A New Kind of Leader

Our country is desperately looking for a leader. A recent TIME survey revealed Americans’ expectations of their presidential candidates.

For example: 25% of voters rate “Strong leader” as the most important quality in their candidate.

Interesting 39% of Republicans and 12% of Democrats view “strong moral character” as most important.

42% of Republicans and 22% of Democrats say they must be comfortable with a candidate’s character. That’s compared with 52% of Republicans and 71% of Democrats that feel sharing views on the issues is most important.

Hilary Clinton rates high as a strong leader, but short on sincerity.

Barack Obama is rated lower as a strong leader, but high on moral character.

On the Republican side, Rudy Giuliani rates high as a strong leader, but suffers a low evaluation of character.

Not surprisingly, Governor Mike Huckabee does best on the moral character issue with 95% of voters giving him high marks, though he comes in lower on strong leadership.

800 years before Christ was born, Israel was looking for a strong leader to take them out of their political oppression. The prophet Isaiah delivered a prophesy to his generation. But that prophesy had a much longer view and more eternal significance.

“Unto us a child is born. Unto us a Son is given. And His name shall be called wonderful counselor, mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His government there shall be no end.”

Though their pagan neighbors were quick to ascribe divinity to their kings, the Jews were very careful to reserve such godly language only for Yahweh. Isaiah was clearly talking about a very different kind of leader than the oppressed Israelites were crying for.

800 years later, Israel was again under the political and military oppression, this time under Rome. The Jews were praying, expecting, crying for a messiah that would throw off the Roman rule and restore freedom and sovereignty to the nation of Israel once again.

Their Messiah came. It was the Messiah prophesied by Isaiah 800 years earlier. And just as the ancient Israelites missed the double meaning of the prophesy, the people at Jesus time were expecting a much different Messiah than Jesus represented.

Though He repeatedly said His mission was to seek and to save the lost. Though he repeatedly said His kingdom was not of this world, most would-be followers couldn’t let go of the expectation that their messiah was a strong political leader.

His spiritual mission to give spiritual life and freedom was rejected by the worldly expectation of Israel’s citizens. So “He came to His own, but His own did not recognize Him.”

American is looking for a strong leader with solid moral character who will fix the political mess we’re in.

Well, we need a strong leader with moral character. But the solution is not in what Old Israel expected and American political pundits expect today. They answer for America this Christmas is to recognize the true mission of our Leader, Jesus Christ. He came to reconcile God and man. He came that man with man might be reconciled as well.

So this Christmas, though He’s not running for office, I cast my vote for Jesus.