Today’s a new day! Here are my thoughts on this photo taken on the Metro in Washington, D.C. The following are my thoughts and opinions. If you happen to disagree with me, I encourage you to take it up with God.
Look at this photo. A young woman sits alone on a train, surrounded by dozens of men in matching uniforms, faces covered, patches bearing flags. She meets the camera’s eye. They refuse to be seen.
This image is a parable. And it’s the opposite of the Gospel.
The Gospel unmasks. Hate hides.
Jesus never hid His face. He wept publicly, prayed publicly, died publicly. “I have spoken openly to the world,” He told His accusers. (John 18:20)
Hate loves masks. It loves anonymity, mobs, and intimidation. Why? Because deeds done in darkness don’t survive the light (John 3:20). When an ideology needs to cover faces to deliver its message, it’s already confessed something about that message.
Christian Nationalism too often puts a mask on Jesus. It takes the crucified Savior and dresses Him in the uniform of earthly power. But Christ doesn’t need our flags stitched to His robe. “My kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36). When we try to make it of this world, we end up looking like this train car: coercive, not compelling.
The Gospel draws near. Hate surrounds.
Notice the posture here. One person, isolated. Many others, standing, looming. That’s not how Jesus moved through crowds.
He touched lepers when others stepped back. He invited Zacchaeus down from a tree when the crowd boxed him out. He stopped for the woman no one else would look at. The Gospel breaks circles of exclusion. Hate forms them.
Christian Nationalism, at its worst, baptizes “us vs. them.” It defines who belongs and who threatens. But the cross destroyed the dividing wall of hostility (Ephesians 2:14). If our faith needs an enemy to stay strong, it isn’t Christian faith. It’s civil religion with a cross necklace.
The Gospel sees the individual. Hate sees categories.
I don’t know the woman’s name in the photo. You don’t either. But God does. She isn’t a symbol. She’s a person made in His image (Genesis 1:27)
Movements built on hate don’t see people. They see demographics, threats, problems to solve. They make you afraid to sit alone on a train in your own city.
Jesus’s first question to people was often, “What do you want me to do for you?” (Mark 10:51). He saw individuals. Christian Nationalism tends to see a “nation to save” and turns people into footnotes. When saving “America” matters more than loving the person next to you on the Metro, we’ve lost the plot.
So what do we do when the train car feels like the world?
Uncover our own faces: Confess where contempt has crept into our hearts. It’s easy to hate the masked men too. Jesus doesn’t give us that option. “Love your enemies” (Luke 6:27) includes them.
Sit with the isolated: Who in your life feels like that woman on the train? The Gospel moves us toward them, not away. Proximity kills caricatures.
Refuse the idols of power and fear: The early church changed the Roman Empire without voting, lobbying, or taking up swords. They did it by loving radically and dying well. Our witness still works that way.
Remember what we’re witnessing to: Not a Christian nation. A crucified Christ. “We preach Christ crucified… the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Corinthians 1:23-24).
This photo should grieve us. Not just because of what it says about them, but because of what it reveals about us. Every one of those masked hearts was knit together by God. Every one of them is someone Christ died for. So is she. So are you. So am I.
Hate says, “Cover your face and find your strength in numbers.”
Jesus says, “Take up your cross and find your life by losing it.”
The train is still running. The choice is still ours. Which kingdom will we board? ~OC
The Blessed Overcomer 