Oy vey!

“… there are 32 countries currently in conflict,” according to Wisevoter, “and the types of conflict vary widely. While the severity and duration of these conflicts differ, they all have significant impacts on the affected populations and can result in a high number of casualties as well as humanitarian crises.

“One of the most common types of conflict currently taking place is terrorist insurgency … Civil wars are also prevalent around the world … Drug wars are another form of conflict that can result in significant violence and unrest … ethnic violence is a form of conflict that arises from tensions between different ethnic groups within a country …”

It’s been this way since man was created. Adam and Eve couldn’t get along with God, nor could they get along with each other and the result was banishment. Cain couldn’t get along with Abel and the result was bloodshed.

The Bible is full of stories of conflict from cover to cover.

Today, hostility and mayhem are so common that our newspapers go by the mantra, “if it bleeds, it leads,” to maximize sales.

Our modern, “enlightened” world finds itself shattered along thousands of fault lines, families are disintegrating, societies/tribes are separated by seemingly impenetrable walls.

It wasn’t much different in Jesus’ day. Yet amid all this apparently insurmountable disorder, a singular Voice is heard, “Peace be to you.”

See how the Apostle John reported in John 20:19-21:

“Now when it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and when the doors were shut where the disciples were together due to fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst, and said to them, “Peace be to you.” And when He had said this, He showed them both His hands and His side. The disciples then rejoiced when they saw the Lord. So, Jesus said to them again, “Peace be to you; just as the Father has sent Me, I also send you.”

In His first post-resurrection appearance to His assembled disciples, the first word spoken by the risen Christ was “peace.”

How, in this broken world, could He say that? He had just been brutally murdered by a coalition of His own people, in league with the most wicked occupying power in history, yet He declared “peace,” not once but twice.

Where was He looking, what was He seeing that the rest of us were missing? 

Not many years after the above scene in the Upper Room, the Jewish convert Paul — in Ephesians 6:12 — gave us a picture of the broader, more intense “war behind the wars” that Jesus was referring to, and which defines our earthy reality to this day:

“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.”

If we could “unzip” the visible realm of our earthly existence and see behind the veil, we would be shocked to see billions of angelic creatures waging war.

The combatants are either on the side of darkness (commanded by the Devil/Satan) or on the side of light, which is the Lord God’s domain.

And what would we see behind that veil since Jesus defeated Satan? As noted in 1 Corinthians 15:54-58:

“But when this perishable puts on the imperishable, and this mortal puts on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written: ‘Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where, O Death, is your victory? Where, O Death, is your sting?’ The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the Law; but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

The real monster, the fire-breathing dragon that had been threatening all humanity, is Death. Death is not our friend, nor is it that “better place” people refer to at funerals.

And only One Person could ring its neck and remove its sting by the blood of His cross. He did all that for us 2,000 years ago — then He declared, “It is finished.”

That’s why He could say victoriously, “Peace be to you.” The war over spiritual death was finally over.

So, Christian, enough with the hand wringing!

This world is passing away. In Revelation 17:14, the writer gives us a picture of how the final battle between darkness and light will eventually conclude: “These (the followers of the evil beast) will wage war against the Lamb, and the Lamb will overcome them because He is Lord of lords and King of kings; and those who are with Him are the called and chosen and faithful.”

How About You?

This is all good news IF you are on the Lamb’s side in this battle. Whose side are you on?