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Seek justice Isaiah 1:17

 I have a real problem with the word justice. There are many biblical admonitions to seek justice and to do justice, yet the connotations of that word make me cringe when I read it or hear it. Many people use it in public discourse, yet I hear overtones in their words and see evidence in their attitudes toward the people involved that let me know that justice is a cover word, a code word, for revenge, payback, or retribution. These concepts are completely alien to the meaning of justice yet they have come to be closely associated with the word and usually find expression in the word fair. People do not want a “just” solution to social problems; they want a “fair” solutions, and fairness demands payback. We see this notion work out daily in monstrous settlements to lawsuits. The recompense for error may be small, but the recompense for the “insult” (the settlement amount that pays the plaintiff back for the insult of it all) may be in the millions of dollars. The very fact that such settlements must be so huge tells us all that the settlement will not end the wound inflicted by the “insult” and the “fair” solution will not end the problem.

The word “justice” as used in public discourse reeks of political agendas. We hear the word when black people today want to punish white people today for slavery. This objective is pursued despite the fact that white people today are not slaveowners, and black people today are not slaves. I hear it in the conversations about issues between employer and employee, union boss versus capitalist boss, lender versus borrower, and so forth. The word justice is used in public discourse with a pejorative edge toward some real or alleged wrongdoing now or in the past.

God clearly wants justice on the earth, but I think it is evident that, in God’s eyes, justice takes a poor second to mercy and love, grace and forgiveness. When something is broken it is likely possible to craft an equitable fix. However, the just solution won’t stop the demand for “fairness,” because the wounds have not been healed.

Justice alone heals nothing.

When slavery ended in the USA as a consequence of the Civil War, justice was served. The slaves were free. The slaveowners had to find some other way to get the work done. Unfortunately, the people who were no longer slaves were not healed of their righteous resentment of the generations of cruel oppression wrought against them and their ancestors. Slaveowners were not healed of their attitudes that made them believe that black people were less than human.

Because slaveowners (and people who had never had slaves but shared the attitude) were not healed, segregation replaced slavery, and vigilante enforcement of segregation took the form of egregious acts against black people. Because black people were not healed, either, they responded as one would expect. Riots and violence erupted between black and white human beings. Because no one was healed, the country suffered as much from segregation as from slavery.

When segregation ended with the passage of the Civil Rights Act, justice was served, but nobody was healed. Many white people still felt that black people were inherently inferior, and they behaved accordingly. The government could grant civil rights, but it could not change hearts. Black people still had neither money, power nor prestige, and they still resented the attitudes that no law could ever repair. The wounds inflicted by evil attitudes growing out of loveless relationships still bled, festered, burned with fever in both black and white hearts.

Jesus did not die on the cross to bring about justice. He died to bring forgiveness, grace and mercy because of God’s love. He died to bring healing and reconciliation.

People pursue justice in the name of Jesus, and that is good, as long as the pursuit does not use weapons of venomous language coupled with demands for retribution. The pursuit of justice to right the wrongs of today between black and white, or between “boss” and “worker,” or between lender and borrower, or any other wrong-doing is a pursuit of an equitable solution that brings about and equitable, just, legal footing for future relationships. The past is history. It is not possible to punish or reward people long dead. To require that as part of an “equitable” solution is not justice. It is revenge.

Revenge never heals anything. Those who pursue revenge always expect to feel better once they achieve it, but it never happens. The recipient of retribution quickly discovers that the heart wound that started the whole process is still miserably painful. Money is not a balm to a wounded spirit.

Justice will not heal a broken world. In fact, it is not unreasonable to say that justice may only exacerbate the brokenness as the wounded unite in a cry, “That’s not enough! You need to do more!”

What the world needs is healing. When relationships are healed and combatants are reconciled, then justice has a chance to work for good. To imagine, however, that justice will end evil is to engage in fantasy. Evil is present in each of us. It works through the SELF enthroned in our hearts, ceaselessly whispering that we deserve more and somebody else got our fair share. SELF insists that things would be more pleasant and more comfortable “if only….” Justice cannot root out evil or topple SELF. If that were possible, we would no longer need either police or regulatory agencies.

Therefore, let us pursue justice and temper our expectations with love for one another. Let black and white, boss and employer, lender and borrower, all bear one another’s burdens with love, grace, forgiveness and mercy. No matter what we say about justice, it is healing that we want. We want the pain to go away. The only balm for that pain is flowing in the blood of Christ, shed on the cross for all people.

The gospel of Matthew opens with the story of Joseph’s dream in which an angel reassures him about Mary’s pregnancy, telling him that it is the fulfillment of God’s promise of the Messiah, whose name, “Emmanuel” means “God is with us.” The gospel continues with the story of Jesus’ life and work. The last words of Jesus in this gospel are, “I am with you always, to the end of the age.” [Matthew 28:20] At the time when Matthew wrote, late in the first century, people who had seen Jesus in the flesh were dying off. The growing community of faith needed to be reminded that the indwelling Holy Spirit was the evidence that God truly was present with them and in them.

All these thousands of years later, we still need that reminder. When circumstances conspire to make us feel afraid and helpless, Satan tempts us to think that God has abandoned us. He makes us ask, “If God loves you, why did this terrible thing happen?” We need reassurance that the Holy Spirit is truly present and that in the person of the Holy Spirit, God never abandons us.

My husband and I recently had an experience that brought home the truth that God is always with us, even when we are not paying attention. It is important for us to remember that God’s presence with us does not negate the operation of the laws of physics or meteorology. God has promised that as long as the laws of nature work the way they are supposed to, his love is sure. We want those laws to work. However, when we become captive to them and unable to help ourselves, then it is very good to know that God is with us and that he will work for our good in amazing and wonderful ways. Above all that, whether or not the outcome is just what we hoped for, he is present with us to give us peace with the situation as it develops for good or ill.

We cruised southward one morning toward a destination about a day’s sail from our departure point. As will happen to sailors, however, along the way, we spied a little cove on the chart that looked attractive. We said to ourselves that we could go to our planned destination the next day as we turned aside to our new adventure. We studied the charts, and we studied the notes in guide books. I stood on the bow to spot hazards, and Larry was at the helm to steer to our anchorage.

As will happen sometimes, we became disoriented in the unfamiliar surroundings. Then, caught in a current and uncertain of the correct course, we ran aground. As we tried to steer off the reef, the engine stopped and refused to restart.

In the US, such a situation is annoying, but not the end of the world. Boaters unable to free themselves simply call for a tow, sigh at the cost if they don’t have insurance, and move on. In the Bahamas, the situation is much different. There is no tow service. The Bahamian rescue service is truly focused on rescue in life-and-death situations. A simple mistake that puts a boat aground is the boater’s problem. Boaters are responsible for themselves, and they are well-advised to stay out of trouble if they don’t know how to deal with it. “Knowing” that is the result of reading how to deal with the problem is not, however, the same thing as “knowing” as a result of having done it. We had read the solution, but we had never performed the solution.

