Ray Bakke, the Executive Director of International Urban Associates, tells a great story from World War II. An American named MacDonald and a Scottish chaplain bailed out behind German lines, were captured and put into a prison camp, with MacDonald in the American barracks and the chaplain with the Brits. The Germans had put a wire fence between the American and British prisoners, and it was impossible for the two sides to communicate privately. But the Americans had managed to put together a homemade radio and were able to get news from the outside, more precious in a prison camp even than food. And every day MacDonald and the Scot would meet at the fence and exchange a brief greeting. Since the two men spoke Gaelic, which the Germans couldn’t understand, the greeting consisted largely of the latest headline. Finally the news came that the war was over; the German High Command had surrendered. After MacDonald had transmitted the news to his friend, he watched him disappear into the British barracks. A moment later, a roar of celebration came from the barracks. The camp was transformed. Men sang and shouted, waving and smiling at the bewildered guards. When the news finally filtered down to the guards three nights later, they simply walked away from their posts, leaving the gates unlocked. The next morning, the prisoners walked out as free men. But if you stop and think about it, they had actually been set free three days earlier - simply by knowing the truth: the war was over.
The great thing about having read the Bible - and especially the book of Revelation - is that we are not only unsurprised by the conflicts and disasters the world continually faces, we know how it all comes out in the end. Remember the story outline that I gave you a few weeks ago: God is in charge, we live on a battlefield, and Jesus wins. So just as the men in that German prison camp could shrug off the few remaining days of imprisonment, even though the guards and dogs were still around, we too can take all the turmoil in our world in stride because we know that it’s just a matter of time before the gates to our prison will also be opened. We can’t open the door ourselves, but we know that there is not a thing the enemy can do to foil the escape plan already set in motion.
The German martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote to his fiancée from prison that “A prison cell, in which one waits, hopes, does various unessential things, and is
completely dependent on the fact that the door of freedom has to be opened ‘from the outside,’ is not a bad picture of Advent.” And so it is entirely appropriate to be swept into Advent by the final pictures John gives us in his Revelation.
How many of you have heard about Lt. Gen. William Boykin’s recent statement that the war against terror is in fact a religious war, with our true enemy being Satan himself? Military analyst and editorial writer William M. Arkin is very troubled by this, as well as by Boykin’s belief that it is God, not the American electorate, who is responsible for the fact that Bush is president. But that’s not all that alarms Mr. Arkin, whose recent LA Times article goes on to say, “Boykin has made it clear that he takes his orders not from his Army superiors but from God – which is a worrisome line of command.” How shocking - that a military officer should acknowledge an ultimate moral authority! Doesn’t Arkin and those like him recognize that recognizing a higher authority is the only sure guarantee that someone can’t excuse atrocities by saying “I was only following orders...” Well, these shocking statements have landed the General in big media trouble.
Because it is popular to believe that the phrase “Holy War” is an oxymoron, a contradiction in terms, a logical impossibility. Many Christian congregations refuse to sing Onward Christian Soldiers, or Stand Up, Stand Up for Jesus, Ye Soldiers of the Cross, because they are unable to reconcile their allegiance to the prince of peace with the martial fervor and military metaphors of these great hymns.
And yet here is Jesus appearing as a great warrior, a triumphant warrior. And rather than being something to fear, it is something we should anticipate with eagerness and hope, as Paul wrote to Titus who was experiencing more than a little difficulty with his unruly congregation on the island of Crete. “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all, training us to renounce impiety and
worldly passions, and in the present age to live lives that are self-controlled, upright, and godly, while we wait for the blessed hope and the manifestation of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. [Titus 2:11-13] The sure hope of the second coming of Christ is what keeps us on track in the present age.
Let’s look at the picture John paints for us. Jesus appears mounted on a white horse, at the head of a huge army also riding white horses. He has fiery eyes, many crowns, a sword coming out of his mouth, and his robe is dipped in blood. What does all that mean?
These are all simply images of power and victory. There is to be no doubt left in the minds or hearts of John’s viewers that the power of Jesus Christ cannot be overstated. He cannot be stopped, he cannot be defeated, he cannot be tricked or trivialized or ignored. Jesus Christ rules.
Then John widens the angle of the shot and we see that Jesus is not alone on the field. Facing the heavenly host are “the beast and the kings of the earth with their armies gathered to make war against the rider on the horse and against his army.” [Rev. 19:19] And so our impulse is to duck and cover. This great battle will surely be worse than any of the horrible, terrible, violent scenes of destruction that we’ve already lived through in the previous chapters! Imagine all the forces of evil in the world gathered in one place to make their final stand against the Lord’s anointed.
But there is no battle. It’s almost anticlimactic. There are no trumpets or clashing swords, If you want blood and gore, go see Kill Bill or the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Jesus simply picks up the beast and the false prophet - I have this marvelous mental image of him holding the two at arms length by the scruff of the neck - and drops them one, two, plop, plop, into the lake of fire. He dusts off his hands, and then he speaks, and the rest of the armies keel over like so many bowling pins. The sword that comes out of his mouth - the word of God - is the final word. There’s nothing left but bird food.
Here is a mystery. Why does God do it this way? Why does God permit the evil empire to appear more powerful than the kingdom of God? How often do we look around us and - if we do not say it ourselves, we certainly hear others say it - “Where is God in this? How can God allow this to happen?” Of course part of the answer is that God wants us to understand with perfect clarity that evil will always triumph if God is left out of the picture. Look what Isaiah tells us happens when God leaves it up to us: “Truth is lacking, and whoever turns from evil is despoiled. The LORD saw it, and it displeased him that there was no justice. He saw that there was no one, and was appalled that there was no one to intervene; so his own arm brought him victory, and his righteousness upheld him. [Is 9:15-16]
Given that reality, it makes a whole lot more sense to ask, with the Psalmist, “Why do the nations conspire, and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD and his anointed, saying, "Let us burst their bonds asunder, and cast their cords from us." He who sits in the heavens laughs; the LORD has them in derision. Then he will speak to them in his wrath, and terrify them in his fury ...” [Ps 2:1-5].
