In 1963, Bob Dylan wrote these words:
‘Come you masters of war
You that build the big guns
You that build the death planes
You that build all the bombs
You that hide behind walls
You that hide behind desks
I just want you to know
I can see through your masks’
The words seem just as relevant today.
Lectio365 today quotes economist Adam Tooze: ‘The world is in a state of poly-crisis in which interconnected catastrophes – geopolitical, environmental, economic, medical and military – are increasingly converging to complicate, exacerbate and accentuate one another.’
Peaceful nations prepare for war. Once democratic
countries slide into Fascism. The buzz of the internet speaks hatred, violence
and anger.
And yet….
‘For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given;
wand the government shall be xupon4 his shoulder,
and his name shall be called
Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.’ (Isaiah 9:6)
God is still God. He will bring justice. Peace is His.
For those reading these words without a Christian faith, I encourage you to read Mark’s gospel (the shortest and easiest of the gospels to read). In it you will find the life you seek.
For those reading these words with a Christian faith, you know the truth.
In 1826, the preacher Edward Griffin spoke that truth and
saw the future:
‘Countless millions are shortly to awake from the sleep
and darkness of a hundred ages to hail the day that will never go down. I see
the darkness rolling in upon itself and passing away from a thousand lands. I
see a cloudless day following and laying itself over all the earth. I see the
nations coming up from the neighbourhood of the brutes to the dignity of the
sons of God – from the stye in which they had wallowed, to the purity of the
divine image. I see the meekness of the gospel assuaging their ferocious
passions, melting down a million contending units into one, silencing the
clangour of arms, and swelling into life a thousand budding charities which had
died under the long winter. I hear the voice of their joy. It swells from the
valleys and echoes from the hills. I already hear on the Eastern breeze the
sons of new-born nations. Come that blessed day. Let my eyes once behold the
sight, and then give this worthless body to the worms!’
