Advocate

I recently attended a faculty meeting at the college where I taught. The occasion for this meeting related to the recent restructuring of the administration of the General Education division under which the subjects I teach fall. We now answer to a new supervisor, the chair of the division, who answers to the President and Vice President of Academic Affairs. Perhaps the main thing I took away from this meeting was the sense of definite structure, of a concrete supervisor and ordered practices that are going to be implemented over the next several months. 

One of the topics discussed was grading and homework submission, and as the discussion progressed, what emerged was that the new chair, who was conducting the meeting, was clearly asserting that she was the authority when it came to disputes with students and administration, that the buck stopped with her. We had to justify our positions and decisions with her, but once we did, she would be our advocate when dealing with students or administration branches. My supervisor, who had helped shape the curriculum as it now stands, cried, “Hooray! We have an advocate!” She was overjoyed that someone was going to take her/our side, and that would be the end of it. 

I was struck by this joy that she and others at the meeting displayed on hearing this truth established and emphasized. But I understood; it’s quite a relief to find that someone will defend and argue for you in situations where your judgment and behavior is concerned, especially when it involves those with power over you. If a student accuses you of acting inappropriately in some way, the worst thing to happen is to have your supervisor refuse to support you. I saw this happen to a colleague of mine, and not only did it render him impotent in terms of his class, handing out punishments or poor grades, but it embittered and depressed him, casting a cynical shadow over his view of teaching in general and the supervisor in particular. 

The lack of an advocate can also spread to those who have not been directly affected. I as a fellow student-teacher now understood that my supervisor would not support me if I got into a jam, and therefore had to exercise greater caution and restraint when dealing with my students, especially student of a different racial makeup as that was the circumstances surrounding my colleague’s fiasco. When you know you are on your own, it causes you to harden yourself, to draw inward, to look first to self-preservation before considering the function you are tasked to perform. The implied lesson is clear: if they are willing to cut out your colleague’s legs, you can expect no different. Apart from souring an environment like an office or collection of teacher, it inculcates cynicism and skepticism in any message of support from a higher authority. It also prevents or at least delays trust in a new supervisor who may claim to be willing to support you and your fellows in times of strife. The lack of a true advocate is a dreadful thing.

Just imagine, then, how much worse it would be if we lacked an advocate before God. If our defenselessness in a work environment acts with such corrosive poison, when the stakes are merely embarrassment, censure, or at the worst dismissal, how much more terrible would be our lives if the advocacy for our salvation and forgiveness rested on our shoulders alone? For we often find ourselves in similar circumstances in our spiritual walk; at least, I do. I find myself mired in self-condemnation and reproach for a sin I have committed, reproach that is aided and enlarged by the forces of darkness and the conscience that rightly notes evil. The offense is real, and must be addressed, but the reaction usually speaks death into our hearts. After all, God is holy and righteous; how can He not reject this sin? And in doing so, reject us? Moreover, aren’t we supposed to be saved, freed from the law of sin and death? If so, then why do we still sin? Something must be wrong. And so the script begins a drumbeat of condemnation and judgment that seems perfectly valid to us. The defendant is guilty, Your Honor, and the wages of sin is, well, you know.

But.

“We finally have an Advocate! Someone who will defend us, argue for us! Someone who can counter the attacks of the Law, the devil, and our own conscience! Praise be to Him!” Have you ever thanked Jesus for defending you before God the Father against the tirades of Satan, whose name means “accuser”? Have you ever collapsed (spiritually) at the throne of grace, weary from attacks on your heart, crying out, “Your grace is sufficient, Lord!”? Have you ever rebuked your conscience, quoting the words of Paul, that we are the righteousness of God, having been freed from the Law of sin and death, now under grace? Jesus is my Advocate; He’s on my side. If you’re at all like me, you have often felt like no one was on your side, that the entire world seems united in condemning you (even if it wasn’t true). How marvelous that we now have a dauntless and tireless fighter in our corner, a champion like the knights of old who defends our honor with blood, sweat, and tears. For He paid the bloodprice that all our sins, for all time, are forgiven; as soon as they occur, they are covered and God remembers them no more. Because the blood of Jesus pleads for you and me before God. And that blood isn’t just the death on the cross that reconciled us; it’s also the life that courses through His veins that we now share, that alone can bring us to life. The life is in the blood. 

Do you believe this? What chains would this truth strike from off your heart and mind if you truly believed this and began to walk in it? There’s only one way to find out…