O Christ Jesus, when all is darkness and we feel our weakness and helplessness, give us the sense of Your presence, Your love, and Your strength. Help us to have perfect trust in Your protecting love and strengthening power, so that nothing may frighten or worry us, for, living close to You, we shall see Your hand, Your purpose, Your will through all things.
~ St. Ignatius of Loyola
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be His people, and God Himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” And He who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also He said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” And He said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment. The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be My son. But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”
~ from Revelation 21
Oh beloved, it is true. There is an enormous problem in this world. It is desperately fallen and evil. We are evil. And the things we can and do do to each other cause even the doer to wretch at their own wretchedness.
We hurt and we die.
We grow hungry and we steal.
We binge and we purge.
We want and we take.
We rage and we kill.
We lust and we grab.
We. Are. Evil.
And there seems to be nobody stopping us. We travel on through our lives disgorging our inner putridity on each other. We really, really would just crush babies and steal from old starving people to get what we want. The entire story of history (both the world’s and our own) prove this to be true.
Oh, we are tempted to try and blame somebody else. But the problem is that the moment we look in the mirror, we see the perpetrator looking right back at us. Each of us, combined into the swirling fetid mass, called humanity, have made an utter wreckage of the planet we inhabit. Death and hunger and foulness and want and defeat are the only features that dominate the scene of this place.
But G_d.
In all of this, though, there is something bigger. For, as large as the problem of evil is, it will eventually consume itself. For death can only feed on others, and evil can only consume and destroy material – which are in finite supply.
There is something bigger. But any words of measure do indeed fall short. For the infinite is without boundary or beginning or end. And it is here in this measureless place that we find there is a center.
The Cross.
Though slain before the foundation of the world, The Lamb of G_d, this One who spoke even infinity into existence, focused His great Love on a work that was brought about by the evil within us all. The crushing darkness of humanity, and the astoundingly pure and righteous holiness of the Father conspired and converged upon the only Only who could have even imagined going through the darkest moment in the Life of G_d.
The Cross.
And though evil is enormous. The One under its weight did bear it. And He bore it perfectly well (He is like that you know). And after having borne the wrath of both creation and Creator, this same Jesus screamed a Word that put the universe back into harmony with the One who wrote its music.
It Is Finished.
The great I AM – Who Is and Who Was and Who Is To Come – made a point that we do well to remember. Evil is real. And it took the very blood of G_d to cover its foul stench, but covered it is. All sin has been paid for. All of it. Forever.
So when we see the evil in this world, it is not that it unstoppable by a less-than-infinite god. Nor is it something he could have stopped, but did not. Evil now is put in its context. It is limited. It is beaten. It is running out of time. And its use now is to always bring about a greater good in a universe that declares the glory of G_d.
Can we see it? Evil is not our problem. Even our own evil. For it is beaten. A Good G_d has declared it so. So, when we do indeed fight against the raging machine of this world (and the self that rages within us), we need not focus on the evil and problems before us. No, rather, let us let go of strategies for defeating an already-defeated enemy – and let us look to the Infinite One for the power to overcome the world (and our sin) that is in retreat before Him.
And yes beloved, this is difficult to see. Regardless, history, and even our own experience (if we are honest) show us that the bad things that happen are for good for those who are looking to Him. Yes, some will refuse to see this, and G_d will allow them to maintain their own prideful derision of Eternal Purpose in their using snapshots of time to prove something infinite to be wrong. But wrong they will be. And we know it.
The Cross is infinite.