Human efforts to avoid or outwit God are in vain. It is simply futile, idiotic, crazy, senseless to fight against God. The shout of triumph leaves no room for doubt. “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign for ever and ever.” [Rev 11:15]
But what does all of this mean for us? I don’t know about you, but I have no more reason to expect Jesus to show up this afternoon than I did three years ago at the turn of the millennium. Of course, I also have no less reason to expect him. But the point is that it’s easy to wait in hope for three days. It’s much harder to wait for three centuries, or three millennia. The Israelites wandered 40 years in the desert, while the disobedient generation grew old and were replaced in leadership by new blood,before they entered into the promised land. The Babylonian exiles waited 70 years - two generations of leaders had to move on - before the Persian king Cyrus let them go back and begin to rebuild Jerusalem. We haven’t been given a promise with a timetable attached. How many generations will have to pass before our exile comes to an end? We are not meant to know.
Although this description is of the last coming of Jesus Christ, remember the first lesson of prophecy: there is something here that is true at all times for all believers, even if we seem to have gone into extra innings. The door out of our prison is always unlocked; the guards and dogs can’t keep us from opening it. Remember what Jesus said to the Laodiceans back in chapter 3: “Listen! I am
standing at the door, knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to you and eat with you, and you with me.” [Rev 3:20] The Soviet Union tried its best for 70 years to eliminate Christianity. And yet when the Soviet Union fell, the cross of Christ stood untarnished among the rubble, and the people began to rebuild their lives around it. Mao Zhe Dung made the most stringent effort the world has ever known - even surpassing the Russians - to destroy the church in China. When he died and the eyes of the world looked in on what was expected to be a godless wilderness, what did we see? The church had grown a hundred-fold, a thousand-fold, and to this day with millions upon millions of believers continues to bear witness to the victory of our God.
The worse things look, the more likely it is that we will be astonished by what God has been doing under our all-too limited radar screen. How many of you were disheartened or discouraged to read of the Episcopal Church’s decision to anoint an openly gay priest as bishop? I was. And yet what this decision has shown us is how strong the Anglican church is elsewhere in the world. South American Archbishop Greg Venables said, "Two versions of the Christian faith have come into conflict," he said. "The traditional faith of absolute truths versus the modern, liberal" church. He said the split was in part due to Western "cultural bias." “They have chosen the path of deviation from the ‘historic faith’ once delivered to the saints,” said Church of Nigeria primate Peter Akinola, who presides over a province over eight times the size of the American Episcopal church. He saluted the gallant Episcopal bishops who “refused to bow their knees to Baal” and promised to “to do all that is necessary” to support them. Archbishop Akinola warned that a church that “enthrones the will of men over and above the authority of God and his revealed and written Word” is“bound to become a shrine for the worship of men rather than God.” Thirty-seven archbishops released a statement on Oct. 16 saying Canon Robinson's enthronement "will tear the fabric of our Communion at its deepest level."
The church in America may be struggling - but the Church of Jesus Christ is doing just fine, thank you. The worse things look, the more likely it is that God is about to do something amazing.
General Boykin fights in two wars. His vocation in the world is to serve the secular authorities in their God-given responsibility to punish evil and protect the innocent. That is not a crusade. That is not a holy war, although it is, in my opinion, a just war. The war with tanks and bombs is not a war waged by Christians against Muslims, it is a war waged by civilization against barbarians. But as he said in his widely misquoted remarks, the true enemy is not Osama Bin Laden. The true enemy is not Saddam Hussein. For, as Paul said, “our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” [Eph 6:12] General Boykin was right when he said that the real enemy is Satan. And the only weapon that works with him is the “word of God, [which] is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword,” [Heb 4:12] Remember the words of Martin Luther’s great hymn: “The prince of darkness grim, we tremble not for him; his rage we can endure, for lo, his doom is sure; one little word shall fell him.”
The enemies of Jesus Christ know this. That is why the attempt on the part of so many once powerful forces in our society to silence the voices of faith has become more and more desperate and shrill. But it takes people like General Boykin to speak out, to remind us that it is God who “deposes kings and sets up kings.” [Dan 2:21] “Have you not known? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to live in; who brings princes to naught, and makes the rulers of the earth as nothing.” [Is 40:21-23] Human beings cannot defeat evil by themselves.
In fact, whatever our professed motivations, once we start believing that evil can be defeated with earthly tools and methods, we slip into becoming de facto allies of the Enemy. Remember the old saying, “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.” But one word - just ONE WORD - will lay all the forces of evil flat. And that word is Jesus. “At the name of Jesus every knee shall bend... and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord...” [Phil 2:10-11]
Jesus said to his disciples,"A little while, and you will no longer see me, and again a little while, and you will see me. Very truly, I tell you, you will weep and mourn, but the world will rejoice; you will have pain, but your pain will turn into joy. When a woman is in labor, she has pain, because her hour has come. But when her child is born, she no longer remembers the anguish because of the joy of having brought a human being into the world. So you have pain now; but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you."
[Jn 16:19-22]
God is doing astonishing things in the world. Open your eyes, look around you. The only question remaining is whether we are in training to take up the sword when our turn comes. The word of God has been given to us to use. Let’s not let it rust.
“The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign for ever and ever.” [Rev 11:15]
