The Face Of God???

Obviously, this is not a political blog.

I am very interested in politics and there have been many lively discussions within the walls of our home about the current state of our country. However, it is not something I wish to blog about on a regular basis.

But every now and then, I feel that something must be said, so I am going to say it.

Currently, the evangelical community is in love with Ted Cruz.

I wanted to like him. I really did.

He is a very eloquent speaker and seems to champion the constitution. He claims to be a strong Christian. All good things.

Yet…I just could not shake the sense of unease I had whenever I heard him speak. Something just did not ring true.

Then the news broke that Cruz had obtained two enormous loans from Goldman Sachs and Citibank to finance his Senate campaign a few years ago, to the tune of $750,000 to $ 1 million….a fact that he did not disclose (despite the fact that it is the law to do so).

Before this revelation, he had claimed that he and his wife Heidi (who is on an unpaid leave of absence from her job as an investment banker with Goldman Sachs) had decided to liquidate their entire net worth to finance his Senate run.  No loans were ever mentioned in any interviews he and his wife gave, including to the NY Times several years ago.

Faced with this pesky and inconvenient fact being uncovered (inconvenient because Cruz had railed against the evils of Wall Street over and over again during his run) , Cruz’s  campaign blamed this failure  to disclose on an “inadvertent” clerical error. No big deal at all. Nothing to see here.

I have one question: just how stupid do these people think we are?!

This man has graduated from  both  Princeton and Harvard Law School. Surely when he decided to run for office, he would have familiarized himself with the requirements of the Federal Election Commission.

Anyone running for office is required to reveal the source of the money they will use to fund their campaigns. A Harvard Law graduate who has clerked at the Supreme Court would not know this?

Simple fact: Mr. Cruz is a liar.

Strike one.

Last week, the other shoe dropped with a resounding thud. It came to light that an actress who had appeared in a recent campaign ad for Cruz had once worked as an actress in soft core pornography movies.

The emphasis is on the word once. She had moved on from that phase of her life and in fact identifies as a conservative who believed in what Ted Cruz stood for. She had attended an open casting call for the commercial and was hired. Once the truth about her past was revealed, reaction from the Cruz camp was swift.

The ad was  immediately pulled and Cruz’s communications director Rick Tyler issued a statement saying that the actress had not been properly vetted and would never have been hired if they had known of her past.

By all means, let’s punish this woman who may have made some bad choices earlier in her life  but has turned over a new leaf and forged a fresh start.

Rather than celebrate second chances and clean slates, who’s up for a good public shaming?

At this point, you may be saying, “Isn’t this just politics as usual?”

For some candidates, it certainly could be.

However, Ted Cruz claims to be a Christian. He announced his candidacy for the presidency at Liberty University, a large Christian college in Virginia. During the run up to the Iowa Caucus, he spoke often and passionately about his faith.

All well and good.

So you would expect Ted Cruz to act like the Jesus he claims to represent.

I found it very interesting that the very day this story broke, I happened to read the account of Jesus and the woman who was caught in adultery in John 8.

This woman had been forcefully yanked from her bed and  dragged through the streets before being  roughly pushed to the ground at the feet of Jesus.

Here is how the scene played out all those centuries ago:

They made her stand in the middle of the court (can you imagine the shame she felt? She was literally surrounded by angry, accusing eyes while she was barely—if at all—dressed) and they said to Him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the very act of adultery.” (‘The very act’ implies that they literally burst into the room while this woman was having sex with her partner).

“Now in the Law, Moses commanded us to stone such women to death. So what do You say to do with her? What is Your sentence?” They said this to test Him, hoping they would have grounds for accusing Him.

But Jesus stooped down and began writing on the ground with His finger.

However, when they persisted in questioning Him, He straightened up and said, “He who is without any sin among you let him be the first to throw the stone at her.”

Then He stooped down again and started writing on the ground. (No one knows for sure what Jesus wrote in the sand that day, but some commentators believe that he wrote the names of the woman’s accusers, as well as their own sins).

They listened to His reply and they began to go out one by one, starting with the oldest ones, until He was left alone with the woman standing there in front of Him in the center of the court.

Straightening up, Jesus said to her, “Woman, where are they? Did no one condemn you?”

She answered, “No one, Lord!”

And Jesus said, “I do not condemn you either. Go, and from now on, sin no more.

************

Jesus did not shame this woman.

He treated her with dignity and He loved her.

He did not wink at her sin, which He can never do because sin destroys us and He is holy.  He gently confronted it and told her to leave the life she had been living and start afresh.

He gave her a second chance.  That is what He does.

A person who loves and follows Jesus seeks to live as He did and show the same grace and mercy to others that he/she has been shown by the One who is full of grace and truth.

So how did Ted Cruz do in the instance of this former adult actress?

There was no grace  or mercy shown to her at all. She was a threat to the candidate’s image and grand ambitions to the be the leader of the free world and she must be dispatched. So she was. Onward and upward with the campaign!

It sickened me.

But the worst was still to come.

A few days ago, Heidi Cruz gave an interview to a South Carolina radio station and she made this astounding statement: “We can be in this race to show this country the face of the God we serve.”

I could not believe my eyes when I read those words.

Such arrogance. Such hubris.

I can see the face of God every time I open my Bible, thank you very much. I certainly am NOT and will NEVER look for the face of God in ANY politician.

Especially someone who has been proven to be a liar and showed no mercy to a woman trying to move on from a scandalous past.

Please wake up, people.

There is but ONE Savior and it is certainly not a politician.

Just because someone says they are a Christian and can quote some Bible verses does not mean that he or she is the real deal.

No one mere man can save America.

Our hope is not in any frail and fallible human being but it is firmly in the hands of the One who formed the world and is absolute control of the nations. (Romans 13:1).

Do not buy the hype or be swayed by eloquent words but take a very close look at the actions behind the glitz and the grand promises.

Obviously, there is no perfect candidate because there are no perfect people. I understand that.

I do not yet know who I will vote for but it will not be for the man who purports to show this nation the face of God…and yet acts in ways that are completely opposite of His beautiful character.