Note: On Tuesdays, you can find me at Your Daily Tripod, owned by my friend TonyD. A longer version of the post below appears there.
I’m reading The Romanovs: 1613-1918 (by Simon Sebag Montefiore, who also wrote the Stalin book I read last summer). I’ve long been fascinated by the tragic story of the last tsar of Russia and his family (and, truth be told, took the confirmation name Anastasia for his youngest daughter rather than the fourth century Serbian martyr remembered in Canon of the Mass).
Here’s the thing about the Romanovs, from Michael, the teen and unwilling first tsar pictured here, to Nicholas II: They were always about getting power—and, having gained it, not losing it. Do not kid yourselves that any of them had a deep-seated desire to improve the lot of the serfs (possession of whom they awarded like so many pennies) or the peasants. It was about power.
This obsession, I do not think, is uniquely Russian.
In Daniel 7, the prophet has a dream that includes four beasts, each perhaps more frightening than the one before. Ultimately, however, they are slain or their power taken away, which “one like a son of man” appearing and receiving an everlasting dominion.
That’s the thing about Jesus: He always had and always will have power. He knows that. He’s not focusing on losing it, or gaining still more power, if that could even happen. What He concerns himself with is helping us learn that being part of His everlasting dominion is there for the asking if we follow Him, rather than those who see us as pawns in their futile power grab. They can’t win—but we can lose.
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