God allows a wildness in his creation.  He doesn’t deny it exists, he doesn’t look at creation through rose tinted glasses.  But God doesn’t immediately stop every threat, every danger, God allows pockets of chaos within his created order. The presence of pain and chaos in the world God has made doesn’t declare God’s absence or call into question his sovereignty or his goodness.  But God cares in the chaos, he rules over it, we can trust in his goodness in it.

From 38v39 throughout chapter 39 God focuses Job’s attention on a wide array of animals.  Asking the same questions to draw Job into seeing God’s care, attention to detail and goodness.  From the lions who God satisfies, and the mountains goats who God sees. The wild donkey who God gave freedom to and provides for.  The wild Ox, the weird and wonderful ostrich, the warhorse with its might and power, to the hawk and eagle who fly because of God’s wisdom.
God created each of these animals, he cares for them, provides for them, watches over them.  Whether they are clean or unclean animals, God delights in them.  There’s a sense of divine wonder in what he’s made in God’s description of all these animals.  God is pleased with what he’s made even post fall.  But notice the focus in the animals God chooses to direct Job’s attention to.  It’s not the funny loving puppy, the tame pony, or the loveable hamster.  These animals are wild and powerful, untameable and dangerous.  This is nature red in tooth and claw.  God is showing Job that in his good world that he’s made there is death and danger.  There is chaos in creation but not out of his control or without purpose or design.
And God is good; providing for and caring for even those creatures than would make Job fearful.  Do you see the implication if God cares even for these things how much more for you, Job?
God allows a wildness in his creation.  He doesn’t deny it exists, he doesn’t look at creation through rose tinted glasses.
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In the end, Christ was not crucified because He washed the feet of the marginalized and disenfranchised. He was not crucified because He said, “He Gets Us.” He was crucified because He preached a message that every single man, woman, and child must repent and believe, or they shall perish in Hell forever. That is the message this world despises, and ultimately, why the He Gets Us Super Bowl commercial, and ministry as a whole, falls woefully short. Even more sadly, all of this message is lost on an unbelieving world—not simply because the message wasn’t actually preached, but they also have no concept of the significance of Jesus Christ washing the feet of His disciples. 

By now, the He Gets Us Super Bowl commercial has been a topic of much contention amongst Christians and non-Christians alike online. The commercial itself is simple and artistically done—showcasing several photos of people washing the feet of those whom society might consider those on the “outside.” In the end, the only text offered up is equally as simple, “Jesus didn’t teach hate. He washed feet. He gets us. All of us.”
The intended message is not all that hard to miss for those who understand what Jesus did as He washed His disciple’s feet just before His death. It was an act of selfless servitude, demonstrating the very reason why Jesus Christ came in the first place. His life was one wherein He emptied Himself to serve the sons of men, even Judas, who would later betray the Messiah for a measly sum of 30 pieces of silver. While all authority and power had been granted to Jesus Christ by the Father, He humbled Himself in the form of man and took on the apron of a slave.
It is no wonder why the image of the very Son of God washing the feet of His disciples has remained as such a powerful reminder of Christ’s humility and love. And yet, this same image adopted by the He Gets Us campaign that recently aired during the Super Bowl, for all intents and purposes, has caused no shortage of outcry. What should be a relatively simple message to convey has become a point of controversy—not in the broader public, but amongst those within the church.
Many have been quick to say the controversy in the church is much the same as it was when Jesus upset the religious leaders of His own day. The purported rationale has been that just as Christ upset the status quo in the synagogues, so too does this message in the church today. In fact, you might just find a fairly large contingent of people who would argue that the modern-day church is not much different than the whitewashed tombs of Jesus’s own day, with the Pharisees and Sadducees.
To be sure, there is some warrant for this charge when one considers particular examples of blatant hypocrisy—but that is the ill-defined problem of our day, isn’t it? Much that gets labeled as “hypocrisy” isn’t such at all, but rather, it is the oft-cited reason for why Jesus’s own Words are rejected and labeled, as in the He Gets Us commercial, as “teaching hate.” And that’s the rub. We have not reached a point where the Son of God is taking on human flesh once more to reveal just how short we’ve fallen from understanding His holy Word; we’re at the point in our society where we have two functionally (and ontologically) different gods we worship. One is the true Christ, one is not—and both sides argue over who is getting the details right.
What I would argue is that the same root reason why people fawn over depictions of Christ in popular culture (e.g., The Chosen) is the same issue we find present here. There is a wide-sweeping epidemic of biblical illiteracy, and the people behind ad campaigns like ‘He Gets Us’ intentionally play at this ignorance. This is not a new phenomenon, when we consider how Christians have been portrayed in popular cinema for the past several decades. The popular portrayal is anything but a genuine Christian who actually seeks to live in submission to God’s Word. Rather, they are often portrayed as bigoted, backwoods idiots who can’t string a few coherent sentences together—and they’re massively hypocritical to boot (Picture Angela from the American version of The Office).
Now, again, some of this might be warranted when you look at the masses of American Evangelicalism who have claimed the Christian faith, yet seemingly done nothing to be in submission to Christ. I find it much like the teenager in my high school days who carried around a skateboard, but couldn’t even ollie—the one we colloquially called a “poser.” The problem is not that such “posers” exist; they do in virtually every clique in life. The problem is that they tend to take the predominate focus when it comes to the Christian world, almost as if it is an “easy out” for those who wish to turn their noses up at the Christian faith in general.
The interesting dilemma to me though is that the Jesus portrayed by “the posers” that the broader public despises—is the exact same portrayal of Jesus they wish to laud in the public square. This is the Jesus who is light on sin and judgment, heavy on grace and love—but not a grace and love that actually requires justice—it is a grace and love that requires a tailor-fit God who essentially adopts the same quasi-standards of morality that mankind does (provided He changes with the times, of course). He is not the God who is jealous, just, holy, and requires justice be met—He is the God who “Gets Us,” and He Gets Us in such a way that we never actually come to the point of repentance and faith.
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Amillennials like myself have good reasons for great hope, a hope that fuels our passion in the daily hours. We aren’t defeatist, disengaged, and doleful. We smile in the light of Christ’s glorious victory and look expectantly, with the rest of Christendom, to his second coming.

