Jesus enforcement

When I moved to Detroit, I had to learn about hockey.

For example, there are three main positions in hockey: forwards, defense, and goaltender. You can guess what players in each of those positions do.

When I first came to Detroit, the city’s professional hockey team, the Red Wings, had a center forward so popular that people around town simply called him “The Captain.” Steve Yzerman played all 23 seasons of his hall of fame career for the Red Wings. He wore the “C” (for “captain”) on his hockey sweater for 20 of those 23 seasons. When Yzerman retired in 2006, he was the second all-time leading scorer in Red Wings history (next to “Mr. Hockey” himself, Gordie Howe).

Soon after I learned about the Captain, I learned about a player who filled another important role on the Red Wings: Darren McCarty.

McCarty was the “enforcer,” a position you will not find in the hockey program you buy at the game. The enforcer’s job is ass-kicking.

McCarty made sure that nobody on the other team crossed the Captain. If an opponent harassed or hit Yzerman, it wouldn’t be long before McCarty was hitting that player back a lot harder.

People who don’t know much about the game might think hockey players fight for the sake of fighting. But in a game as dangerous and fast as hockey, the enforcer plays an important role. A team’s best scorer could easily get hurt if opponents play dirty. And you wouldn’t want your best scorer to get knocked out of a game (or several games) by fighting with his own fists.

Thus the enforcer.

Like any good hockey enforcer, McCarty made sure opponents were so afraid of what he would do to them, they didn’t dare cross the Captain.

Jesus of Nazareth was even more popular in Palestine than Steve Yzerman was in Detroit. He wasn’t a hockey player. He was a preacher who got so popular, people wanted to make him king.

And everyone knows that kings, like hockey players, need enforcers.

Plenty of people volunteered to do the job for Jesus.

John, a member of Jesus’s entourage, once saw someone who was not a member casting out demons in Jesus’s name. John tried to stop this outsider from doing what only insiders should be allowed to do (Gospel of Luke 9:49).

Soon after that, Jesus announced that he would visit a town. The town’s leaders told him that he would not be welcome there and to stay away. Two of Jesus’s followers asked: “Lord, do you want us to call down fire from heaven to destroy them?” (Gospel of Luke 9:54).

Not long after that, the police placed Jesus under arrest. His friend, Peter, began swinging his sword in defense of his Christ (Gospel of John 18:10).

Even the devil himself offered to be Jesus’s enforcer. Early in Jesus’s ministry, the devil shows him all of the nations of the world. He said to Jesus: “I will give you authority over all these kingdoms and all their glory…for it has been relinquished to me, and I can give it to anyone I wish” (Gospel of Luke 4:6).

In other words: “Jesus, just imagine how easy it would be for your kingdom to come and your will to be done if all of the armies, navies, and police forces of the world are enforcing your rule! I can make that happen for you.”

But every time someone offered to be his enforcer, Jesus rebuked him sternly. Jesus refused to have an enforcer. He refused to use brute force or the power of government to bring to life his kingdom and will on earth.

Jesus neither needed nor wanted enforcers.

Instead, he promised to win over the world by what he called The Advocate.

On the night before he died, Jesus gave his followers some of his more important teaching. Imagine what you would say to your closest friends if you knew you were going to die tomorrow.

The Gospel of John, chapters 13 - 17, records this all-important teaching.

It is sober teaching. Jesus promised his followers that the world would give them trouble even to the point of death. “In this world you will have *persecution”,“ he said to them (Gospel of John 16:33). In other words, if you choose to be a Christian, you are choosing a life of persecution. Period. To follow Jesus Christ is to go against the grain and it is going to hurt.

But Jesus did not call on his followers to fight. He did not promise to send enforcers. Instead, he promised to send the Advocate.

What does the Advocate do?

"And when [the Advocate] comes, he will prove the world wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment” (Gospel of John 16:8).

Whose work is it to confront and convict the world?

It is the Advocate’s work. No enforcers needed.

Who is the Advocate?

Christians know him as the Holy Spirit (also translated Holy Breath or Holy Wind). In other words, God himself will blow or breathe through the world and pass over and through the world’s peoples. God himself will move through the world on behalf of his kingdom and will.

No enforcers needed.

And what of protection from those in the world who would harm the followers of Jesus?

“But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. Peace I leave you; my peace I give to you” (Gospel of John 14:26-27).

Even as the world may be at war with the kingdom of God, its subjects will live in the peace of Christ, which dwells in them through the Holy Spirit.

No enforcers needed.

As the first Christian living in this world, Jesus had to make a choice.

Would he use the force of law, politics, and people armed with weapons to advance and protect his kingdom? Would he choose enforcers?

No, he chose to trust God and his Holy Spirit. He chose the Advocate.

And if his church is faithful today, we also will choose to trust the Advocate to do his work in our lives and in the world. We will know that the kingdom and will of God advances, not with bullets or the passage of laws, but by the gentle Spirit coming to life in the church of Christ. We will reject any worldly power that offers us “faster,” “safer,” or “surer” ways to project and protect the will of God.

Jesus did not have enforcers.

Neither will his church.

Let us renew our faith in God as our Advocate and protector. Let us renew our hope in the Way of Jesus Christ.