On the off chance that there might be someone around who operated a tow service anyway, we made a radio call. No result. Hoping that the Bahamian rescue service could put us in touch with someone who could tow us off, we called them. They could not hear us, although later a marina manager served as a relay between us and them. Still, that communication confirmed their commitment to embark on a rescue only if lives were in danger. Our boat was not taking on water, and nobody was even injured, let alone in a life-threatening crisis. We were on our own.

Every day as we sail or motor in our adventures, I pray that we will have wisdom to use our skills and experience in whatever circumstances come our way. I always pray that we will be safe. This day was no exception, but sitting aboard our grounded vessel, not knowing how we would ever get free without an engine, I prayed that we would see a solution. We knew that the recommended course of action involved deploying an anchor in deeper water and using it to pull ourselves off the rocks, but it was going to take time to do that job, because our dinghy was deflated and wrapped up on deck. We could not possibly throw the anchor far enough to help, and we could not inflate the dinghy, deploy it in the water, attach the outboard and get the anchor out in less than an hour. Still, time was wasting and we got started.

Then we heard a call on the radio. “No Boundaries, No Boundaries. This is Duet.” When we answered the call, we learned that a couple anchored behind a nearby island had heard our radio distress call. They had the “knowing” that comes from experience with grounding, and they were on their way to help. I prayed thanks that someone was coming, even if all they did was keep us company. When they arrived, however, they wasted no time in helping us get started with the solution that would actually get us off the rocks.

I remember that when we first went aground, I began to pray, and even as the hopeless surges of fear arose in my stomach, I also felt reassured that something would work. Most of all, I felt reassured that God was with us, a sense of things that only grew more certain as Bill and Barb from S/V Duet worked side by side with us to get us off those rocks. We all worked for hours, because this was no trivial problem. The wind was blowing at more than 20 mph, a great speed for sailing, but problematic in this situation. The tidal currents at the time of our grounding complicated our problem, because they were running strongly in a direction that forced us farther onto the reef. Around noon, the tide changed, and by then we were ready to take advantage of the current, thanks to our wonderful new friends. Around 1:30 in the afternoon, we all sat down in the cockpit to rest. The boat was afloat. Two anchors held us in place against both wind and current. As our new friends departed in their dinghy, we gave thanks for their help and for our new safe location. We felt deeply blessed by the kindness of these people. The Bible tells of many situations in which angels arrive to give messages and help people, and we felt pretty sure that Bill and Barb were angels. In days to come, they followed up with radio calls to be sure we were doing well. When we overheard their response to another boat that had run aground nearby, we became convinced that they were, indeed, angels, and the crew of the other boat agreed with us.

Our situation was no longer dire, but we still did not have an engine. Because our boat is a sailboat, however, we did have the option to sail out of the anchorage if Larry were unable to repair the engine and if wind and wave were appropriate for sailing. Bill and Barb had specifically planned for that possibility when they left us anchored directly in front of the entrance to the cove. We all thought that position poised us for success if we had to sail out. When all was said and done, Larry and I gave thanks for our new friends, and we gave thanks for God’s care for us in the difficult situation. The heavy weight of fear that had seized us at the moment of grounding was lifted, and we felt genuine relief.

The next day, we were still safely at anchor, but much more uncomfortable. The weather had changed. Winds directly from the east were pushing big waves at us through the opening that had seemed so convenient the day before. We were pummeled by the combination of the waves from the ocean and the ferocious tidal currents. We could not possibly sail out against the combined force of wind and current. Our anchors were under fearful strain, which began to produce a new problem. Our primary anchor was equipped with heavy chain all the way to its point of attachment to the boat. Our secondary, however, had only 75 feet of chain, after which the remaining rode was rope. The way we had anchored the first day put the secondary anchor in a location that gave it the primary stress on the second day, and that stress was beginning to chafe the rope rode. We scrambled to find gear to prevent the chafing, but none of our interventions was reliable for any length of time. We could not remain anchored like this, because the chafing would eventually part our rope rode, and we would lose our secondary anchor, not to mention that we would risk being blown back onto the reef again. We could not go, and we could not stay. Larry struggled with the engine problem to no avail. We prayed and watched and did what we could to alleviate the situation.

Once again, Bill from Duet stepped in to help. He saw a passing boat with huge twin outboards, and he hailed the captain with a request to help us move to a better location. After M/V Cutting Edge arrived, he helped us raise both of our anchors and then towed our boat to a location out of the current and more sheltered from wind. We felt pretty sure that he was an angel, too, and we prayed God’s blessings on him as he departed to continue his fishing trip. Again, we felt blessed and secure. Our new location was a place where we could safely remain until we either got the engine going or saw the right window to sail out, even if that were many days hence. We could not doubt for a minute that God was present with us. Once again, just when we were at the end of our abilities, God provided what we needed.

The next day was Sunday. As we prepared for our normal worship aboard, we commented to each other that we had more reason than usual to worship and praise God. So many good things had happened to us that we surely needed to give him thanks and praise more than ever. We could not focus on the bad things. They seemed trivial by comparison with our blessings. We worshiped. We prayed. We sang psalms and hymns. We celebrated God’s presence and power in our lives. We had no doubt that he was watching over us, present with us.

That afternoon, Larry went back to work on the engine. He went back to step one for analysis and trouble-shooting. He worked deliberately through all the steps, and eventually the moment came when the engine roared back to life. Again, we had something to be thankful for. The final piece of the solution was in place. We were no longer refugees looking for a way out; we were again cruisers exploring and adventuring. We shouted our thanks to God, and then we prayed together.

Throughout this experience we had the comforting presence of God in the midst of all our troubles. God did not step in and overturn the laws of nature. He did not work any magic on the boat or the engine. He did not teleport us to a diesel mechanic, or teleport a mechanic to us. He simply remained with us all the way. The solution worked out in simple steps. At each step, we felt relieved and thankful, and at each step we first thought that we ourselves would be able to manage the next step. When that proved impossible, God gave us just what we needed, no more and no sooner than we needed it. Materials managers would call it “Just in Time.” We call it God’s faithful provision and presence in our lives.

This probably won’t be the last time we go aground. People who cruise in the Bahamas take that possibility as a given. If we do ground again, we have the experience, enlightened by our angelic friends from S/V Duet, to help ourselves. We are learning a variety of skills in navigation, weather and survival. All that learning and growth is good. The best thing we have learned, however, is not about us. It is about God. We have learned that God truly is with us. He never abandons us. He gives us peace when we have no idea how we will solve or survive the next problem. This peace transcends any skill level or accomplishment we might ever have.

