I Kings 3:4-15 (2nd Sunday after Christmas)                                   
St. John, Galveston 1/5/25
Rev. Alan Taylor
 
+ In Nomine Jesu +
 
Grace to you and peace, from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  Amen.

This morning’s message is based on the reading from 1 Kings. Solomon took the throne from his father, David, and he asked God for an “an understanding mind to govern (His) people, that (he would be able to) discern between good and evil, for (apart from God’s wisdom, no one) is able to govern (God’s) great people?” 
 
“It was late afternoon on a warm spring day. Vice-President Harry S. Truman had just finished listening to a Senate debate. He was given a telephone message of great importance. It asked him to get to the White House as soon as possible. President Franklin D. Roosevelt had just died at Warm Springs, Ga. That evening, April 12, 1945, at 7:09 P.M., Harry S. Truman took the oath of office as the thirty-third president of the United States. When he had finished taking the oath, President Truman kissed the Bible. He offered Solomon’s petition from I Kings 3 as his own prayer for guidance.” As leader of the free world, embroiled in WWII, on August 6, 1945, Truman made the monumental decision to use the nuclear weapon against Japan.
 
“Now, O Lord my God, You have made Your servant king instead of my father David, but I am a  little child; I do not know how  to go out or come in.  And Your servant is in the midst of Your people whom You  have chosen, a great people,  too numerous to be numbered or counted. Therefore give to Your servant an  understanding heart  to judge Your people, that I may  discern between good and evil. For who is able to judge this great people of Yours?”
 
If you find yourself in a burning building, wisdom tells you to get out of the building. If you find yourself freezing in the cold, wisdom tells you to get out of the cold. There are times when it isn’t that hard to discern right from wrong, even good from evil. But, there are other times when no wisdom but God’s will do. President Truman, like Solomon, was put into a situation where it seemed like the weight of the whole world was laid on his shoulders. Oh, he may have thought about assuming leadership over his years as second in command, he may have even dreamt about it, but when the time came, he considered himself wholly unfit and unprepared to assume that command.  His sufficiency would not be, it could not be in himself. It would have to be in God, the God of the Holy Scriptures.
 
Solomon, as you know, was the son of the greatest King that ever ruled Israel. King David certainly wasn’t a model of moral purity, but he was loved and respected by the people. Many a time he led God’s people into battle against adversaries greater and stronger than they and time and again they came out victorious. 
 
At David’s passing it was Solomon who would assume the great responsibility of governing God’s people. They would bring him their disputes and expect him to judge between right and wrong. Women would squabble over a child and Solomon would be expected to judge between their hearts, who was motivated by greed and who was motivated by love. Others would look to him when fierce nations threatened their borders, their way of life. In an instant Solomon moved from being the son of the great King to the man who was expected to judge righteously, always with the good of the nation at heart. As Solomon considered the task set before him, he knew that he wouldn’t be able to accomplish it without God’s guidance. And so, though he might have asked God for riches or other creature comforts, he asked Him instead for wisdom and that request pleased God.    
 
Kings, Princes, and Presidents, as you know, come and go. As the Scriptures say, these leaders are given to us by God. And so, as we enter a another New Year, poised, as it were, on the threshold of yet another presidential inauguration, it would be good that we pray that our new president would seek godly wisdom as he leads our nation. Oh, it doesn’t really matter what we think of him. You may like him. You may not. You may hold his political views and ideals. Or, you may not. You may be looking to the future with confidence and hope. You may not. Still, it is incumbent upon us to pray that this man lead and judge our people with wisdom. 
 
Solomon and Truman recognized that they couldn’t lead without God’s help.  Each man that enters the office of the leader of the free world may or may not believe the same. And yet, God will lead us through him. So we employ His wisdom upon the holder of the office. We ask God to give him the strength to make the difficult decisions that he’ll surely face, listening, not to the fickle will of the people, but to a greater moral compass that distinguishes clearly between right and wrong, wise and unwise, even good and evil.    
 
I said earlier that there are times when no wisdom but God’s will do.  Solomon, because of the weakness of his flesh and his desire to surround himself with beautiful young women from faiths other than his own, eventually turned away from that godly wisdom that he had asked for when he assumed his office. It was late in his life when he wrote the Book of Ecclesiastes. In Ecclesiastes, Solomon sees everything as “vanity of vanities” and bemoans life “under the sun.” Whether Solomon died in the faith, which was, for him, believing in the coming Christ, is frankly not clear from the Scriptures. The man who pleaded for God’s wisdom, who ruled with that wisdom for many years, may well have rejected the only wisdom that could preserve his soul.     
 
It seems that no one in his right mind, no one who is wise anyway, would reject the blessed gift of the forgiveness of sins and eternal life that comes only through Christ Jesus, He who is called, throughout the Scriptures, “wisdom from on high.” And yet, many people do. The cross, as Paul says, is foolishness, a silly fable, nonsense, to those who are perishing. It makes little sense that God would redeem the world through the shed blood of His own dear Son. In fact, there are other world religions that consider the whole notion of the redeeming work of God in Christ as a repugnant thought. God, they believe, would never stoop so low, He would never rub shoulders with mere mortals, with sinners, even for the cause of love and mercy.
 
When it comes to eternal matters, God’s wisdom is very different from our own, isn’t it? With God, victory is often had in the midst of suffering and shame. Trials stir the soul such that faith is strengthened, rather than weakened. The hideousness of the cross, that common symbol of torture and shame, marks the redeemed of God, those who have been cleansed, those who have been washed in the blood of the Lamb. Death, man’s greatest enemy, serves as the portal through which the happy reunion of the saints triumphant takes place. The grave, the place of the thousand tears, hides an unseen victory, the victory of the Resurrected Christ.  
God’s wisdom is very different from our own. In temporal matters we do well to plead for wisdom, the wisdom to make God pleasing, just decisions. And again, it is good that we pray for our leaders, that they would have the heart of a Solomon or of a Truman, to know that the task set before them is a task too great, too important, for any one man or woman to handle. They face those times when no wisdom but God’s will do. 
 
And when life perplexes us, when our sins trouble us, when fear assaults us, we set aside our own wisdom and we cling to the Wisdom from on High, to Christ Himself, even to the foolishness of the cross.    
 
A drowning boy was thrashing about and struggling helplessly in the water.  On the shore his mother looked on in terror. By her side stood a man capable of saving her son, but he was seemingly indifferent to the boy’s fate. Again and again the boy’s mother appealed to the man to save her drowning son.  But he made no effort to do so. As time passed the boy began to struggle less and less. He was losing strength. Finally, he rose to the surface, weak and helpless. And all at once the man leaped into the lake and brought the boy in safely to the shore.
 
“Why did you not save my boy sooner?” cried the now grateful mother.  “Mam, the man said, I could not save your boy as long as he struggled so.  He would have dragged us both to a certain death. But when he grew weak and ceased to struggle, then it was easy to save him.”
 
Solomon and Truman knew when to turn to God in temporal matters. God grant each of you the wisdom to continually turn to Him, to cease striving, as the psalmist says, and “know that He is God.” Your lives, your souls are in His hands. “O Word of God Incarnate, O Wisdom from on High…O teach Your wandering pilgrims by this their path to trace, till, clouds and darkness ended, they see You face to face.”  

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.   
 
The peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus unto life everlasting.  Amen.
 
+ Soli Deo Gloria +