The New Year brings with it a challenge to be visionaries. Proverbs 29:18 warns that “where there is no vision, the people perish” (KJV). And if we learned anything from the bad news of 2008, it was how to strain our eyes for harbor in the midst of a raging storm, for victory in the heat of battle.

So what vision did you treasure in the last days of the year gone by? And what image or ideal enshrines your hopes and yearnings for the year 2009?

As I write this, Israeli troops are amassed on the border of Gaza, ready at a given command to launch another long and bloody invasion. A Hamas leader has just promised doom to Israeli forces if they dare to cross the line.

The 33-day war with Hezbollah (July 12-August 14, 2006), took a horrible toll. Over a thousand people, mostly Lebanese civilians, died, and the Lebanese civil infrastructure was nearly incapacitated. A million Lebanese and 300–500 thousand Israelis were displaced. Undetonated cluster bombs turned some areas of southern Lebanon into minefields. But the political fallout of that conflict may have been more devastating than the casualties.

So whether this cauldron of violence will explode into another war which again victimizes the very Palestinian and civilian people which Hezbollah and Hamas claim to defend will be visible within the next few days. Most of us are still reeling from the economic catastrophe which has blown apart any residual confidence we Americans once clung to in our free market.

If, as CNN announced with the New Year, the Keyword for 2008 became “Bailout”, then senior NPR commentator Daniel Schorr was right-on in proposing our year’s financial “icon” as the last disaster to surface: Bernard Madoff. Running the biggest Ponzi scheme in history, defrauding even his closest associates, and single-handedly responsible for the demise of many good investors and charities, this unbelievably hardened king of Wall Street merely represents the worst in a long string of manipulative corporate managers. From Enron’s CEO’s to a whole host of other upper-echelon Market lords, these trusted individuals behaved more like vampires than brokers, showing no remorse at sucking the lifeblood of innocent people.

Who, Daniel Schorr lamented, could renew the hope and vision of America in the year to come? He himself had decried the fact that the past year’s most dismal and demonically hope-less movie had shattered all the box-office records. Along with other film-reviewers I respect, he characterized the movie as unnecessarily bleak, full of gratuitous violence, and finally disorganized. And yet the theaters-goers of America voted it their favorite.

I am, of course, referring to the “Dark Knight”. I made a point of subjecting myself to the film on behalf of everyone who has endured the long shadow of death and destruction. Afterwards, I recommended it to absolutely no one. Satan is alive and well, and there’s no reason to revel in his victories.

In the end, Dan Schorr proposed a new Icon for a New Year full of hope and encouragement. It was, and remains, President-elect Barack Obama.

Politically speaking, we may have no other alternative. As the Clintons hugged each other on Time Square before millions of television viewers (a prelude to Bill’s bid for Secretary General of the United Nations, so as to collaborate better with the new Secretary of State?), much of the nation had just heard Obama’s inspiring acceptance speech on a competing network. I was among them, never having been interested in New Year superficialities.

Changing channels as the new First Family walked out, in this re-run, onto the stage of America’s future, I discovered my Icon for the new year 2009.

It was, and remains, a very remarkable achievement by a very young man.

This guy bears the name of a famous president, but he’s Australian. Last year, on New Year’s Eve, he broke the motorcycle long-jump record, with a leap of faith stretching 322’7”. This time, as you all know by now, he took off like Elijah the prophet from a gigantic ramp and landed some 120’ later atop the Arc de Triumphe in Los Vegas. I have never seen a more graceful landing of any kind of vehicle anywhere. And as senseless as this stunt may have seen (he did it to inspire young people), I like the vision: a kid comes from an island far away. Leaving his pretty young fiancée below to pray for him, he risks life and limb to ascend to the place of victories.

He could have overshot his goal, as had his truck-driving buddy, and lead the world into another bitter depression. But instead he arched gracefully and alighted upon this symbol of perseverance in hope against all odds.

He did symbolically what Obama had done, politically. And then he took it one step further. Robbie Madison took the plunge. As a million viewers winced, he drove over the edge, not to commit suicide, much less to bomb the people below, but to bring his victory and his message back to earth.

Our new president will have to do just that in less than three weeks. I hope and pray that he’ll provide us a vision and a unifying political philosophy that can help pull us all out of the pit of despair into which nation seems to have fallen. But before he does, I beg God that he’ll check in daily with the greatest Icon that ever existed. This one fulfilled all his promises. He never defrauded anyone. In fact, having all the riches of the universe at his disposal, he emptied himself completely. Taking on the human condition, he descended from the highest places to live among us, and to teach us the way of ascent. Finally, having allowed himself to be defrauded, condemned and raised up on the cross of shame, he declared victory over the Devil.

God the Father raised him up once again, this time in ultimate victory, and since then Jesus Christ has never ceased to send down from Heaven all the blessings and the graces we need to lead lives full of hope, of vision, and of victory. If we choose to remain in darkness, it is only because we have not yet known the liberating power of standing there beside the true King.

Thank you, Robbie, for reminding us of the call to stretch out toward the vision we treasure. Thank you, President Obama, for teaching us to hope in the impossible. Thank you, Jesus, for giving us the true Icon of victory and for making our ultimate victory possible. May we all learn from the Master of Ascents. May we receive from him, and from him alone, the Vision that we need as a people and as the world’s nations to find the authentic pathway to peace — a peace not crafted by limited human minds, much less by the designs of war, but generated by the Spirit of the One in whose image all of us have been created. Far above every imposter who claims to have risen to the presence of Almighty God, He is the One who came down from heaven in the fullness of time. He, and he alone, knows the way back.