I have not always relied on God the way I do now. I am learning more and more every day how critical his presence is. Far from making me reckless, the confidence that he is present makes me more careful. When I am frightened, it allows me to do what my mother called, “making haste slowly,” to take my time to get all the facts and move forward with care. Knowing that God is with us, we have the peace to assess the situation and make a better decision. Knowing that God is with us, we know that he won’t abandon us if our best guess is wrong.

I am glad that Matthew recorded the story of Joseph’s dream and the explanation of the name “Emmanuel.” I’m glad that Matthew’s story of Jesus repeats that theme as Jesus’ promise to all generations. The promise and the experience of God’s presence enrich my life every day. When Satan tempts me to wonder if God cares or to ask why God let this happen, I can respond with faith nurtured by experience. Faith must, by definition, act in the absence of certainty, but my certainty about past experience builds up my faith that future experiences will only reveal more about the wonderful presence of God. I don’t know what else I will learn about prayer as we travel, but I have already learned that God is not kidding when he says, “I will not leave you or forsake you.”

 When I was growing up, my mother assured peace in the family by force. My brother and I had a thousand reasons to bicker and quarrel, but Mother squelched irascible behavior by means of creative and onerous punishments. She wanted peace, and she achieved it by means of aggression and power if she had to. Communities faced with rising crime and nations faced with internal rebellion or external aggression do exactly what my mother did. They undertake to enforce or “keep” the peace by making unpeaceful behavior painful.

Unfortunately, my mother’s punishments did not transform the attitudes that led to brawling between my brother and me. We may not have bickered or yelled or hit each other, but our objectives, and objections, grated and ground on our spirits with the result that our sense of being wounded and oppressed made us angrier, not more amiable. More police on the streets or more soldiers on the battlefield do not transform the attitudes that made them necessary, either. The “peace” that exists due to fear of punishment is not at all peaceful. The situation between two siblings or between two nations may have the appearance of peace, because no aggression is being acted out. Under the cover of polite words, however, everyone is scheming to find a way to achieve the goal of the aggression without incurring the pain of the punishment. 

Such a situation only looks like peace when we are willing to consider the lack of aggressive behavior as peace. Better laws, stronger enforcement, harsher punishments, more powerful guns, more soldiers on the ground – all these efforts may contain or even suppress aggression between opposing parties. They will never transform the attitudes of the opposing parties and bring peace to their relationships with each other. 

The breakup of Yugoslavia after the end of the Cold War is a perfect model for the inability of force to bring peace. Yugoslavia was created by gluing together a number of political entities that had fought with each other for hundreds of years. The country of Yugoslavia was governed by military force, which ruthlessly suppressed aggressive behavior between historic enemies. The country appeared to be at peace, but the enmity and hatred that existed before Yugoslavia never died.  The death of the strong man who had made it all work precipitated the death of the fake peace that had existed there. History is littered with “peaceful” solutions that are only facades that cover smoldering resentments that flare explosively when the enforcing power disappears.

 At the end of World War II, a lot of people put their faith in a movement to create a world-wide forum where disputes and aggression could be worked out with words, not bullets, and the United Nations was born. The UN was to be the place where nations could settle disputes peaceably. We could finally bring an end to war.

 Sadly, this dream, too, is now dust. Rather than a forum where disputes are resolved, the UN has simply become a place where chicanery and human greed find yet another opportunity to flourish. The world has not become a more peaceful place due to the existence of the UN. In fact, the history of the UN is a demonstration that even a peaceful forum does not transform attitudes. The nations of the world come together with the same agendas that have sent them to the battlefield, and if any nation fails to achieve its objective in the UN, it proceeds to the tried and true methods of aggression and military action just as if the UN did not exist.

 Why don’t we have world peace? Why doesn’t anything work?

 The answer is in the Bible. In Genesis, it is recorded that “The Lord saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually.” [Genesis 6:5] Isaiah said, “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have all turned to our own way.” [Isaiah 53:6]  Paul wrote, “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” [Romans 3:23] In simple words, while we may create the appearance of peace, we cannot create real peace, because human beings are sinful. They would rather serve themselves than others. They cannot give up their bad attitudes, because they don’t want to. If we want world peace, human beings need to be different. Just as my mother could not make me want to share with my brother, the UN cannot make Palestinians want to share with Israelis. Under the most implacable force the resentments seethe as furiously as ever, waiting impatiently for a crack in the barrier to aggression.

 We all can pray for peace, and we all should pray for peace. There certainly won’t be any peace without God’s intervention. The peace we want, however, is not the façade that covers up violent hatred. What we really want is the end of hatred. We even make laws against hate speech and hate crimes, but the laws do not end hate. UN sanctions against aggressor nations do not end aggression. So far, human legal action has been completely impotent in bringing about peace. How can we have peace? Peace in families. Peace in communities. Peace in the world.

 There is an answer. In the same hour that one of Jesus’ closest friends was betraying him to enemies, Jesus spoke to the remaining eleven disciples. He warned them what was coming his way. Even as Jesus warned his friends of the hateful aggression in their future, he said, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.” [John 14:27] The peace Jesus gave was internal peace. This peace was a transforming experience that gave the disciples the ability to face aggressive power with a peaceful attitude. This is the kind of peace that we all really want.

 We all should pray for peace, but when we pray, we should not be hoping simply for better disarmament treaties or for dictators to comply with economic sanctions. Rather, when we pray for peace, we should pray for transformed human hearts. When we pray for peace, we are praying for one of the fruits of the indwelling Holy Spirit, a fruit that only matures when there is also the fruit of love, joy, patience, kindness, generosity and faithfulness. I pray fervently for peace, but I pray with the full knowledge that the cessation of hostilities is not real peace. I pray for the transformation of human hearts and the peace we all will know when time ends and “Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more.” [Revelation 21:4]

 To some, this notion sounds like “pie in the sky by and by.” What do we do, you may ask, until then?

 One answer, a concession to reality, is to keep making laws that punish aggressive behavior. Continue to do everything possible in international relations to prevent aggressor nations from hurting other nations. The Bible tells us that one of God’s purposes for human government is protection of citizens from both internal and external aggression. Until every human heart is transformed by love, we must realistically expect that natural, sinful human nature will manifest itself in crime and war, and we must be prepared to stop it.

 However, the best answer is to do what Jesus told us what to do. Early in his ministry, he sent his disciples out to tell Israelites that the kingdom of heaven had come near. They were to tell everyone the good news that God loved them and that God had come down to bring the kingdom to them. They were practicing the work that would become their permanent calling, and the calling of everyone in whom the Holy Spirit dwells. As Jesus ascended to heaven, he commissioned his followers again in that ministry of love, saying, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” [Matthew 28:19-20] We work for world peace when we gospelize the people around us – that is, when we envelope them in our love and God’s love by telling them this good news. The good news of God’s love and grace through Christ is the power that transforms people and puts out the fires of aggression, greed, and hatred. Only God can bring about world peace, and it only happens when he dwells in the hearts of people everywhere. If we want world peace, we need to say to everyone we meet, “God loves you, and I love you.” That’s it.

