(Latin: If you want peace, prepare for war)
We live in a culture that, as Cardinal Francis George said, “permits everything and yet forgives nothing.” And so people despair of being forgiven and feel compelled to deny their guilt.Yet the desire for reconciliation is embedded deep in our broken hearts. We are willing to confess our sins publicly on television or on social media, and in this cacophonous lament, we are longing for absolution. The truth is, we’ve all sinned against ourselves, against each other, against God. God in Christ reveals that his mercy does not abandon us to guilt but calls us like Lazarus to come forth from the grave of our sin, and find in his forgiveness the chance to live again. In the sacrament of Reconciliation, God’s merciful plan gives us a living encounter with his presence, which is forgiveness and mercy. Through the ministry of the Church, we hear the very voice of Christ declaring, “Go in peace; your sins are forgiven.”
~ Bishop Robert Barron
Who is this who comes from Edom, in crimsoned garments from Bozrah, He who is splendid in His apparel, marching in the greatness of His strength? “It is I, speaking in righteousness, Mighty to Save.” Why is your apparel red, and your garments like his who treads in the winepress? “I have trodden the winepress alone, and from the peoples no one was with Me; I trod them in My anger and trampled them in My wrath; their lifeblood spattered on My garments, and stained all My apparel. For the day of vengeance was in My heart, and My Year of Redemption had come. … I looked, but there was no one to help; I was appalled, but there was no one to uphold; so My own arm brought Me salvation, and My wrath upheld me. I trampled down the peoples in My anger; I made them drunk in My wrath, and I poured out their lifeblood on the earth.” … I will recount the Steadfast Love (היסס) of the LORD, the praises of the LORD, according to all that the LORD has granted us, and the great goodness to the house of Israel that He has granted them according to His compassion, according to the abundance of His Steadfast Love (היסס). For He said, “Surely they are My people, children who will not deal falsely.” And He became their Savior. In all their affliction He was afflicted, and the Angel of His Presence saved them; in His love and in His pity He redeemed them; He lifted them up and carried them all the days of old.
~ from Isaiah 63
Oh beloved, it is true.
We are born into a world from which we will most surely escape. But the entire gauntlet of our run from our mother’s womb, to the exit door, is fraught with terrible risk. It is a rolling battle accompanied by the fog of war, with a few quintillion more variables added in.
And most of us get crushed way too early.
However, the crushing is not like the crushing mentioned in the passage above (hang on, we will get to that). No, the crushing is the panoply of self-inflicted wounds we endure as we try to keep peace with the world we temporarily inhabit.
Any of us who have lived more than 20-30 years fully understand something. This world is NOT where humans are meant to be. Oh yes, the platform of Creation is beautiful – and useful – beyond words. But somehow, there are fatal glitches in the layers abstracted from the hardware. Our interface with creation, and its Creator are blocked. Modern warfare is a shadowy picture of this: there is this vicious integration of technology and destruction.
Our thinking is clouded by a vast number of inputs that drive us to choose confusion, and pain, and bitterness, over a simple direct connection to the original architecture and its Architect. We try to figure out how to get settled in, like the journey we are on is our destination.
So, as our confusion builds, we develop (or listen to) little schemes to try and buy us a moment of relaxation, or a deadening of the pain, or some partial explanation of our journey. But, in taking this buggy code onboard, we create even more confusion. The negative feedback loops eventually overheats, or over-volts, our circuitry, and makes us even less able to make progress to the exits, as an infantryman says, “on his feet.”
We do, quite simply blind and wound ourselves so badly, that we cannot get to the exit. We are overcome by smoke. We are dazed by our confusion. We are fooled by our bitterness, until we are running around in crazy little circles, and now even raging about how useless the entire system is, and just how far away is the supposed Architect.
There seems to be no way out. And we know that there will be no peace until find a way out. We are stuck.
Can we see it?
We missed the signals. Our intelligence briefings were right in front of us. But this entire war was so complicated that we quickly lost sight of the fact that we were not made to be home in our journey. We were made to fight through, until we arrived Home.
We were not meant for
…temporal pleasure, but everlasting Joy.
…outbursts of anger, but eternal wrath against darkness.
…short-term recognition and likes, but the honor and glory of a Kingdom which has no end.
…a pocket full of a few coins, but riches that go beyond power and into true worth.
Thankfully (this is where the real crushing mentioned in the passage comes in), There is One Who is the Author and Finisher of our lives. He is the One Who sparked us to life in the joining of seed and egg. He is the One Who has made our impossible journey, possible. He is the One Mighty to Save, Who will usher us through the exit door of this place.
He already knows that the only way to get to The Final Peace of The Kingdom of Heaven is to fight and smash everything around us – and in us – that keeps us from getting there. The only way through, is through a series of deaths for us (a series made possible by His Own death) – deaths along all layers from hardware to ideation – to reset the bugs in our system, and reconcile each layer to the central truths that keep them all aligned: Righteousness, Joy, and Peace, in a powerful package of the eternal Love of G_d.
However, once these deaths are wrought, the strangest thing happens. The buggy code has been removed, and replaced with hardwired, eternal circuits. The battle rages on around us, but we have a clear view to the exit, for now we can see it through the Warrior-Architect’s Own eyes. We are on The Way Home.
So, are you trying to make it through the fog of this complex battle? Are you trying (or allowing) the viruses and bugs of sin to replace the original plan for battle? Don’t try to keep the peace with this stuff. Prepare for war. Ready yourself for death to yourself. It is only then, that you (and this fool of a writer), will find True Peace.
Tonight is your night, beloved. Time to prepare for the fight of your life.
If man had his way, the plan of redemption would be an endless and bloody conflict. In reality, salvation was bought not by Jesus’ fist, but by His nail-pierced hands; not by muscle but by love; not by vengeance but by forgiveness; not by force but by sacrifice. Jesus Christ our Lord surrendered in order that He might win; He destroyed His enemies by dying for them and conquered death by allowing death to conquer Him.
~A.W. Tozer,
