Readers should listen to (or read) yesterday’s The Daily Briefing by Al Mohler first, which chronicles Joe Biden’s twisting in the wind on the position of Abortion before engaging in my post.

Ever since the fiasco in the Garden, humans have felt the weight of the curse. In Genesis 2, the man and his wife were naked and unashamed. But with the Satan’s deception of Eve, and Adam’s passive failure to protect her, we see that

Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.

I believe that this is one of the core drivers of our fallen nature. We intuitively know (everyone–independent of your belief system) that we are not quite right. We feel vulnerable and exposed, and this reality leads to two opposite destructive tendencies, almost always in comparison to others. On the one hand, we feel shame because somehow we don’t feel we measure up. We look at others who seem to be more intelligent, more beautiful/handsome, more fill-in-the blank, and we wish we were them, and we want their approval. The fear of man–or people-pleasing–is born out of our fear of rejection–their tacit agreement that the shame we inwardly feel is real. The other side of the coin for our shame is when we compare ourselves to others and feel superior, and then our pride kicks in, failing to recognize “what do you have that you did not receive?”. In both cases, our view is an unhealthy inward focus, where we somehow believe what our inherent value and dignity is comes from how others view us, rather than what God says about us.

When I was a squadron commander in the Air Force, our wing commander. Col Jack Weinstein, used to have monthly mentoring sessions with all the unit commanders, and I remember one comment he made: “now all of a sudden you’re going to find your jokes are a lot funnier. Everybody’s going to be so interested in what you have to say. But you need to remember, when that change of command happens and the next guy or gal takes the flag, no one is going to even remember who you are.” He tried to help us understand that power differentials would cause a lot of people to act differently around us, warning us not to put too much stock in what others are going to say about us as it really wasn’t real. And it was sound advice, of course.

The fawning words of others is addictive, precisely because it masks the shame we inwardly feel. How can we feel shame when others hang on our every word? And oh, when everyone wants to hear what I have to say, and comes to me to solve their problems, oh how it can fill my pride that I yet can’t escape. This is at least one of the driving motivations to seek and maintain power. When we find our fulfillment in how others perceive us, we’ll do almost anything to keep them “filling our tank”* So the lust for power is born.

No doubt Pontius Pilate had achieved such power; in his hands were life and death for those in Jerusalem. No doubt he had those hoping to climb the ladder with him fawning over his every comment, and those who feared him seeking to assuage any anger he might have by doing anything they could to please him. And yet, he too had a master in Caesar–he was not completely the sovereign. So Pontius Pilate felt fear too–what if he lost his grip on power? Would he be killed? Or worse, would he once again be simply an ordinary man that no one cared what he thought about? And this brings us to the cross. The Bible reports that Pontius Pilate knew that Jesus was innocent, he knew that they brought him before them out of envy, and even his own wife warned him to stay away. And he tried to, he anguished over the political pressure of doing the right thing. But was it not this comment that pushed him over the edge?

“If you release this man, you are not Caesar’s friend. Everyone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar.”

In the end, his lust for power was simply too great, and he delivered the son of man over to the Jews out of the fear of man. The greatest political failure ever–deliberately condemning to death an innocent man, one who you even suspected might be divine. Once you taste the power, the possibility of not drinking it anew is difficult for many.

Joe Biden has been in Washington for a very long time. It has been decades since he was “just like the other guys.” Now no one really wants to hear what he says, but they will act like they do. You see, all of a sudden his jokes are now funnier. Women are very attentive to him, and men give him honor and respect. His courtiers ensure that no shame that might arise from his enemies’ attacks are allowed to be believed, and they feed his pride as surely as a pusher gives another line of cocaine to a drug addict. What would you do to maintain that status? Pontius Pilate tried to wash his hands, but the stain on his soul still lived.

Joe Biden doesn’t even bother to wash his hands. If you read or listened to Al Mohler’s chronology, you can see that his twisting on abortion has always been to posture himself for power–there is no core belief in this man, and previous assertions of core moral principles are as easy to throw away as, well, you fill in the blank. A man who argued for the sanctity of life, with life clearly beginning at conception, who said public moneys should not be spent on abortion, now has completely embraced the culture of death. But what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?

* When People are Big and God is Small is an excellent resource on this.