AUTHORITY!

The Presidential gavel. This week, your faithful blogger was inducted as President of the Evangelical Homiletics Society and presented with this fancy implement.

This little ceremonial hammer is typically used as a symbol of authority of the chairman or presiding officer of an organization, to call meetings to order and to close them. (Some auctioneers and judges use them, too.)

I had the pleasure of striking it to adjourn the Business Meeting that conducted the election. That’s about all the power the President of the EHS has! Bang!

(Maybe I ought to use it the next time I preach, in lieu of pounding the pulpit. That ought to be impressive. Wearing my Aberdeen red robe. Breathing fire and brimstone. Yeah!)

Robert’s Rules of Order, however, prohibits its use in such authoritarian fashion. You can’t use it, so saith Robert, to shush an obstreperous member. You can’t lean on it. You can’t twiddle it, juggle it, or otherwise handle it disdainfully. Needless to say, you can’t use it to whack another on the head. And as for pounding pulpits, nope, that’s forbidden: you can’t use the gavel to emphasize your remarks. Robert hath spoken!

Robert’s dicta are constantly disobeyed in Congress. In a heated debate in 1954, Vice-President Richard Nixon broke the 200-year-old Senate gavel, made of ivory! Incidentally, upon request, a replacement was gifted to the Senate by the government of India; it is still in use today.

And the House? They utilize a plain, vanilla, wooden mallet. It breaks regularly—surprise!—and apparently there is a large box of back-up instruments on the Speaker's Rostrum.

The long and short of it is this: A gavel’s no use—it ain’t got no power.

In fact, real power, true power, is possessed only by one Being—God. And it is from Him all temporal authority is derived.

For there is no authority
except from God,
and those which exist
are established by God.
Romans 13:1

The absolute and divine authority of the Son of God resounds through the New Testament.

And Jesus came up
and spoke to them, saying,
“All authority has been given to Me
in heaven and on earth.”
Matthew 28:18

All authority. Over embodied beings …

You [God the Father]
gave Him [God the Son]
authority over all flesh ….
John 17:2

… and over disembodied ones.

He commands even the unclean spirits,
and they obey Him.
Mark 1:27

As God, Jesus can forgive sins.

… the Son of Man
has authority on earth
to forgive sins.
Matthew 9:6

He is over all, above all. The Almighty One.

And on His robe and on His thigh
He has a name written,
“King of kings, and Lord of lords.”
Revelation 19:16

And this One, this Superpower, is coming again. Soon. And He’s coming to set things right. To rule and reign. Forever!

And to Him was given dominion,
Glory and a kingdom,
that those of every people,
nation, and those language
might serve Him.
His dominion is
an everlasting dominion
which will not pass away.
And His kingdom is one
which will not be destroyed.
Daniel 7:14

Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the preeminent authority.

For in Him all the fullness of Deity
dwells in bodily form, …
and He is the head
over all rule and authority.
Colossians 2:9–10

So relax, Christian, for the One with authority is on our side.

To the only God our Savior,
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
be glory, majesty,

dominion and authority,
before all time and now and forever.
Amen.
Jude 1:25

And He don’t need no gavel!