A Reflection for Lent: Evil

We stand less than two weeks from Easter and anticipation of the resurrection is growing. However, we mustn't lose sight of the fact that Lent still continues until then. In my own reflections and readings during Lent I have been thinking recently about evil.

Evil is something that we often attach to others. Hitler was evil. Osama was evil. Big government is evil. Etc. This is so easy and natural for us to do. It is like breathing.

But as I journey through Lent, I am reminded that evil is not found primarily in others. Evil is also not far off. Evil lives in me. As N.T. Wright has said, "[T]he line between good and evil is never simply between 'us' and 'them.' The line between good and evil runs through each of us" (Evil and the Justice of God, 38.) Yes it is true that I have been forgiven and redeemed by Christ. Yes it is true that the Holy Spirit lives within me. But it is also true that until Christ returns, I am marred by sin and evil.

In watching the "Noah" movie this past weekend, one line from a conversation between Noah and his wife stuck in my mind. His wife was attempting to convince Noah that he and their family were basically good people. He responds by saying, "And yet, wouldn't we readily kill others to protect our children?" The fact is, when things are stripped away from us, when we feel our lives threatened, we too easily revert to those basic sinful tendencies--greed, selfishness, pride, lust, violence.

One of the things that saddens and frustrates me is the culture of anger and blame-setting I see on Facebook among other places. We as a culture are so quick to place and accuse others. Don't get me wrong, I think it is good to stand against injustice. But what I see people posting so often is inflammatory, accusatory, prideful, and (quite honestly) impulsive and ignorant. We seem to think that those who shout the loudest will be found in the right.

But what if we learned from this season and took a lesson from the cross? What if we recognized that the problem was not always in the others whom we quickly blame, but is often within ourselves? If we recognized that we don't really have much claim to the moral high ground, maybe our speech and actions would be marked with more humility.

The message of the cross is that sin and evil are real. And, it is not just a reality for "bad" people, it is a reality for ALL people. Jesus had to die for me as well as for "them." Furthermore, I am called to "take up the cross." This is not some nice metaphor for enduring hardships or sickness. It is a call to self-denial. On the cross I choose to crucify my selfish desires. I choose to sacrifice my rights for the sake of others. I choose to admit that I have sin in need of crucifying as well. May we take this message to heart during these final weeks of Lent so that when Easter comes, we can be all the more thankful that the Resurrection can overcome even an evil heart like mine.

To a Magic Foreign Land

"Christ is risen from the dead,
and he's standing on my bed
Come away, come away to a magic foreign land."

This chorus was made up by one of my friends before he was able to figure out the words to Matt Maher's song, "Christ is Risen." The actual words go as follows:

"Christ is risen from the dead,
trampling over death by death
Come awake, come awake,
come and rise up from the grave."

Just a little different from my friend's chorus. However, as I was thinking about it, the revised version seems to echo what many American Christians believe. I don't want to imply that this is necessarily what my friend believes (he was just putting forth nonsense words), but sadly many Christians do believe this way. Instead of realizing the implications of Jesus' resurrection as the first-fruits of out resurrection, many Christians prefer to believe in a gnostic view of the afterlife. They choose to believe that, after death, all that happens is we fly away to heaven and live with God forever. But this is not what the Bible teaches.

The Bible firmly teaches a life after life after death. That's the whole point of the resurrection. We will not exist as disembodied spirits. In the end, when God restores all things, our bodies will be physically raised. This is the hope of Easter--or do we not believe that Jesus was actually raised? As NT Wright puts it in his book, Surprised By Hope, to only hope for a spiritual existence in a world far from earth means that death is victorious. Death still reigns because it has defeated creation and our physical bodies. But the Resurrection of Christ promises that God will redeem His creation. The physical world that He created in the beginning will not be abandoned to death and decay while we rest in some "magic foreign land."

Instead, as Maher's song beautifully points out, the Christ's Resurrection was God's was of trampling over death. Death does not reign, so let us come awake to this fact and live appropriately while we await that glorious day of recreation.