29 Sep SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 2024
Throughout my life, I’ve noticed that a burning desire to watch a certain genre of tv show tends to correspond with deep seated needs of mine. In particular, I always have a need to see things analyzed and figured out, to observe the process of problems being solved, to witness issues resolved, to celebrate people and/or animals getting rescued.
For decades, shows like Phil Donohue, Oprah, Dr. Phil, and Rescue 9-1-1 served this purpose. But lately, I’ve had the burning desire to watch every episode that ever aired of Forensic Files.
Every case is disturbing. Someone goes missing or is found brutally murdered. In many cases the motive amounts to nothing more than disposal of a human body after using another person to satisfy some evil urge. The motives aren’t mere selfishness or greed and the end goals are always no less than inflicting pain defined as torture and death.
That all sounds pretty awful, right? And I can tell you that the effects of those stories told of personal loss really add up. And when combined with the scenarios I’ve seen while serving as chaplain in a level one trauma hospital, the result is this: I’ve been losing sleep. And when I add that to all that’s going on currently in the world around us, only one conclusion may be drawn: It seems as though evil is gaining an ever increasing large foothold upon this planet called Earth.
Civilians by the tens of thousands are dead as a result of relentless fighting between groups of citizens, between citizens belonging to the very same country as in Sudan, and between citizens of neighboring countries like Ukraine and Russia, Israel and Palestine. Believe it or not, the effects of all types of violence are under-reported. Even if you watch the news everyday, you’ll only hear about a fraction of what misery actually occurs.
Let’s listen again to what John wrote, “Woe to the earth and the sea, for the devil has come down to you with great wrath, because he knows that his time is short! [with an exclamation point]” That’s why I thought being reminded today of angel forces at work, an army of spiritual beings actively countering evil might prove timely and useful.
In the Book of Daniel, we are assured of many things. For one, the very day that we set our minds to gain understanding and to humble ourselves before God, our words are heard and an angel is dispatched to come to our aid. We are considered among God’s greatly beloved. My prayer for our country at this moment is that both political parties and every citizen in America would set their minds to gain understanding and humble themselves before God.
What else can we know? We can know that angels are real beings who come to where we are, are able to physically touch and rouse us, get our attention, speak words and help us out specifically with regard to our present needs. They’re able to direct our actions.
They reassure us of being literally sent to us, for our sake. As you know, I experienced the presence of an angel when a drunk driver was about to T-bone the driver’s side door of my car. The driver and I were squared up shoulder to shoulder, looking at each other’s eyes, other face to face. In my mind, I said, “This must be it, how my life will end.”
But instead of feeling the impact just then or being hit directly, the next thing I experienced was finding the front end of my Honda CRV blown completely off from the dashboard forward. What was left of my car was spun round facing traffic in the opposite direction; no airbags were deployed and I was completely unharmed. The only way I can account for what happened in a split second of time, in less time than the blink of an eye, was to think that someone with supernatural divine strength and power had intervened.
The same kind of supernatural divine strength and power helped a young boy pull his unconscious, older, larger thirteen-year-old friend from a pond and carry him a quarter-mile to a house where he knocked on the front door seeking adult assistance. The woman who answered his frantic cries stated that she did not see how the young boy had managed to carry his friend.
Police officers were amazed that a youngster had the presence of mind to remove duct tape from his own mouth and limbs and immediately tend to his friend who’d been hit over the head with a baseball bat and held under water to drown. Perhaps the young boy was reminded, like Daniel, by an angel that God had a vision for their lives, a plan for the days ahead.
As the psalmist writes, “Bless the LORD, O my soul. Forget not all God’s benefits: forgiveness of sin, healing of disease, redemption of our lives from the grave, being crowned with steadfast love and mercy.” But my question is, what about those who perish at the hands of evil or die otherwise? Whose desires are not satisfied with good things, whose youth is not renewed like an eagle’s?
And yet I know without a doubt that God understands the cost and aftereffects of death completely. From the beginning God understood the consequences of death and how horrible it would be for humankind to live forever while ignorant of the knowledge of good and evil which only God could hold, how imperative it was to conquer death on a cross so that eternal life would be a blessing and not a curse to all of creation. As the psalmist said, “God redeems life from the grave and crowns us with steadfast love and mercy.”
And in the Lord’s Prayer, we say, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” in heaven where mighty angels do God’s bidding and obey the voice of God’s word,” the psalmist says, “where hosts of servants do God’s will. In all places where God rules, bless the LORD, O my soul.”
What do you think upon hearing that God does not rule earth in the same way God rules in heaven and of the idea that between heaven and earth and on earth, evil may thwart God’s power and goodness?
The angel that visits Daniel speaks certainty with regard to there being times of anguish, yet professes that even still, God’s people will be protected and delivered. That those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake to everlasting life, that the wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky. Those who lead many to righteousness, shall shine like the stars forever and ever.”
Not a day has gone by throughout history where the sun failed to shine somewhere upon this earth like brightness in the sky nor has there ever been a night where the moon didn’t glow at least in part or where stars went out and the world was left in total darkness. Perhaps these are our reminders of the long-standing presence of angels above and all around everything and everyone that exists on earth in spite of evil causing woe, in spite of the devil being “down here expressing great wrath because he knows that his time is short.”
War is not new. It broke out even in heaven where Michael and his angels fought against the dragon and his angels who were defeated and were thrown down to earth because there was no longer any place for them in heaven. Gee whiz. Out of a choice between eight planets in our solar system, why did the dragon and his angels have to be thrown down to earth? Why was the ancient serpent who is called the Devil and Satan, who is the deceiver of the whole world given to us?
I believe it is so the dragon/serpent/devil and his flunky angels could experience defeat again and again. I believe it is so that when they accuse us day and night before God that they will be conquered by the blood of the Lamb and the word of the testimony of those who claim salvation by the authority and power of the Messiah by day and by night. I believe that they are here to teach us not to cling to life even in the face of death.
Now that’s a hard lesson to learn and it seems to take each of us decades and then some to learn because it’s human nature to cling to life, especially in the face of death. Sometimes the older we get, the more we cling.
While those who dwell in heaven rejoice because evil has been banished, of those whom Jesus sent out, seventy returned with joy, saying, “Lord, in your name even demons submit to us! [emphasized with another exclamation point].” In Jesus’ name there is authority over evil and evil spirits. And this is not some outrageous claim meant to put Jesus ahead in the polls a few more percentage points. This is plain truth given as sworn testimony. Evil is conquered by the blood of the Lamb and the word of a testimony that does not cling to life.
Jesus reminds his followers, which include the likes of us, not to rejoice in being protected from things that could take a life, like poisonous arachnids or reptiles, cancer, an accident or heart disease, or to rejoice about having power over our enemies as one of the world’s superpowers or when we are lucky enough to remain free and uninjured by war in our homeland. Instead, rejoice that your names are written in heaven and remember that in heaven there is no place for evil. Let us pray.
Lord, set our minds to gain understanding. We humble ourselves before you and wish for our words to be heard. Dispatch angels to the aid of everyone who suffers so that they know they’re considered God’s greatly beloved and are not cursed nor afflicted by your enemy.
Help us to claim authority in your name over things that threaten what is good in life and even life itself. We acknowledge that only through your righteousness was victory won and only by an army of angels will mercy and steadfast love prevail. In your holy name we pray, Amen.