I stood alone on the hilltop. It was a cool, Spring morning. I enjoyed the distant vistas. I also envisioned the large crowd of mourners who once gathered here for a sunset ceremony to remember and bury Ronald Reagan.
The other early birds at the Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California prioritized the display of the Dead Sea Scrolls on loan to the museum. That’s how I found myself alone outside. I reflected on Reagan’s words carved in granite at his tomb. “I know in my heart that man is good, that what is right will always eventually triumph, and there is purpose and worth to each and every life.” Reagan was known as an optimist with a quick wit and sunny disposition. His words affirm that reputation.
Reagan was known to be a Christian. He professed faith as a boy of 11 years and received baptism. As a teenager, he taught a Sunday school class at the First Christian Church in Dixon, Illinois. As president, his faith permeated his policy positions and prompted him to pray before cabinet meetings. He brought his morality to the world stage when he called the Soviet Union an “evil empire.”
Which brings me back to Reagan’s epitaph. When he said man is good, he surely didn’t have in mind the murderous ideologies of the last century. Perhaps he thought that given the opportunity, people would come around to doing good things. His friend, Russian President Gorbachev, did by moving his country away from Marxism. Another Reagan contemporary Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, a Russian dissident, was closer to Biblical truth when he said, “The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either — but right through every human heart.”
The Christian faith confirms the world as we experience it. It’s easy to see the evil out there. It’s not as easy to recognize the immorality that lurks within me. It helps to see it from the perspective of a good and holy God. “There is none righteous, not even one… There is none who does good.” The good news is that you receive “the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ.” That is God’s grace to you (Rom. 3).
As for the remainder of Reagan’s final words, it is God who triumphs as He guides creation to His intended purposes. Every life indeed has worth because we are equally created in God’s image. Perhaps a bit of theology may have inspired Reagan’s words carved in stone.
That chilly morning, I realized Reagan’s words are a great conversation starter. He was nicknamed “The Great Communicator,” so it’s not surprising that even his epitaph would cause us to reflect on great truths.