No figure has been more pivotal in shaping the story of America at its noblest than George Washington. Peter Henriques (in First and Always: A New Portrait of George Washington) writes that “Time and time again, in an almost uncanny way, George Washington proved to be the right man in the right place at the right time.” His grace, poise and strength amazed. His charisma, passion and courage were extraordinary. He was “a great man. Fortunately for America, he was also a good man, indeed the greatest of good men and the best of great men.”
How do we think about God and Washington? Did God anoint him or raise him up as the right man at the right time? He was only a semi-regular churchgoer, and he always left the service early before Holy Communion, waiting outside for Martha to receive the Sacrament, after which they returned home. He kept a guarded distance from the church and clergy, while avoiding the hostility someone like Thomas Jefferson voiced toward religion. He did speak and write about, and believe in God’s Providence in the unfolding saga of the birthing of America.
Although it may not have been his intention, Washington embodied the single most important habit of the spiritual life: silence. As a man of few words, some thought him unlettered; other concluded he was uncommonly wise.
Many preachers have pondered Washington wintering with his beleaguered soldiers at Valley Forge when hunting for an illustration of God coming down into the poverty of a stable and other daunting earthly realities in the person of Christ. Arnold Friberg’s famous “Prayer at Valley Forge” portrays Washington as an American Christ in something of an American Gethsemane, kneeling in prayer in bloodstained snow pleading for the Lord’s deliverance. Scholars feel sure this image is more sentimentality than fact, but Washington’s oneness with his fellows is the kind of thing we Christians admire and see as godly.
It’s not hard to notice that as a General, Washington lost more battles than he won; he made quite a few tactical blunders. Christians latch onto and affirm losers! David McCullough points out that Washington “was at his best when things were at their worst, and it gave everybody a lift.” Then he adds that Washington was “the man who wouldn’t give up, who wouldn’t give in, wouldn’t give up no matter what, and gives up the most important thing of all: power.”
It’s not the prayer shivering in the snow of Valley Forge, but the John Trumbull painting in the Capitol Rotunda of Washington handing over his commission to Congress. As Joseph Ellis put it, “Washington stunned the world when he surrendered his sword to Congress on December 23, 1783 and retired to his farm at Mt. Vernon. This was extraordinary; a victorious general’s surrendering his arms was unprecedented. He could have been king or dictator, but he wanted nothing of the kind.”
He repeated the act when he willingly relinquished his office and went back over the Potomac after his Presidency, which could have been for life. His statement was far more than what’s sung in the musical “Hamilton” (“I wanna sit under my own vine and fig tree / A moment alone in the shade”). Washington was defining America – forever – as a people who never vest too much power in one person. And by doing so, he fulfilled what King George III blurted out on hearing Washington might do such a thing: “If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world.”
The greatest, Jesus, became the least, laying down his power for the good of the world. Paul revealed the deep truth about Jesus who, “though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, humbling himself” (Philippians 2:6-8). On Good Friday we sing “What wondrous love is this? Christ laid aside his crown…”
George Washington is, for me, a reminder and an exemplar of what Christ was and is about, and how we might be our best selves, and even a noble nation living into the DNA he bequeathed to us.