzzFeed News recently wrote an article entitled, “The 2010s Have Broken Our Sense Of Time.” We’re quite skilled at chasing after the wind. 

“The Teacher” in the ancient Hebrew wisdom book of Ecclesiastes was, as well. He tried chasing everything that we chase – wealth, fame, power, love – and found that everything in our world is “hevel, hevel, everything is utterly hevel.” Hevel, usually translated as “meaningless” or “vanity,” is the Hebrew word for vapor or smoke, and is used 38 times in the book. Life is temporary and fleeting, and it is an enigma and a paradox, just like smoke. Smoke appears solid, but if you try to grab hold of it, it slips through your fingers. It can also cloud our vision and disorient us to reality. There are accounts of celebrities and sports superstars who achieve their wildest dreams, only to find that their achievements don’t give them the satisfaction they had hoped for. Like smoke, trying to grasp life’s meaning can appear to be solid and achievable, only for it to cruelly slip away. In the world of justice, we can play an everlasting game of whack-a-mole, where one issue seems to be solved while another injustice rears its ugly head. It can be absolutely demoralizing and disheartening.

So why do I turn to Ecclesiastes for hope if it declares that all life is like chasing the wind – a pointless and fruitless exercise? Because the Teacher doesn’t end there. He encourages us to stop trying to find meaning in our striving, and instead accept that life is out of our control. Throughout the book, just when things get very dark, he reminds us of the gift of God: the enjoyment of simple, good things in life, like a conversation with a friend, time with family, a good meal, or a sunny day – the simple pleasures of life. We cannot control any of these things, but that’s what makes them so good. When we adopt a posture of trust in and gratitude to God, it frees us to enjoy life as we actually experience it, not how we think it ought to be.

The work of justice is good, worthwhile, and the Teacher even says that God’s ways of living with love and and justice are good and should be pursued. But this Thanksgiving, and as we come up on the end of the year, it’s easy for us to scramble even more – to grasp at smoke and chase wind. Let us remember to enjoy the little moments of this beautiful time of the year – leaves, lights, songs, hot drinks, family & friends, laughter and food. We can be a part of doing justice to and with the people around us if we enjoy them like the gifts they are. And if everyone in society lived like this, I think we would see a lot less hatred, greed, violence, and division. As JRR Tolkien once said in his book, The Hobbit, “If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.” Let us adopt a posture of humility and gratitude so we can experience God’s goodness to us and be refreshed as we continue to pursue justice in his name.

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Many thanks to the good people at The Bible Project, who helped show me how beautiful Ecclesiastes really is. I borrowed from two of their videos (linked above) for some of this piece.