Peter, “put your over-sized knife back into its sheath; for all who take the sword will perish by the sword. Don’t you realize if I ask Abba, he’d immediately deploy more than twelve legions of angels?” (pp Matt.26:52-54)
Trust me, for “I will make peace your governor and well-being your ruler. A Day is coming when zero violence will echo in your land, and all ruin and destruction will cease to exist” (pp Isa.60:17-18)
Lord Jesus, we come to you today with cries of lament and sighs of longing. How long, O Lord, until you return and put an end to all violence—whether it’s in the streets of Minneapolis and Tehran, in the ally fights between political groups, and among those who claim to know you? When will resentment give way to righteousness, and hatefulness get trumped by kindness?
How long before the word “woke” will only remind us of a line in the great, grace-hymn, “And Can It Be”?—“I woke, the dungeon flamed with light; My chains fell off, my heart was free; I rose and followed thee.” When, Jesus, when?
We yearn for the Day when “peace will be our governor” and “well-being our ruler”—when walls won’t be built with bricks of fear and suspicion, but with grace and salvation. Jesus, hasten the Day when there’s no right-wing, left-wing, just Gospel-wings—the eternal Day of your glory and grace covering the earth as the waters cover the sea. Bring. It. On. Usher. It. In. Please, Jesus.
Until that Day, help us live by the sword of your Word, not by blades of sharpened steel—by the way of your cross, not by the ways of mere men—by the riches of grace, not by the rancor of fallen hearts. So Very Amen