Defeatist. Disengaged. Doleful. That’s a caricature of what theologians call amillennials.[1] But amillennials, I argue, actually have a wonderful hope to treasure. This isn’t an article meant to argue for a position. It’s meant to correct a misunderstanding out there and encourage the global church to rally around its one true passion: the return (whenever it may come) of Jesus Christ our Lord.
The Big Three
Without getting into great detail or exegetical intricacies, there are three common positions on the end times (eschatology).[2] Premillennials believe that Christ is going to return before (pre) a one thousand year period (or at least a long period of time; Rev. 20:6) in which we rule with him before the final judgment. Postmillennials believe that Christ will come after (post) a thousand year period, during which the church will grow in prominence and influence in the world. Amillennials believe that we’re currently in the end times right now, and that we’ll continue suffering with Christ until he comes again at the end of time for the final judgment.[3] Given that summary, it seems clear why the amillennial caricature emerged. Christ isn’t coming back to reign? Defeatist. We aren’t called to take over and influence culture, bringing heaven on earth? Disengaged. We aren’t waiting for an imminent return of Jesus so that we can reign with him? Doleful. Amillennials can seem stiff, joyless, and removed.
Reasons for Hope
But that isn’t the case. At least, it shouldn’t be the case for amillennials who know the good news of Scripture. Here are a few reasons why our hope should be blindingly bright. I’ll be drawing on the thought of Richard B. Gaffin Jr. And then I’ll end with something every Christian should be able to celebrate, despite our theological differences. Such celebration is critical in our times, when the unity of the church is needed to stand against the ravages of a hostile world.
Jesus Won and He Rules Now
We believe that Jesus’s victory over sin and Satan wasn’t provisional; it was definitive. The resurrection life that crowned his head when it emerged from the shadows of the tomb still shines. And it will shine until he comes again in glory. As Gaffin put it, “The entire period between his exaltation and return, not just some segment toward the close, is the period of Christ’s eschatological kingship, exercised undiminished throughout.”[4] Jesus won, and he rules. Smile. Nothing can threaten your King. You and I are now beacons of Christ’s reigning light. As the poet Malcolm Guite wrote,
We ourselves become his clouds of witnessAnd sing the waning darkness into light;His light in us, and ours in him concealed,Which all creation waits to see revealed.[5]
We Are Victors
If Christ began his reign in the resurrection, and our life is hidden with Christ on high (Col. 3:3), then we are victors with him. Regardless of how we may feel, we are victorious in Christ. Today. Right now. My father used to keep an old Joe Namath quote on the inside flap of his Bible: “When you win, nothing hurts.” Of course, that’s demonstrably untrue, but you have to smile at the sentiment. Eternal victory burns beyond earthly sorrow. If your eyes are fixed on Christ, they’re fixed on your Captain and King, and his victory over death should take your breath away.
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