The Christmas season is bursting with jovial gatherings, good food, great conversations, surprises and lots of laughter, rejuvenating the human spirit at least until the party is over.
I am sure that every religious person, every believer in God, at some point wonders, “Why doesn’t God just straighten everything out?” Why doesn’t the all-powerful and all-loving Creator of the universe simply deal with the injustice, suffering, violence, and sin that so bedevil His world? Well, we can hear precisely this cry in the prophets of ancient Israel. All of them – Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Hosea, Zechariah, etc. – utter some version of “How long, O Lord?” One form that this expectation takes is a yearning that the God of Israel would come to reign as king, which is to say, as one who has the power and authority to right every wrong.