Why did God create people? What was he thinking? People must be an endless discouragement to God. In Genesis, right before the flood, God regretted that he ever made people, yet something about Noah touched his heart. Maybe he didn’t regret making every single person. After the flood ended, God changed his mind. It is right there in the book of Genesis. I didn’t make this up. God said exactly the same thing about people after the flood as before. He said that they were completely mixed up and always doing wrong. Yet he no longer wanted to destroy them.

 Noah and his family were just as prone to disappoint God as everybody else. Yet God did not strike them with lightning. He doesn’t strike anyone with lightning. He just goes on loving us.

 What is the problem? Satan, of course, is the agent of evil, the embodiment of pure evil, but if people had not been created with freedom to choose what they do, Satan would be powerless. God didn’t hardwire people to do the right thing every time, and that is Satan’s opportunity. A cynic might say that God got what was coming to him, because he got the consequences of our freedom.

 There are many ways in which this freedom works out in our lives. We choose to take what we want from the people who have it regardless of their wish to keep it. We lie, cheat, defraud, and hurt the people around us. We hurt people on purpose, because they have hurt us, or just because we can. However, that isn’t the only way we express our freedom.

 Every human being is born with potential to do great things. Not just morally great things. We are born with talents. Michelangelo and Picasso were born to draw and paint. They could have ignored their talent or they could have done what they did – develop their talent. George Washington was born to be a leader of men. He could have sat in peace on his estate, but he chose to be a leader. The development of Picasso’s art and Washington’s leadership must have made God very happy.

 The Jews believe that God loves it when people stand up and argue with God. I can see how that might be true, because I believe that God gave us minds to see choices, evaluate them, and then decide. When he sees us using our minds and our talents, I think God is pleased.

 What confuses us about God is the fact that he is omnipotent at the same time that we are free. We think both things cannot be true at the same time. This paradox confuses us. Because humans believe that both things cannot possibly be true, humans choose to believe that God is limited in some way. We can clearly see that we have the freedom to choose, and we say things like, “You got yourself into this mess, and you can jolly well get yourself out of it.” On the other hand, after exercising our complete freedom to choose, when we find ourselves in messes, we pray “Help me, help me, help me,” and think God is a big failure when he doesn’t jump in and fix things.

 Books have been written on this subject. I can’t best any of them. I have a single concern in bringing up this issue. I believe that God had good reasons for giving us freedom. I believe that God wants us to relate to him, and a relationship requires freedom for both parties. If we were not free to choose the relationship, then we would be slaves or robots. God rejoices in our freedom. In some ways, he relates to us the way a parent relates to a child learning to play the piano. When that child sits down at the very first recital and plays a really simple piece, the parent does not confuse that with the performance of a concerto, but the parent truly and completely rejoices in the child’s development of the gift. Years later, when the child has matured with the gift, the parent rejoices to hear a mature performance, and the parent equally rejoices that the child has found the right outlet for that talent whether it turns out to be in concert or in a classroom or in composition.

 God feels that way about each of us. He gifts us with the potential. He sets us down in the world with all sorts of choices before us. He works within us and around us to nurture our talents, our personalities, and our character. The unique person each of us becomes is a mix of all those opportunities shaped by our choices over and over. I think that God is extremely pleased when we become what he created us to be, and I think he is delighted and surprised in many ways, because of the unique outcome in each person.

 Can God be surprised? I think so. To say so, of course, throws me into another paradox. If God knows everything at all times, how can anyone surprise him? How can it even be said that we choose anything if he knows everything already? This mental exercise is tedious. Relationship with God is not tedious. I think God is truly delighted like any parent when we grow and mature using the talents and personality with which he gifted us at conception. I choose to believe that because he does not micromanage our choices, he also does not limit his delight in our growth by saying, “I knew that all the time.”

 I can’t comprehend how God is God at all. The best I can do is spend time in his presence and try to live by his guidance. I know I have made some bad choices, so I know he doesn’t prevent that. I know I have made some good choices, and I know he is pleased with them. As I grow and mature in my relationship with God, I am learning to see facets of his personality and character that I never knew before. In this growing relationship, I sense that he delights in my growth as if he didn’t know with certainty what I would do. I simply don’t worry about what he foreknows when I meet and beat a big challenge, because I am so happy. I know I don’t do it alone, and I experience God’s delight in both my choices and my growth.

 I would rather relate to God as my heavenly father, the mysterious Three in One, who loves me and blesses me than try to analyze him to death. I know people who try to analyze me, too, and I don’t much like it. I do like the experience of growing in faith and developing my talents in the loving, nurturing presence and power of the Holy Spirit. I know that I was known before I was conceived, but I love being God’s kid and surprising him every once in a while as I try to become what he always wanted me to be. It isn’t all up to me, but I really do get to choose, and he really does get to rejoice when I do it right.

When I was a little girl, my mother taught me to be sure to thank anyone who gave me a gift. She told me that people would get their feelings hurt if they thought I was ungrateful for gifts they had given me. I tried to remember, and if I forgot, my mother reminded me. I remember well when she came to me asking on behalf of one of her friends if I had ever received the gift she sent me for high school graduation. Mother knew that I had received it, and Mother was not taking forgetfulness for a justification of my failure to send a thank-you note.

 Parents often tell their children that if they forget to say thank you, they might not get any more presents. That idea is okay as far as it goes, if you are dealing with a three-year-old. It doesn’t carry much water when you become an adult.

 In the USA today, the economy is a major topic of discussion. At the level of the politicians, it appears that government action is needed and that the actions of government so far must not have been the right ones, so we need to try again. At the personal level, people have lost jobs or taken pay cuts or now feel trapped in undesirable jobs because there are no better jobs to be had. Families talk about cutting back on gifts at Christmas or they drive the old car another year and so forth. There are all kinds of tips and tricks on the internet and in the news to help families “live within their budget” or “pinch pennies.” Parents tell children that vacations and new clothes and other non-essentials will be reduced or eliminated, because Mother doesn’t have a job any more or Daddy’s hours were cut.

 Just writing the words in the paragraph above made me angry. It makes the people involved angry, too. There is a national sense that we have lost something, that we are deprived and put upon. There are certainly political issues involved, but I don’t plan to discuss those issues. I want to talk about the way we cope. Using the language of deprivation and giving up and doing without makes anyone angry. Think how you felt the last time you heard from your boss at work that you need to “do more with less” or “we’re going to be lean and mean.” When a person feels that he has lost something he used to have or that he must give up something he thought he was entitled to, it creates anger, not to mention fear, maybe humiliation, and jealousy. Who got what I was supposed to have?

