Feast of Saint Andrew, Apostle

 Lectionary: 684

If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
For one believes with the heart and so is justified, and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved.
The Scripture says, No one who believes in him will be put to shame.

In this passage from Romans, Saint Paul invokes Isaiah's "foundation stone," which Christians read as a prophecy of Jesus. 

See, I am laying a stone in Zion,
a stone that has been tested,
A precious cornerstone as a sure foundation;
whoever puts faith in it will not waver.

The testing, of course, is his crucifixion; and the test result, the proof of his reliability, is his resurrection. 

Isaiah continues: 

I will make judgment a measuring line,
and justice a level.
Hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies,
and waters shall flood the hiding place.

The scriptures attest that lying and hiding places for deception have been around a long time . But justice requires openness; everyone must see and agree that the Ruler governs with transparency. We needn't take it on faith for we can see their governance is reasonable; and their judgments, though sometimes harsh, are fair. 

Bertrand Russell, in his History of Western Philosophy, describes how a post-Christian, corrupt populace tolerates an unjust government. Weary of responsibility for self-governance with all its complexity and uncertainty, they cede to their ruler and his party their own freedom. He can do as he pleases and they trust and obey him implicitly. If they seem, in the eyes of other nations, to suffer the loss of personal freedom and an invasive authoritarianism, they point to their well-ordered, predictable systems: "The trains run on time." 

Russell wrote his history during the Second World War as he pondered the rise of Nazism, Communism, and fascism; but the impulse to authoritarian, one-party rule has never gone away. He remarks also about the loss of faith in God. Without that religious confidence and the freedom it offers, people place their faith in a human bureaucratic system, and loyally defend it against all critics. When challenged they declare that a Church which stoutly defends ineffable doctrines is equally oppressive. 

Finally, when tyrants fall in shamefaced defeat, as they must, we hear again the words of Saint Paul:

For one believes with the heart and so is justified, and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved. The Scripture says, "No one who believes in him will be put to shame."