Lehman Brothers and The Guiding Light

Date Published: 09/15/2009

What do the first anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the last episode of The Guiding Light have in common? The Lehman Brothers was founded in 1859. The Guiding Light (“the” was dropped in 1975) started on radio in 1937 and on television in 1952. They became such established fixtures of culture in the United States that imagining life without them became unthinkable. But they are gone (Guiding Light’s last episode: Friday, September 18, 2009).

When established institutions come to the end of their time, we are reminded that what seems permanent to us is truly transitory. Rome thought of itself as eternal. Nazi Germany called itself the “Thousand Year Reich.” The British Empire proclaimed that the sun never set on British soil. But Isaiah 40:8 tells a greater truth: “The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand forever.” (cf. 1 Peter 1:23)

I have never been one to compare the United States to Rome or any other past empire and wring my hands over the impending doom implicit in some growing decadence. But I do know the time will come when everything that seems so familiar and comfortable and established to us will go the way of Lehman Brothers and The Guiding Light. I say that, not with alarm or despair, but with a confidence that the Word of God will stand through all of these changes.

In our time of unsettling transitions, as generations rise and pass away, and with them their cherished institutions, the Church of Jesus Christ will persist, springing up unexpectedly out of the ashes of failed human creations. The persistence of the Church points ahead to the only truly eternal hope: the Kingdom of God. When we try to substitute anything transitory for the Kingdom of God, we are susceptible to idolatry. But when we keep our focus on the Kingdom of God, we can proceed through all transitions, however tumultuous they may be, with hope and a steady course.