In the personal experiences of real life that evoke fear and injustice, suffering and hopelessness, how explain it on a mass scale despite educated efforts to unmask truth? Why does evil still persist?
Is it merely education? A matter of desire? From whence does evil come, despite best attempts to do good, to love the neighbor next door and all neighbors in the world?
Until science reveals a rationalistic and materialistic explanation that reverberates with reality, religion will continue to expand its presence with observations and lessons on why. But religion and science have both been a source of evil.
Is God the mere personification of what is the ideal good across all humanity of all time? Is evil personified by Satan? We may doubt the existence of a being named "the adversary" but we do not doubt the pain and agony of evil as it wrecks our world and homes and hearts.
So how do we begin to grasp the magnitude and depth of evil that persists, generation by generation, a ill-fated metamorphism, from the crawling barbarianism of swords and spears to the winged terrorism of jets and drones which pollinate the flowers of the earth with scorching devastation? We look within, and despair. We collaborate for a solution and become enmeshed in a net of violence guised as justice and peace-keeping. We name the evil that pervades and perpetuates throughout the whole world as the scheming of a being adversarial to all that is good and true, to love and all that is beautiful.
The ancients used many names, we still use the devil, the evil one, the Satan, the accuser and tempter and liar, trickster and deceiver. We may doubt his existence, but not the evil we feel and see and do and suffer. What to do about the evil we see and feel and do?
We must name it, bear responsibility for our part in it, be humbled and broken by it, and then overcome it with good. But what is good? Who will decide? What is the truth of what is good? Who will we follow? Who will we trust? Will we make it up as we go along? With the pervasiveness of evil, what confidence do we have that our skepticism and curiosity won't be infected by evil, co opted so that our conclusions are just one more variation of deceived, tricked, missing the mark of truth and reality.
This far in humanity, we have an extensive historical list of human atrocities committed against our enemies and the innocent - it is vile and absurd, disgustingly revolting and scarily re-emergent in successive generations. Who will save humanity from itself? Is there anyone on earth who could show us, lead us, help us overcome evil with good?
It is shameful what men have done in the name of Jesus of Nazareth. He who demonstrated a unique response to evil, he who unveiled a radical and yet reality-rooted wisdom about life and love, of what and who is good. While we may wonder why Jesus does and says -or is recorded and remembered as such - and in light of the countless perversions leeching to his Way, it takes faith to trust him, his words, his ways.
Every generation must survive the evil thrust onto it from the prior generations, and Jesus of Nazareth must be rediscovered as a King unlike all others who can subvert evil, heal the wounded, bring together communities of shalom amidst a world at war with itself.
It is glaringly obvious the ways the strong and privileged enforce and expand their wealth and power, exploiting any who are weaker then they. It is evil and the way of the world. And Jesus defies it, seeking to destroy it on his terms: with existential truth proclaimed in word and deed with love that seeks to redeem from evil, establishing a justice that heals rather then perpetuate injustice.
Why does it seem that evil is more powerful then good? Why doesn't Jesus overcome evil with good now? Why put off tomorrow what could be done today? Unless Jesus can't do it today. Unless he has bound himself to time and flesh, he has entered into our world to work within it.
He is seeking to quell a rebellion while desiring to rescue those who rebel against him. There are those in each generation who lay down their arms and surrender, ending their rebellion to King Jesus. For every man and woman who joins Jesus, they become like leaven in the world, like candles of light in a stormy dusk, seeds of hope. Striving against the evil within and the evil out there, they join with Jesus in their counter-rebellion of truth in love, grace with peace, standing firm amidst the whirlwinds of madness and chaos.
Jesus sent twelve men, then seventy two disciples, and then hundreds of men and women into the world to call everyone to repentance and the forgiveness of their stupidity, their brutish or sophisticated arrogance, their insatiable appetites of the flesh and so on. To repent is to wake up, to see the evil within and emanating from and around and infecting you and to rebel against it, to reject evil in all it's forms.
This requires a return of sorts to Jesus, which implies he has always been with you, striving unceasingly to free you from the bondage and lies which enslave you and us. To turn, or return to Jesus begins a new way of humility in light of truth as you come to ascertain it. We learn to live by the light we gave been gifted.
With it begins a new chapter in the stories of our life, of our generation, amongst humanity across the ages. We are glorious characters in a dramatic story unfolding with every sonrise. Evil mars and distorts every one who emerges in the story, poisoning the gloriousness that is written into every life.
Jesus emerges from the story of Israel, a somewhat obscure nation caught up in the rising and raging empires. In his historical and narrative context he lives and leads humanity into a new way of loving in the face of terrifying evil.
Much like you can doubt Satan, you can doubt the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. There is enough historical veracity to support belief, which also leaves room for disbelief. In the story of Jesus his resurrection is a vindication by God that Jesus is who he claimed to be, that his words are right, his way will lead to life.
For all who trust Jesus, like him we seek to make the most of every day in this brief but glorious life. Like him we stand firm together in a world gone mad, sowing seeds far and wide of subversive truth, radical love of enemy, faithfulness amidst tribulation, and a vision of the reconciliation and renewal of all things.
We believe in this story where good overcomes evil, within us and through us. We confess our ongoing temptation to evil, we continually repent and stand firm again in our rebellion against the evil one who seeks to devour and pervert all that is beautiful and good.
The church ought to repent of our complicity in the worst evils of our history. For initiating them. Sustaining them. For doing nothing to end them. For joining them. We repent. And go forth humbled and chastened and deeply aware of the allure and lusts of evil, but we also remember the rot. No more violence, or coercion, or injustice or hate.
We now have a vision and experiences of hope for overcoming evil with good, striving in our generation to bring peace in the way of Jesus. By his Spirit which forges unlikely unity and fuels scandalous hospitality, enabling us to continue what God started in Jesus of Nazareth. Until he himself returns in the same way he left, we stand firm by his Spirit in faithfulness and love, truth and grace.
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