Voting for Change

Hope and Change are mantras that lift our hearts. We saw our nation rise to its collective feet and for the first time in my voting lifetime, stand in lines for hours in polling stations all for the purpose of bringing some light into a long dark night.


We are creatures which, at our very core, know there must be something better--something more. Our travel-weary souls look to recent world events and long for good news. What thousands of attending students at Harvard University recently learned at a lecture given by N.T. Wright, an Anglican theologian, is that messages of Hope and Change go far beyond those offered by political slogans and stirring speeches. It is more than economic stability or fear from terrorist bombs. It is even more than environmental harmony.

Real Hope and Change, if we are honest, are messages we long to embrace telling us that we as individuals matter. That we are valued. That we have an intrinsic purpose. That we belong. And that the world we long for-that paradise that only seems to exist in the mind’s eye of fantasy or on the eye-candy of the Hollywood big screen-- is a place we can truly find.

These are the changes we hope for which no politician and no utopian strategy can fulfill but it is a change and a hope Christ promises and which drew my heart to him 25 years ago. This was the good news that transformed my life and changed my path.

Thousands of years ago, this was the same good news that Philip shared with the pariahs of him time, the Samaritans. Like us, they had placed their hopes and offered their allegiance to Simon, a local hero who dazzled them with his power and feats of magic.

But when Philip demonstrated the power of a God who could heal their broken bodies, their broken minds and their broken souls, they saw the difference and they exchanged their hopes for change from one who talked a good talk to One who was walking the walk. Even Simon surrendered himself to Real Hope.

A vote for change may begin with a polling booth lever--but Real Change begins with a heart putting its Hope in Christ. That is a message we can truly believe in.