Everything can – and will – change in a week.
Politicians instinctively know this or learn it with enough time, Save Jerseyans. It’s been that way since the beginning of time, including 2,000 years ago.
We all know the story but the timeline is no less shocking for it. Jesus entered Jerusalem in triumph on a Sunday, accorded a hero’s welcome by throngs of his own people some of whom had second or even firsthand familiarity with extraordinary miracles. By Thursday night? His enemies successfully sprang their insidious trap, and the next morning – only five days after the crowd had chanted ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’ – that same crowd demanded his death in exchange for the life of a domestic terrorist named Barabbas.
Losing the street was bad enough; one of his inner circle sold him out for relatively modest bribe of thirty pieces of silver. Jesus’s remaining closest allies ran for cover, and his chief lieutenant infamously denied even knowing him… three times. Only his own mother and a single loyalist (John) remained by his side to the bitter end.
Every aspect of the Passion story is worth analyzing, but the astonishing rapidity with which things went to hell in a handbasket for the Son of Man is probably underappreciated by today’s politicos. Perhaps the fast pace of news cycles and the half-lifes of insta-celebrities has something to do with it?
Here’s the appropriate takeaway: all that matters between Sunday to Friday is the quality of your service.
After all, you’re a public servant. You were elected to serve. Serve the people, not yourself, and everything will work out in the end even if your affairs doesn’t necessarily work out the way you wanted or intended. That last part is pretty important. Did you run for office to change things for the better? Or with the expectation that every day would be Palm Sunday?
Ultimately, every great leaderis measured by how he bears their cross. Not how many times they fall or how the journey ends. The only thing that’s certain: there’s nothing to judge – and not in a good way – if you refuse to take up your cross in the first place.
