It was fuzzy and amended several times but it had great symbolic value as a step in limiting executive power and establishing a balance between the ruler and parliament. Several countries, notably the United States, looked back to it for inspiration in their own struggle against tyranny.
Efforts to write constitutions in modern states show all the signs of unresolved conflicting interests evident in that document all those years ago. Zambia has just celebrated 50 years of independence, but they still do not have a ‘home grown’ constitution as the one the British left gave extensive powers to the president and successive holders of that office are in no hurry to surrender them.
The struggle to realise deep-seated feelings for freedom and a ‘social contract’ between ruler and ruled arises out of something in-born in every person. People the world over can be roughly divided into those who enjoy freedom of choice, with regard to their own way of life and their government of the day, and those who have no choice but are on the receiving end of regimes they do not like and a way of life that cramps their growth as human beings.
Ancient Israel had its ‘constitution’ in that the law handed on by Moses laid down rights and duties in some detail. But the promise was always there that this law would mature into a personal relationship between God and his people individually – not en masse. Jeremiah, in chapter 31, expressed this eloquently when he wrote, ‘deep within them I will plant my law …and they will know me, the least no less than the great.’
As we approach Holy Week we become aware that Jesus in his own person travelled this searing route of personal responsibility. ‘He offered up prayer, aloud and in silent tears … and became for all who obey him the source of eternal salvation’ (Hebrews 5). He became the great individual, alone and abandoned on the cross, who walked the route of authentic human response to what was deepest within him. By so doing he opened the way for all humanity. He himself said, ‘unless a grain of wheat dies it remains a single grain. If it dies it yields a rich harvest.’ (John 12).
What we have in the passion and death of Jesus is the deeply truthful response of a human being to unspeakable evil. Captives in ISIS lands face death by beheading with little chance of escape. They don’t know what is happening. They have no means of appeal. They are totally powerless. Jesus has tasted this hopelessness and abandonment.
Post published in: Faith