“My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness” is the first line of the hymn “The Solid Rock.”  The chorus reiterates each stanza, “On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand.  All other ground is sinking sand.”

I grew up singing those words and they are etched deep in my mind.  Today they stand in stark contrast to the Christian church culture I find myself surrounded by.  Between presidential elections and Covid mitigation strategies, I have rarely heard people who call themselves Christians sound more shaken.  I grew up in the ’80s when Hal Lindsey was writing during a wave of End Times interest that would find its apotheosis in the Left Behind series.  Those days of worrying about Soviet nukes and European Unions don’t hold a candle to the unrest of today’s church that is either on the verge of destruction because wearing a mask is antithetical to Jesus or because the wrong political party is in power in Washington D.C.

The rain falls, the wind blows, and rather than standing firm, there is fear, anger, and division among self-identified Christians like I have never seen in my life.  Talking to both pastors and those who minister to pastors reveals that my observation is true across the country.  I find most pastors fall into two general categories.  Either they too are up in arms and view themselves on the verge of calamity, or they are just tired & discouraged by the tumult around them.

“All other ground is sinking sand.”  The simple truth of this song is easy to lose sight of when you don’t realize that singing those words are not the same as living them.  We have too often rested our hope on the freedom of American culture, the belief in American goodness, on living in a society where we thought we had enough sway to live a Christian life with minimal friction from the world.  Sure, they would disapprove of us, but they still had to listen to us, and our vote was our power to keep us secure.

“All other ground is sinking sand.”  When a pandemic changes how society works, does the upheaval threaten our sense of hope and security?  When our morals, our views, or our very church culture is not understood or respected by society, are we driven to either despair or angry warfare to try to take back the power no longer offered to us?

Jesus’ blood & righteousness has not changed since the day His body was laid in the tomb.  It was not changed as Roman leaders lit Christians on fire or fed them to lions to entertain the crowd.  The blood of Jesus is untouched by communist repression, Islamic extremism, or corrupting capitalism.  It is no more changed or challenged by an American election or a Taliban takeover.

“On Christ, the solid rock, I stand.”  These words are easier to sing than to live, simpler to say than to demonstrate.  When I open the Word, I see men & women of God who knew with a simple certainty that there was nothing on this earth that could threaten their God.  Their hope was in the Kingdom that is not based on this earth, their country was not defined by any national borders or earthly leader.

Are we on sinking sand or solid rock?