What Are You Waving This Flag Day?

Maybe you didn’t know this, but in the United States, Flag Day is celebrated on June 14. It commemorates the adoption of the flag of the United States, which happened on that day by resolution of the Second Continental Congress in 1777. In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson issued a proclamation that officially established June 14 as Flag Day; in August 1949, National Flag Day was established by an Act of Congress.

Happy Flag-Day! Most folks don’t care much for Flag Day, the gift openings are too predictable.

This morning I was doing a Messianic Jewish devotion, and read Romans 15:20 in the Jewish New Testament: “I have always made it my ambition to proclaim the Good News where the Messiah was not yet known”. The word ‘ambition’ stuck out to me, because I find that people can be pretty ambitious about a lot of things; To some, reaching specific goals in their careers is what is most important. To others it might be some sports aspiration or perhaps seeing their children succeed in a certain area. To still others it might simply be obtaining a certain relationship with someone special. One of these objectives might not be better than the other, but when all is said and done, the question that really seems to count is whether we have lifted Jesus, the Messiah, to the place of highest importance in our lives?

There was a Messianic Jewish leader who lived in Russia in the nineteenth-century, named Joseph Rabinowitz. Reading his stuff today, I found how he radically expressed the ambition of his life with a simple story. I want to share it with you in his own words:

“My position is to be compared with one who went out to the ocean in a ship and suffered a shipwreck with all on board. Now all of those who are shipwrecked try to get to some firm ground on which to save themselves. If one after struggling for life finds a rock, the moment he feels he is on firm ground, he will shout to those still struggling in the sea. And if some are beyond the reach of his voice, he will try to raise something – a stick or flag – to attract their attention and call them to head for the rock. Now that is my position. Russia is like the ocean, the Jews there are like shipwrecked people, and since, by God’s mercy, my feet are on the Rock [Yeshua], I have tried to do what that person I spoke of tried to do. I am shouting to my shipwrecked people to come to the Rock.”

Here it is, June 14th, 2010 – Flag Day. What if we saw this as another opportunity to be reminded that we are to have a revolutionary ambition to wave a flag for the cause of Jesus Christ to this drowning world we live in? What if we were even a bit fanatical about it?

Do you think I’m being too extreme?

Did you know that being a fanatic about the flag is nothing to be ashamed of? On this date, June 14, 1908 Theodore Roosevelt was dining outside Philadelphia, when he noticed a man wiping his nose with what he thought was the American Flag. In outrage, Roosevelt picked up a small wooden rod and began to whip the man for "defacing the symbol of America." After about five or six strong whacks, he noticed that the man was not wiping his nose with a flag, but with a blue handkerchief with white stars. Upon realization of this, he apologized to the man, but hit him once more for making him "riled up with national pride."*

Gang, today may we get a little bit riled up and remember that we are called to signal to the shipwrecked people God lets us meet that Jesus is the Rock on which it is safe to build their lives. I pray our arms would get incredibly sore from waving the right flag today.

*americanhistory.suite101.com/article.cfm/usa_flag_day_june_14