 This is not the way God intended for us to live. In the reality where God is on his throne, God gives gifts to all, the righteous and the unrighteous. Everyone gets sun and rain and winter and summer. For that matter, at the personal level, you could say that in a family faced with less money this year than last, it is still right to recognize that all good gifts and all perfect gifts come from God. Job had it right, and we all need to remember it: The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. [Job 1:21]

 There is another way to look at life, and it applies whether you have much or little, whether you just got a raise or just got laid off. This way of dealing with the economy does not create anger or jealousy. This way of living avoids putting the emphasis on pinching pennies or cutting back or living within a smaller budget. It involves all the disciplines of good money management, but its perspective builds satisfaction, peace and happiness rather than the sense that you can’t wait for this crisis to be over so you can get back to normal. This way of looking at life works all the time. It defuses any sense that you are in crisis, because it starts with the recognition that God’s providence is always adequate, it builds on gratefulness, and it asks completely different questions about the use of God’s provision for our needs.

 If you are pinching pennies or trying to fit your budget, you start with the question, where can I cut back? If you are living in gratefulness for God’s provision, you start with the question, how can I use what God has provided in ways that show him how grateful I am?

 For example, you may have children whose allowances must be reduced after one parent loses a job. If you tell your children, “Well, you just have to get used to it,” you can be sure they are going to their rooms to implode over that whole idea. They don’t want to get used to it, and they may never actually do that. As long as this is the way money is handled, it is sure to create problems. If you start with the attitude that in God’s providence, the current family income is sure to be enough for everyone, then you can ask everyone, “what can we do to show God how thankful we are for what he has provided us?”

 My children are grown and gone, and I don’t have to deal with that problem these days. I do, however, have to deal with the fact that grocery prices are increasing while my income is not. I have to ask myself what I can actually buy with the money I have. If I think that I must “make do” with less desirable cuts of meat or only eat asparagus on special occasions, those thoughts make me unhappy. They make me ask, “when does this end?” However, if I start by thanking God that I have an income, and if I then recall that he has never failed me in all my life, then I can ask for the wisdom to use what he has provided. I can give thanks even before I buy anything for the flavor, color, aroma, texture and delight I will enjoy at every meal. When there are only a few peas left after dinner, I might be tempted to discard them rather than store them away, but if I ask myself, what can I do that shows God I am grateful for these peas, then I am likely to store them and use them the next day in soup.

 I won’t try to tell you a lot of tips and tricks for showing your gratitude. That whole idea sort of flies in the face of the concept. After all, everything I do is an expression of the life I live, not your life. One of God’s most wonderful gifts is our freedom to be ourselves, with our unique dreams, visions, and talents. For me to say that you should always save your peas for soup as an act of grateful living, turns that act into checklist morality. It becomes compliance with a guideline or a rule rather than the outgrowth of relationship.

 Which is the real point. Relationship. We live in relationship with God, and when we build that relationship by getting to know him better and by becoming more and more aware of his constant blessings and gifts to us, then our attitudes toward things will change. That is when we will see his unique gifts to us, be it money or the ability to draw or curly hair, as part of our heritage of blessing. That is when we will grow to know and love God so deeply that when we use something he has given us – money, food, songs, etc. – we will do it in gratitude and honor toward him. Then we will forget all about being deprived and cutting back and doing without.

 If we live with this attitude at all times, then “good” times or “bad” times become alike to us. All times are times to recognize God’s gifts and give thanks to him. No time is the right time to complain that he has failed us. Every day is the “day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.” [Psalm 118:24]

A lot of people have called Jesus a revolutionary, and they usually say it in support of their own political and social agendas. Socialism as a form of government and the forcible redistribution of wealth and property by legal and police power is viewed by some as the natural outgrowth of revolutionary ideas of Jesus. In fact, violent and abusive language and forcible, oppressive political action are even now in the USA being attributed to a commitment to Jesus’ revolutionary teachings. That conclusion does not make sense to me.

Jesus lived and worked in a country oppressed by the Roman Empire. Roman government was, for Romans, representative, but for conquered territories, the experience of government was the experience of very real oppression. Roman government may have been enlightened in comparison with Assyrian government, but it doesn’t look very appealing to the eyes of a citizen of the USA. The government was corrupt at every level, and nobody at any level had much interest in addressing that problem. As long as the emperor got what he wanted, he did not care what happened at the lower levels, and the same could be said of most of the officeholders at any level.

In Galilee and Judea, tax collectors and soldiers were the most visible symbols of Roman power. Tax collectors had an obligation to produce a certain amount of revenue for Rome from the people in their assigned regions, but Rome paid the tax collectors very poorly, expecting that they had the means and opportunity to take care of themselves. The reputation of tax collectors was that they collected far above the requirements and became rich by stealing from the people. Soldiers had the right to demand service from private citizens. Since soldiers were physically strong, well armed and backed by other soldiers, people could not very well refuse the orders of a soldier, even if he demanded some unauthorized service, or even if the soldier quite literally robbed them.

If Jesus had been the kind of revolutionary who wanted to cut the rich down to size by force and take their wealth and give it to the poor, he would have behaved very differently than the record shows. He certainly taught that people who had wealth and property should share it with those who had need, but he did not appoint any human being to tell people with wealth how much of their wealth they could not keep or to whom they should give it. In fact, Jesus missed a great opportunity to have named a council of wealth redistribution when he called his disciples. Jesus could have started a tax rebellion when the priests asked if he thought they should pay taxes. He missed any number of opportunities to rebuke Rome and stir the people into rebellion. If Jesus had been a political and social revolutionary, or if he had considered himself a community organizer, he would have behaved very differently. It is likely that such behavior would have led to crucifixion, but the conversation with Pilate would have proceeded along different lines.

Jesus was a revolutionary, but his revolution was in the claim that everyone was responsible to God for his or her moral choices. He taught people to live by a standard higher than mere legal compliance, growing out of obedience to God’s law, not enforcement by humans. “Judge not, …” because he knew better than anyone what was inside us. He knew that if he appointed his followers to be judges of the rest of the people, arrogance and scorn would quickly supplant love and service as the priorities of his followers. Arrogance and scorn do not grow out of love, and seizing one person’s wealth to give it to another is not an act of service. Jesus wanted people to love and serve each other, but he focused his attention on individual transformation and individual responsibility. He expected that when individuals changed their attitudes, government and society would also change.

Furthermore, Jesus taught people not to use possessions as a measure of self-worth. If we think we only have value in terms of our possessions, we quickly lose our self-respect. We easily believe that God doesn’t love us due to the fact that he did not give us much possessions. The teaching that our worth is not based on our possessions would seem to fly in the face of a call to take possessions by force from those who have them and hand them out according to a legal guideline to those who have none. Jesus never suggested either that the people should rise up and overthrow the Roman government or that the Roman government ought to hand out benefits to the people.

