Monday, November 10, 2008

STARK blunt harsh severe grim

Lots of the Old Testament (the first major book division in the Bible) is stark.

Just today I read I Samuel - yes all lof it - with a black pencil in hand.

Black is the color of stark.

So, in the margins as I read, I placed a lot of black circles - colored in. Stark reminders of what I had just read - stuff like killings, and deaths, and wars.

Early on I knew I was "going to be in trouble." I read - "The Lord brings death and makes alive; he brings down to the grave and raises up....He humbles and he exalts....He will guard the feet of His saints, but the wicked will be silenced in darkness." Chapter 2 verses 6-9.

And very soon I was reading about David - a man sought out by the Lord very clearly, a man "after God's own heart." 13:14; 16:1,12,13

David is a warrior even while very young. This is made plain so tellingly in chapter 17 in his epoch battle against a giant (from a family of giants) named Goliath. (You just gotta read the whole chapter.)

What is amazing - and stark - is that David kills Goliath by planting a stone in the giant's head with his sling shot and then with the giant face down on the ground, he cuts Goliath's head off publicly - and then carries it around in his hand, even to the time that he is brought before the King in Jerusalem.

This defines stark.

Actions taken by a "man after God's own heart."

There are 31 chapters in I Samuel.

There are now 29 black circles in the margins of my copy of I Samuel.

David and us have a lot in common.

We all have lived and are living now in what the Bible calls "this present evil age."

"Present evil age?" It is called that for very good reason. Wars are everywhere.

And wars are always very stark...it has always been that way.

War forms an apex of human stuggle of good and evil. It is like a giant complex wrestling match - sometimes with thousands of people "on the mat" all at the same time.

The distressing images of suffering are all over the world now....and they have always been.

And as we consider this today, so many are in far-flung places making a difference - like David of old. Like our son Micah in Afghanistan and his buddies at Kalagush. So, yes, as a Dad, I am thinking this way, a lot more than I have ever before.

So...on the eve of Veterans Day - I salute those who are serving, and those who have served. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Most of us will never know what you are going through hour by hour......but God does.

And as you deal now (or in memory) with the images of suffering and horror - may you find the grace to be strong, the tenderness to cry at the loss, and the resolve to stand against evil until the last battle is fought.

And in the hardest, lonliest terrible places, may you find God in fresh dimensions...

God,
Who knows where you are and what you are about, and Whose Book is marked all over with black circles where those who have gone before have done it just like you are.

God...
Who has already secured a final victory we can all share together, with Christ.

It's already there in the back of The Book
- Christ, The One Who is faithful and true, the King of Kings and Lord of all Lords.
(See Revelation 19)

Christ, riding on the white horse (I think that was the first century's F-16 - :))

Selah...

David

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