Thunder and Lightning
Thunder and Lightning
Dreamt during the night of August 3-4 that I was singing about thunder crashing and lightning flashing, to the accompaniment of a large orchestra.
"For just as the lightning comes from the east, and flashes even to the west, so shall the coming of the Son of Man be. Wherever the corpse is, there the vultures will gather." (Matthew 24.27-28)
"And he (another strong angel) cried out with a loud voice, as when a lion roars, and when he had cried out, the seven peals of thunder uttered their voices...and (he) swore by Him who lives forever and ever...that there shall be delay no longer." (Revelation 10.3 and 6)
The West continues to wage its crusader-war against the ever-burgeoning armies of Islam. Can this "war on terror" ever be "won"?
In the 1300's as the armies of Islam intimidated Europe, Francis of Assisi "invaded" the Saracen battlelines in Syria, armed only with bare feet and a devotion to Jesus Christ that some deemed "fanatical". (He offered to throw himself into a fire to prove to the Muslim captains that his Saviour was the true God.) Francis walked from Italy to Syria believing it was "better to create Christians than to destroy Moslems".
In his classic volume "St Francis of Assisi", G.K. Chesterton writes, "If Islam had been converted (in the 1300's) the world would have been immeasurably more united and happy; for one thing, three quarters of the wars of modern history would never have taken place."
"It was not absurd to suppose that this might be affected, without military force, by missionaries who were also martyrs. The Church had conquered Europe in that way..."
The Kingdom of God will not be brought onto the earth by guns and tanks, nor by hyper-faith and mega-churches. It will be birthed out of the blood of holy martyrs.
"And they overcame him (the devil) because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even to death." (Revelation 12.11)
It is impossible that sub-christian culture, morality and (military?) action will bring the Kingdom of Heaven to earth. At the last, it is the King who will bring His Kingdom. In the meantime, we must at all costs live lives in accordance with genuine Kingdom principles...along the following lines:
"The great obligation of the Christian, especially now, is to prove himself a disciple of Christ by hating no one, that is to say, by condemning no one, rejecting no one. And how true that the impatience that fumes at others and damns them (especially whole classes, races, nations) is a sign of the weakness that is still unliberated, still not tracked by the Blood of Christ, and is still a stranger to the Cross."
(Karl Rahner via Thomas Merton)