Contrary to the mantra we hear from those who want to appropriate Jesus for socialist purposes, Jesus would be the last person to suggest that people give more of their money to government as a way of redistributing wealth. He could see what government employees did with that kind of power. They redistributed wealth, all right, from those who had it into their own coffers. They did it in Rome. They did it in the USSR. They do it today in the USA. Government revenues only enrich government. Jesus would not have been surprised by the complete failure of government programs such as the War on Poverty. That program has spent millions, even billions, ostensibly to eradicate poverty in the USA. If poverty could be eradicated by collecting more taxes, there would be no poverty in the USA today. Yet anyone with half a brain can see that there is still a lot of poverty in this country, and the most impoverished of all are those who have received the lion’s share of the money doled out by the government. Jesus knew and taught that human beings love money more than God and more than other people, which explains why the government keeps so much of those massive revenues to pay for buildings, for agencies to administer the money, and most of all for benefits for government employees and elected officials. And it behaves this way while humiliating and oppressing the poor who need help, giving them as little as possible in the name of giving only to those who “deserve” help. Jesus would never have expected anything else.

Jesus taught that people ought not to be selfish. He did not teach this idea as a moral standard, however. He taught it as the outgrowth of a real change of heart. Everything Jesus said that might be classified as an ethical teaching is rooted in his answer to the question about the most important law:

A lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’  Matthew 22:25-39

Jesus said that our highest obligation as human beings is to love God. After that we are to love our neighbor. Jesus was completely devoted to the mission of removing Self from the throne of human hearts. He was never engaged in political action. He was not engaged in social action. He was not even engaged in religious action. Jesus came for the purpose of transforming human hearts. That is why he lived, and that is why he died, and that is why he rose again.

Jesus certainly wanted honest government and a society that cared for the sick and the poor. He, however, knew people well enough to know that the power of government attracts people and perverts their values. They may enter government service fully committed to act as God’s servants for the people, but it doesn’t take long for them to be bought off. Jesus faced that kind of temptation after he was baptized:

The devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor; and he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! for it is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.’ ”   Matthew 4:8-10

This temptation was about accomplishing the goal of changing society from the top down. Satan promised to stand back and let Jesus enact his social and political agenda if Jesus would worship Satan. In fact, it was a face to face between God and Satan. Jesus was God. So Satan was saying, “You just worship me, and I will leave the people on earth alone.” Satan was tempting Jesus to build a public façade that looked like his kingdom while being rotten at the core. This temptation is laid before every human being, but especially those who are part of government.

The evidence is all around us. Politics is unabashedly called the art of compromise. Earmarks and special favors for states or other entities are the outgrowth of the compromises our politicians make in order to achieve what they claim as great social progress. Jesus did not need anyone to tell him what was in people’s hearts, because he already knew, and Jesus did not try to enact a government as the outworking of his teachings, because he knew that a government would be an endless compromise – bowing down to Satan in order to pretend to be doing God’s work.

Jesus did not embark on a campaign of social reform by government mandate, a reform from the top down. He started with the foundation, a reform from the bottom up. Instead of leaving a government to administer the kingdom, Jesus started a church. Instead of creating a power structure, Jesus put his work in the hands of powerless people. Weak, helpless, frightened people were told that it was their job to take his message to the whole world. They have been doing that job for more than two thousand years now. Their power to do that work does not come from government; it comes from the Holy Spirit. Their work is successful, not because they have taken from the rich and given the wealth of the rich to people who did not earn it, but rather, because they have shared the message of God’s love and Jesus’ sacrificial and redeeming death and resurrection. The Holy Spirit has transformed many individuals, and the result is nothing less than spectacular. The consequence of this kind of transformation is that many people who have wealth have shared it generously with those who have nothing. Likewise, people with much less have shared also. In fact, people transformed by the Holy Spirit share constantly. They haven’t yet ended poverty on earth, but where they are working against poverty, the people live with dignity and self-confidence, rather than with the bowed head and broken hearts of those who have been devalued by government “welfare.”

This is the revolution Jesus wanted. He was completely about engaging in the battle we all lose when we fight it alone. None of us can dethrone Self when Satan keeps propping Self up. Only the indwelling Holy Spirit can dethrone Self and sit on the throne of the human heart against all the pressure Satan can bring to bear. Jesus came for the purpose of transforming human hearts one by one. He knew that trying to build a kingdom on the weak material of human will to do the right thing would be a complete failure. The only material strong enough to push back evil in the world is a human heart transformed by the work of the Holy Spirit, living in the power of the Holy Spirit.

God created people to be free. He did not create government in the beginning. He resisted the imposition of government when people wanted it, because he knew that government would be oppressive, not liberating, and that government would impoverish, not enrich, the people. He entered into government via people like Zaccheus, who were transformed by the Holy Spirit and whose honorable behavior transformed the way government was administered. This is still the way Jesus works.

The Bible makes it clear that the role of government is to keep violence at bay, not to force social change by legal theft. It is the role of people as individuals and people as private groups to assure that the hungry are fed, the naked are clothed and the sick are healed. These wonderful accomplishments are achieved as acts of loving service, not via government mandate, not as the outgrowth of class warfare against the rich. Jesus was a revolutionary, all right. He fomented a revolution in the hearts of human beings.

