In the thick of an election it’s common for candidates to distance
themselves from previous officeholders so they can promote themselves
as being new and different. This holds true whether the election is
for the presidency of the United States or your local town council.
After all the hoo-ha has died down, the newly-elected representatives
begin to backtrack from their more grandiose schemes, knowing that
most voters have short memories, and that their attention span will
turn to retaining their jobs, educating their children, and paying
their mortgages. Election winners come and go, bureaucrats don’t.
Of course, if the winners are committed to change, no matter what,
they sack bureaucrats and do what they promised — regardless of the
loss of experienced staff and a period of instability. But before long
a compromise is reached. Politicians and policies change with
incoming governments, but infrastructure projects important to future
needs are overarching, and those under construction need to be
completed.
Since the end of World War II Australia has become a homogenous
society. Our nation has accepted and assimilated millions of
immigrants from Europe and Asia. But we need to build more bridges
than walls if we are to become the kind of nation in which our
children and grandchildren will feel safe.
The responsibility for this is on the heads of our elected leaders,
who need to accept only those newcomers whose values are or in time
will come to be the same as our own. But we as a people need to be
better at building bridges; better in constructing ways that will
bring people together, rather than building walls that will keep them
apart.
Those who read their bibles know that when the voice of prophecy was
about to fall silent for 400 years, Malachi — the last prophet of the
Old Testament — spoke of a future voice for God that would bridge the
gap between the old and the new. John the Baptist was that promised
voice. Jesus from Nazareth did not just appear on the scene without
being properly introduced. John introduced him to his people as the
long-promised Messiah.
God had built a prophetic bridge that spanned 400 years from Malachi
to the Messiah (or from our viewpoint from the prophecy of Malachi to
the Gospel of Matthew).
God doesn’t build walls that separate people but bridges that bring
them together. “Build a bridge and get over it” is a cynical
statement; it says, “Who cares how you feel?” Well, God cares! He
cares about us and about our future, so we should care a lot more
about one another. It’s time for us to break down walls that separate
and use the bricks to build bridges that bring us together.