Power Made Perfect

I sprinkled a little table salt on the breakfast I cooked up for myself today. It was there right in front of me, quite available. Salt really helps the taste of food and is essential for our health. Most of us have salt galore in our diet, so there is little danger of having too little salt in our bodies. Still, in the hot climate of Texas, as quickly as we can lose salt by sweating, it would be dangerous to be without. I learned that the word “salary” is related to saline. Roman soldiers were paid in salt, or their payment was thought of as a way to buy salt which was important in their sweaty work. They had to do their work well to be “worth their salt.”

This may seem like a shift of topic, but hang in here with me, please. Imagine this: you walk on the shore on the western coast of India, toward the waters of the Arabian Sea, and suddenly you are hit in the forehead with the butt of a British rifle. You go down, bleeding from your wound. Your salty blood mixes with the much saltier wet sands below you.

This kind of assault happened over and over again at the end of the “Salt March” when India was held as a British colony. The monopoly on the product of salt was challenged by the movement led by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, the figure who came to be called “Great-souled” or “Mahatma.” He purposefully leads a 241-mile march to the salt-harvest of the Arabian Sea town of Dandi in March 1930 for the Indian people to lay claim to the nation’s own salt. Gandhi’s teaching and strategy on this 24-day march was part of his philosophy of satyagraha, an attempt to reveal the truth and reveal injustice through nonviolence.

There were times when peasant marchers walked toward the soldiers one at a time to be beaten to the ground. This dramatized the non-violence of the Indian protest and accentuated the brutality of the measures of English enforcement of the salt laws. The protesters did not even raise an arm to fend off blows. In time the efforts led to the Gandhi-Irwin Pact and movement toward elements of justice. Odd how this non-violent method proved to be effective when the human power structures were so one-sided. It is mysterious how a way of peacefulness, humility, even weakness, can evolve into influence and strength.

When Paul spoke to the Corinthians of his condition that weakened him, he pointed out the Lord got the message across to him: “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” With this revelation in mind Paul declared, “So I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Corinthians12:9-10) There is a deep mystery always at work in Christ concerning matters of the highest power.  We must not forget the helplessness of Christ in his arrest, flogging, and crucifixion, and how it revealed at length the underlying power of life over death. What about the way his public ministry began?

Jesus presented himself to John for baptism. In one account, John the baptizer protested, aware of the strength and significance of his cousin in the plan of God. He said, “It is you that should baptize me.” But Jesus insisted it needed to go like that. So Jesus submitted to the action, gave himself to the waters of the Jordan. He meekly went down and came up dripping wet. In his subservience to this beginning, the Son of God began his supreme saving ministry. It is a powerful reminder his ways are not our ways, and the Kingdom of God is not of this world.

The Holy Spirit descended on him bodily like a dove coming down. Himself eternally divine, he receives this captivating public divine anointing of the Spirit. Additionally, a heavenly voice manifests and declares audibly, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” What begins as a meek act of humble submission is in the end an ominous scene of divine power.  Bishop Kallistos Ware reminds us in the Orthodox tradition this baptism is seen as a revelation of the Trinity. In his book, The Orthodox Way, (p. 37) he indicates, “The Father’s voice from heaven bears witness to the Son, …and at the same moment the Holy Spirit, in the form of a dove, descends from the Father and rests upon the Son.” This is an Epiphany moment; at the Jordan, the worship of the Trinity was made manifest.

When will we ever absorb the divine principle that might does not make right. When will we ever trust God enough to submit to the truth of power through love, and the might of peace and humility? Pride brings on the disaster. Clamoring for power brings on a curse. Adam grasps the apple, Cain, the throat of Able, his brother. And we are still doing it. We are thrust right out of Eden, and off to the land of Nod. We need to learn and practice over and over again letting go of pride, rejecting ways of violence. In Christ, perhaps we can learn human force born of fear or greed is destructive, whereas the power of God alone is worth pursuing. We need to acquire a taste for the mystery of love and power found in weakness. Perhaps a little salt would help.