When I was a little girl, I vividly remember the annual stewardship drives conducted by the various churches where we were members. These programs began with a presentation of an ambitious budget for the church, and then focused on ways for members to calculate the correct amount to give to support that budget. Children like me often received little “piggy” banks shaped like churches where we could put money away for Sunday morning. I don’t know about the other kids, but I rarely had anything to put in that bank. I received my nickel for the offering every Sunday morning tied up in the corner of a handkerchief, which I proudly stuffed into my red patent leather “going to church” purse. I felt completely disconnected from all the excitement as the pledges were counted, but I really liked the annual banquet where we ate baked ham and green beans and scalloped potatoes. I grew up with the impression that when a church used the word “stewardship” it was code language for “be sure you give at least a tithe to the church.” I attended church training every Sunday evening, and that is where they taught us how to calculate the tithe. It was a lot like the IRS code – monumental, demanding, and impossible to do right. We all felt doomed, and we mostly went around apologizing inside, if not aloud, for failing to give God his tithe. We felt guilty, because even though a tithe was a tenth (there was no dispute about that), we were never quite sure what it was a tenth of. Gross income? Gifts? Change found in the couch cushions? In retrospect, as I recall those training sessions, I am always reminded of the Pharisees. Jesus said that they were so good at tithing that they even tithed the herbs in their gardens. Yet they were so good at religious money management that they found ways to avoid helping their aging parents and they could walk right by an assault victim on the highway because helping him would make them late for worship. Jesus was not impressed by anyone’s ability to calculate a tithe. That little formula is about counting money. Jesus wanted people to live in a relationship with him that required a complete commitment of their lives, not a bag of money that was exactly, not one penny less than and not one penny more than, a tithe. Jesus taught that stewardship is not about money, but rather, about the heart. When a rich man came to him hoping to be praised for his obedience to the law, including the tithe, Jesus ignored all that legal compliance and asked him to forget the money and give God his life. The man could not do it. Jesus told a story about a rich man who gave his stewards different amounts of money to use in his name. When he came back, he didn’t condemn the man with one talent for not making it into ten talents; he condemned him for not realizing that the talent was in his possession, not to hoard, but rather to use in service to the man who owned it. Here is the real meaning of stewardship. Stewardship is our recognition that we own nothing and God owns everything. Every crumb of food we eat, every sunrise we enjoy, every penny we earn, every blanket that keeps us warm in winter – everything is God’s gift to us, and we ought to use it gratefully in his service. We owe God our gratitude for everything, and we need to remember to use everything the way God does. We don’t need to pinch pennies or develop complicated formulas for tithing. We must simply be grateful to God for all that we receive, and put our faith in him. We need to get over the fear that if we give something away, we will be poor. Oh, how I hate the word “ought.” That is the word used freely by people who want to impose an obligation on others. They tell us we “ought” to tithe, and they tell us we “ought” to give over and above. The problem is that tithing and giving and serving and financing the kingdom are not at all things we “ought” to undertake, like it or not. Rather, if there is anything we “ought” to do, we “ought” to pray to grow in our relationship into a maturity that will guide our use of all the blessings, material or otherwise, that we receive from the Lord. Do you remember how it felt the first time you began to grasp what Christ had done for you? Do you remember when that load of guilt that built such a wall between you and God was lifted as if it had never existed at all? Did you not want to shout your thanks and share with everyone this wonderful experience? What shut you down? Our salvation is the greatest blessing any of us ever receives from the Lord, and we give thanks for it privately, but what keeps us from tithing that blessing? Why can’t we share the blessing of salvation with other people? It is the same thing that makes it hard for us to share our money, our food, and our time. We think we need everything we have. We think that when we let go of anything, it is gone, and we do without. We see that we could use even more than we possess. We don’t think of using everything we possess in ways that express our gratitude to God for his provision. This is the secret. When we acknowledge that everything we have belongs to God, then those tough calculations are out the window. We can’t possibly figure out how much we “owe” God if all of it belongs to him. Everything changes when we accept that we are stewards of God’s gifts. If God gives me the use of his great gifts, then all I need to do is figure out what use of those gifts shows God my great gratitude. When I accept that I am the steward of all these gifts, not the owner, then it is a lot easier to pass the gifts I receive to others in need. The tithe in the Bible is a lesson and a model for us as stewards of gifts that do not belong to us. Stewardship is not compliance with some law that requires us to give God a tenth. Stewardship is the act of love that says “thank you” to God by using his provision for our families and sharing those gifts in gratitude for the way God provides for everything. When we live in a servant relationship with the God who loves us, our giving is not like paying off the IRS. It is more like a ticket to fulltime happiness.

Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you.  Luke 6:27]

Do you want to live in ruins?  Recently, while watching a television program, I heard one of the characters say, “He ruined my life.  He should pay.”  She had been raped thirty years before, and it took a long time for the perpetrator to be brought to justice.  The court proceedings did not turn out as she hoped.  The prosecutor was not able to win a conviction.  Outraged by what she considered a miscarriage of justice, she struggled with her need to be avenged because her life had been ruined.

I see this attitude in a lot of situations.  Adults live in ruins because of abuse at the hands of a priest or a parent in their childhood.  Ethnic groups live in ruins because of wrongs done to their ancestors. Siblings live in the ruins of a quarrel long in the past, and they never speak to each other again.

These individuals believe that the effect of a wrong done in the past cannot be erased from their lives until some matching or greater pain is inflicted on the person responsible for the original injury.  They claim that they want justice; what they really want is revenge.   

In the service of their need for payback, not only do these individuals testify to the pain of the injury, but they also commit to the role of victim.  Any suggestion that they might give up the quest for reprisal due to the passage of time or in the interest of building new lives for themselves is received as if it were an insult to the magnitude of their suffering.  They seem to prefer sitting in the ruins of the life that might have been. 

Pray for those who persecute you.  [Matthew 5:44]

Jesus taught us that it is not necessary to live in ruins.  When he said that he came to give life and to give it abundantly, he made that offer to everyone.  Those with trauma and injury in their past were not excluded.  Jesus offered healing and wholeness, joy and fulfillment, cleansing and change to everyone.  What he did not offer was retribution.  Some people take undue comfort in the proverb which says that doing good to an enemy heaps coals of fire on his head, and they legalistically exhibit what they choose to call kindness to those who have wronged them in the deliberate hope of seeing smoke from those coals rising from the heads of their enemies.  However, careful reading of biblical teachings will make it clear that any such coals were more about shame than punishment.  They were not revenge.

Do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves.  [Luke 23:38]

Jesus’ life is a lesson in giving up the right to be a victim.  In his own home town of Nazareth, he was attacked with the intent of throwing him over a cliff; he escaped, and he took no action at all against those who had attacked him.  When he met a vile tax collector, who would have had to steal from honest citizens in order to make a living at his chosen occupation, Jesus invited this man to be one of his twelve closest friends.  When Roman soldiers were nailing Jesus to the cross, He prayed that they might be forgiven and spared the vengeance of the Almighty for the assault on His Son.  Jesus demonstrated that it is not only possible but highly desirable to leave the ruins behind.

Why is this a good thing?  Why should anyone let an enemy escape without punishment?  How do we even do that?  We read in the Bible that God wants justice done on behalf of the weak and the wounded.  How is it justice to forgive and forget? 

The answer lies in what becomes of those who remain victims.  Suppose, for example, that the prostitute Jesus rescued from the Pharisees had devoted the rest of her life to getting a court judgment against the Pharisees for false arrest.  Imagine that Zaccheus, overcome by guilt for his theft and graft, had simply wadded up in a ball and cried remorsefully until he finally died.   What if the widow of Nain had gone on a crusade to destroy the local doctor who had let her son die in the first place?  What sort of life does a person live if he or she is unable to leave the ruins of victimhood?  People who cannot forgive others and cannot forgive themselves live in the ruins of what might have been a life.

Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.  Romans 6:4

How do we escape the ruins?  There is a simple answer that is hard to learn.  When we remember our baptism, we remember that we are marked with the cross of Christ forever.  Christ died on the cross, endured the ruin of our lives for us, and rose victorious over all of that.  The power of this sacrifice is embodied in his words, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”  [Luke 23:34]  Those words mean that our lives need never be in ruins because of our own guilt, and those words set us free to forgive others for all the pain they inflict on us.

God’s forgiveness through Christ is always there for each of us.  A new life, made whole, guilt-free, is right in front of us.  However, when we are busy keeping accounts of the things other people do to harm us, it is very hard for us to allow ourselves to be forgiven by God.  We even project our own attitudes and need for retribution on God.  At the very least, the self-righteous attitude which nourishes our victimhood keeps us from knowing that we need forgiveness.  The Pharisees were completely self-righteous individuals, and Jesus said to them, tongue in cheek, “I have come to call not the righteous, but

sinners. ”   [Matthew 9:13] He was saying that as long as we think we are righteous, we hold ourselves apart from God.  When we are able to see ourselves more clearly as the sinners we are, we hear Jesus’ call to forgive and to be forgiven.

When we experience forgiveness, we learn what it means to be healed and made whole.  We discover that we want to be like the woman at Sychar and the mental patient in the Gadarenes – we want to tell everyone what Jesus has done for us.  We are able to forgive others, because we have moved into a new life, a life where we are no longer living in the shadows, in the tombs, in the ruins of a life.  We don’t feel like victims, and we don’t want to act like victims.  Life feels so new and so full of promise that you might say we are reborn.

So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!  [2 Corinthians 5:17]

If you listen to the nightly news, or the hourly news, or the second-by-second updates on your i-phone, you must conclude that the world is doomed. Humanity is lost unless we return to the Stone Age. The earth will be destroyed unless we can learn how to prevent cows from passing gas. Every citizen is in danger of dying in poverty because of an inability to afford treatment for ingrown toenail or flabby eyelids. The world is in terrible shape.

If you let news reporters, news analysts, and bloggers tell you what to believe, then whatever life you have left will be marked by despair and hopelessness.

There is a different way to live your life. You can turn away from the gloomy outlook projected by the news. The solution is to find another way to view events. You will see the world very differently if you view it through the lens of biblical revelation.

I am not about to embark on a translation of the secret language of the book of Revelation. There are many books that purport to do it, and most of them can easily be debunked by historical facts. Every era produces its own interpreters of this magnificent book, and as soon as the predictions fall apart, the next interpreters publish their new interpretations. If Revelation truly were intended to be a timetable for the end times, then it has already failed us, and the obvious failure of this book to serve its expected purpose ought to be enough to motivate real Christians to remove it from the biblical canon.

In fact, Revelation serves God’s purposes today just as surely as it did at the end of the first century when it was written. In that era, Christians and all other citizens of the Roman Empire were encouraged to turn to government, embodied in the emperor, for all their needs. The writer of Revelation, John, warned people of the dangers of turning away from God to any human or human institution for their personal security. John pointed Christians to the eternal truths of the Bible and encouraged them to testify to their faith as an important weapon against the Evil One whom John saw as the power behind social, economic and political evils as well as spiritual evils in the world. He crafted his message in colorful language with vivid images. Some readers treat the book of Revelation like science fiction, but while the imagery is an artistic creation, it is nonetheless inspired by truths that can be known to anyone who reads the Bible. The book of Revelation might be more properly classified as a summary of biblical truth than as a book of forecasts of future events. In other words, it really is prophecy, the inspired testimony of a man called by God to tell people the truth about the world.

All the prophets did the same work. Isaiah and Daniel, Hosea and John. Each couched his message in images his hearers could understand. A single truth runs through all of the prophecy in the Bible: you must live in relationship with God and his values; any other way of life always disappoints and destroys people.

Taking the book of Revelation by itself, the message is presented in images that increase in intensity and viciousness as God yearns for people to turn to him in worship and praise. Reading it in the light of the many other prophecies in the Bible shows that the message never really changed from the day of Adam to our own day.
The power of the message lies in the fact that every prophecy recognizes that people are easily led to reject life in a loving relationship with God. As God saw in the times of Noah, “Every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually.”[Genesis 6:5] God showed us in the banishment from the Garden of Eden and in the flood of Noah’s day that punishment and destruction do not transform people. God’s prophetic statement to Satan before he ejects Adam and Eve from the Garden sets the tone of prophecy forever. In that moment, God says that Satan will ultimately be defeated by the “seed” of the woman he had deceived. There, at the beginning, God called humanity into a relationship built on faith in God’s promise of Satan’s defeat.

What does this have to do with the nightly news and the book of Revelation?

The whole point of God’s word to Satan in the hearing of Adam and Eve was to let them know that despite appearances, all was not lost. God would redeem the situation in his own way at his own time. They were being dismissed from the perfect residence, the Garden of Eden, but that natural consequence of their rejection of God was not the end. Satan was not winning, and they should not lose hope. Instead, they should continue to worship and serve him and speak their testimony of faith in Satan’s presence.

The image reminds me of Psalm 23. The poet who wrote that Psalm said that God showed his love by preparing a feast and an anointing for the psalmist in plain sight before enemies. The enemies might have plans to destroy the poet, but God had other plans. In Revelation, we see the redeemed people speaking their testimony and their prayers to God in plain sight of their enemies. The astonishing consequence is that the mayhem pauses while the prayers and testimonies of the faithful rise up like incense to the Lord. This image is a vivid and profound statement of the power of faithful lives and faithful testimony.

This is our response to the nightly news. We do not succumb to the temptation to believe that the dire events are the work of humans by themselves, and we do not follow the temptation to believe that humans can or even should try to fix things by themselves. The violence and destruction in our world grow out of a long-running battle between God and Satan. In the eternal reality, the Real Reality, that battle has been over over since the Lamb was slain as a sacrifice for the sins of men. In our own daily reality, the battle continues, but only for the temporary reality, the reality bounded by the dimension of time.. When time ends, so does Satan’s opportunity to do us harm.

When we view daily events through the lens of the Bible, they no longer look like crises. In fact, they look like the same old stuff. It quickly becomes apparent that God has already won and that Satan is beating himself to a pulp for no gain.

My statements do not mean that bad things are not bad. Cancer, government fraud, people killed in earthquakes, and wars are very bad things. The Bible clearly recognizes that these bad things happen. Yet the Bible also clearly shows us that they will eventually cease.

I think it is interesting that the Bible does not suggest that we should engage in dialog with evil in order to argue it into recognition that our ideas are better. The Bible tells us to reject evil categorically and to testify to the grace and power of Christ crucified. This is the eternal victory. The rest is temporary.

It is almost always depressing to listen to the news. A dose of biblical truth at least daily will give us food for testimony and prayer that connect us with Christ crucified, the power that defeats the evil we keep seeing in the news. This is the real truth—God wins. Hallelujah!