By Pastor Jeff Jacobs
Unity Lutheran Parish – St. Paul, Saetersdal and St. Matthew’s, Granger
I was 16 when our nation celebrated its Bicentennial, and now at 66 another milestone comes, this Semiquincentennial, 250th anniversary of these United States.
A lot has happened in 50 years: home computers, cell phones, internet and AI…the Columbine school tragedy and subsequent mass shootings…Hurricane Katrina and other natural calamities … space shuttles and the Hubble Telescope … the 9/11 attacks … election of our first African American president … 2008’s Great Recession … 2020’s COVID shut-downs …
U.S. history is a mix of triumph and tragedy – wars and racial tensions, inventions and health care advances, political struggles and reconciliations, economic collapses and joyous victories. We have not always acted well toward displaced indigenous peoples, enslaved blacks, marginalized immigrants and the like, yet our nation has also grown from contributions of many ethnic, social, religious, political or gender backgrounds.
As we mark this milestone, there is wisdom from Abraham Lincoln’s first Inaugural Address in March 1861, weeks before the Civil War:
“We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”
As Christians, the “better angels of our nature” are more than sentimental hope. It is faith that the Holy Spirit is still at work renewing the mind of Christ within us in his forgiveness, grace, courage and love for building up our communities and our nation in true righteousness, unity and peace.
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