Mixed Messages and Confused Signals

Disclaimer-– Our protests are changing from kneeling during the National Anthem to boycotting our participation in professional athletic contests. My focus as always is the deeper significance involved.

A few weeks ago, while catching up with all that is important on Facebook, I discovered the kind of story that we all love to follow. It goes something like this. Boy meets girl, boy falls in love with girl, boy buys ring for girl and conceives a plan to take her to a secluded but very romantic get-away where he lowers himself on one knee and proposes marriage. In our story, the girl who must love the boys, begins to cry, or at least feign the emotion, while boy pulls out the engagement ring and places it on her finger. Whew, it’s emotionally draining just recounting the incident.

Who doesn’t like the thought of such a beginning? But with all the kneeling as of late, particularly from teams within the ranks of professional sports, one must wonder if the gesture has lost some of its significance, if not all of its meaning. If I have this right, kneeling recently has become fashionable as a form of protest that rejects the ideals and patriotism associated with the United States, its history, and failures; particularly in the areas of social justice for all. It may have greater meaning; arguably the rejection of the virtues of truth and the pursuit of goodness as part of the tenets of western civilization that were part of our early constitutional playbook. Those who kneel apparently reject those ideals; usually in favor of a photo opportunity that reduces legitimate concern to collective shaming and repudiation of a way of life. I’ll leave the political motivations and rationale for others more ably qualified, because my interest lies elsewhere.

I find it interesting to note the choice of defiance and protest turns out to be the gesture reserved throughout history and the Scriptures as a expression of submission to someone or something that we view sovereign over us. One man writes,

Interesting enough, the author concedes that kneeling has “deep meaning for Christians”, and then quotes a passage from Psalm 95, “Come let us bow down, let us kneel before the Lord.”

With that in mind, might it be better to confine our kneeling to the most significant needs and actions of our lives; those of submission to God’s authority, respect for others and a deep humility, recognizing weaknesses that are apparent to everyone other than ourselves, such as arrogance, defiance, and manipulation.

As far as I can tell, everywhere I find kneeling presented in the Scriptures, it represents a person or people, deeply in awe in the face of his Creator, judge, and Lord, and painfully aware of his/ her inability to fashion a successful life in one’s own strength. King David was frequently in that position; The Apostle Paul part of that club and the Apostle John, all knew what it meant to confront the greatness and power of an awesome God. The Scriptures are replete with these references–poignant reflections of a prophet who was unworthy to speak on the Lord’s behalf to an errant Israel; a reluctant seer, who peered into the future and witnessed things beyond his ability to describe; men and women who bowed their hearts if not their hardened frames before the God who held their lives and legacies in the palm of His hand.

If our Savior, who is God with us, the incarnate God in human form, was found kneeling before his heavenly Father, we must never lose sight of the significance and implications of such a profound statement before God. We can only hope that the current cultural signal-callers might now opt for an audible away from their pagan and pointless agenda to kneel in loving submission to the God who made us and helped birth this nation so many years ago.

By the way, the girl said yes. I guess that means they will be getting married.

MJC