Thanks to a friend, Upper Management and I were able to visit the White House’s West Wing yesterday, along with another couple that we know from church.  Of the four, I was the only one who had been there before, and I must admit that I was curious to see how it may have changed since my last visit there over 10 years ago.  On a first visit, most people are quite surprised at how different it is from what you might see in the movies, on the TV series The West Wing, or even from the impression that you might get from images you see in TV news programs.  For example, the Oval Office, while impressive, is not nearly as large as it appears to be.  The Cabinet Room is much larger, but it is hardly ostentatious.

All in all, it is an office building, in fact it is an old office building that has certain rooms that are showy, but many more that are not.  Much of it has no windows, and it tends to feel rather cramped.  It does have amazing art, and many pieces of furniture that are priceless antiques.

The compelling thing about the West Wing is what images might pop into your head if you think about where you are.  For example, you might stand outside in the colonnade and see in your mind’s eye, John F. Kennedy walking to the residence, folder in hand, filled with after hours work.  You might stand outside the entrance to the Situation Room, and when the guide remarks that the room became an active nerve center during the Vietnam era, you might see President Johnson walking past you, face showing concern and going into the room. In the Press Room, when you hear that the floor is built over FDR’s swimming pool, you might suddenly have an image of the crippled president seeking relief in the pool, or you might look into the Roosevelt Room and see Woodrow Wilson sitting at his desk (it was the first Oval Office) fretting over news from the Western Front.

After we left, and were walking back to the Ellipse to the car, the gentleman I was with remarked that he was surprised at how simple the place is, and we had to agree that what is great in the West Wing is not power or the grandeur of the surroundings, but the great ideas and great deeds of some of those who have worked there.

There truth is that few of us will ever visit the place, and fewer still will ever work there.  But all of us who are servants of Christ serve an idea that is far greater than even the greatest idea that has come from the West Wing.  When we serve Jesus Christ and impart someone with the greatest idea of all, the Good News of Jesus Christ’s work on the cross, we will be working in the greatest effort of all, that of bringing eternal life to a fellow human being.

The hope we have to offer is greater than any political or governmental hope, for the hope we have to offer is a hope that will carry on for all eternity.