Without fear I can acknowledge that the authentic Christian tension is not between life and death, but between life and life.
~Brennan Manning
This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are My friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you. You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in My name, He may give it to you. These things I command you, so that you will love one another. If the world hates you, know that it has hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. If they kept My word, they will also keep yours. But all these things they will do to you on account of My name, because they do not know Him who sent Me. If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have been guilty of sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. Whoever hates Me hates My Father also. If I had not done among them the works that no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin, but now they have seen and hated both Me and My Father. But the word that is written in their Law must be fulfilled: ‘They hated Me without a cause.’
~ Jesus, King of The Universe, in John 15
Oh beloved, it is true. We live in a world that is drenched in evil. And even though evil really is in retreat, it lays some vicious traps for those who would live free of its gripping and bloody claws.
On December 2nd of 2015, one of our brothers found himself in such a trap. Shannon Johnson was sitting in a room with co-workers when evil did its thing. Two desperately deceived and hateful people opened fire on their colleagues and shot 35 people. 14 of those in the room died, Shannon among them.
But evil did not win. It never could have, no matter how hard it tried.
In the terror of the moment, something rose up within Shannon that was more than the mere instinct to survive. For there was no need for survival. He was already alive beyond any measure of the word, and he had already passed through a death more thorough than any other that had ever happened.
Shannon is a believer in Christ.
And so, what rose up within him, was Him. Shannon was about to fall asleep, but he was given one more task to accomplish before entering the rest that Christ has for each of us who believe. Shannon was given the task of comforting and protecting a woman who was (rightly) terrified at the events unfolding in that conference room.
As the shots began, Shannon pulled his 27-year old co-worker, Denise Peraza, first down behind some furniture, and then close to his own body. The physical protection was vital to her survival, but what he did next, may be one of the things that G_d Himself uses to defeat ISIS in particular, and evil in general.
Shannon spoke life and hope and courage and peace to Denise. He said simply, “I got you.” And there was not time for more words, for his time to sleep had come. And now, Shannon’s words have escaped that conference room, and broken out across the planet.
Can we see it? Nothing can stop Love like this. Nothing. These poor, wretched terrorists could have hacked his body to pieces, and burned it to ashes, but they had already lost. G_d was in that room, and He was showing the powerful backdrop of eternity against the squealing and whining of some demon throwing a hateful temper tantrum through his willing terrorist vessels.
So, hopefully the question is obvious. To whom could you say the same thing this week? Surely, most of us will never be in a room choking in the scent of burning ammonia-like gunpowder propellent. Regardless, we are constantly near people who are taking fire in some way. Life is hard, and many people are cruel.
Tonight is your night beloved. Time to figure out who you could be covering with your life, and to whom you too could be speaking life and peace. You and i (this fool of a writer) are already dead, so there is no concern for our own lives.
