The Great War

Time to revisit our greatest spiritual story

The War - Marc Chagall, 1943

Spring is coming here…. or we pretend it is. Spring in the mountains is more like “winter-lite” with major and not unusual snow storms through May. But either way, we’re hopeful! Each season marks a new time, and I note how much Kid has changed since the last year. I see how much more independent and curious he is. This year we are already getting into history, and suddenly we’re watching Roman Empire documentaries on YouTube and hoping (he is) that we have some Roman ancestry (imagine his major disappointment to find that no, in fact we’re almost fully “barbarian” — our family is one of huge and hairy beasts!) He recruited his grandma to make him a set of tin foil Roman Army armor, complete with “horse-hair” decor. It’s pretty cute, but it has me thinking.

Watching him this week has me considering these questions: where does this desire to fight come from? Why do we need to label evil? And how do we truly resist it?

Kid’s so desperately afraid of the dark. Why? He’s never known anything truly harmful. Is this an inherent feeling we all just bury as we age? Do we all just get used to feeling so low-grade anxious, distrustful and paranoid that it begins to feel normal?

And in thinking about these questions it occurs to me that we don’t do a very good job of talking about these foundational questions inside (or outside) the church. It seems to me that more we don’t really think about these big things, the easier it is to slip right off into the mire of meaninglessness — which is precisely what I think most of us see all around — people lost, confused about what the point is and feeling hopeless.

A friend of mine recently asked me for my thoughts on the book of Enoch. I haven’t read it yet, but it’s been popular for the last few years. I did a little research on it. In my short research I found many interesting things.

1. It didn’t sustain enough wide popularity to be included in our current selections of scripture (ironic that swaths of the church reject “tradition” as extra Biblical, but actually it’s “tradition” that gave us the Bible as it is…. I digress.)

2. It has been considered sacred text by many of the Church Fathers and is still read as part of the sacred text in the Ethiopian Orthodox church.¹

3. It describes in some more depth the Great War in Heaven and sheds more light on that weird text in Genesis about Nephalim².

I wonder if the recent and sustained interest in this book is precisely because we have failed to talk about this bigger story, sometimes called by other names, but I usually refer to as “The Great War in Heaven.” It has been our culture’s tendency to flatten spiritual matters. As great great great (great?) grandchildren of the Enlightenment Era, we have often poo-pooed the spiritual as fantastical, superstitious and downright embarrassing. In many strains of the Church these parts of the Bible and faith have been ignored entirely.

Don’t get me wrong, I grateful for many of the ways we’ve moved away from superstition and spiritualism. Yet in the last decade or so these things have reared up again. It seems like every third program on TV is a ghost hunting show. People’s fascination with crystals and vibes and tarot and astrology is essentially their urge to find answers in a world that is so deeply spiritual. Straight logic and materialism has failed us in so many ways. Maybe it’s because we failed to recognize that belief in God is an admission that there are spiritual realities we don’t quite grasp and understand at work in the world. The Holy Spirit is literally called a Ghost!

Maybe in flattening superstition we’ve gone too far in the wrong direction? How could we swing back to somewhere more helpful?

The same friend asked, “Do you think I’m coo-coo crazy for being interested in spiritual warfare?”

No, I don’t.

But spiritual warfare can often feel a little… cheesy(?). Maybe we’re afraid of sounding superstitious, or like we belong in some sci-fi cult if we discuss it too much?

It occurred to me this week that I rarely talk about my belief or understanding of the “War in Heaven” precisely because I harbor some of these same fears. And yet, it’s deeply foundational to my paradigm.

So… let’s talk. (Or rather, you listen, I’ll talk. But please do talk back, it’s my greatest wish that these essays can always be a jumping off place for more and deeper conversation, even if it’s not with me.)

The Bible is a complex story (understatement of the year). It’s told in many and various forms of literature (history, law, poetry, letter etc.), which can make it tricky to keep our heads above water to see the overarching story that it’s really trying to share with us. In fact, we only really see this story if we read it often — sometimes quick, and sometimes slow — as to get both detail and story arc.

Most people are terrified of the Bible. It feels overwhelming and scary and they’re sure (having no actual experience with it) that it’s a manual for how to live. It’s not, though there are portions that do indeed offer wisdom about the way to make a good life.

If we were to look at this larger story arc, based on different portions found throughout, we would see a few things that aren’t often discussed in church.

The story starts in a Garden, but there are events and clues that there has been something else going on long before the Garden. Because who after-all, is this snake? The text never actually says it’s Satan, though it’s often hard to sort out our imagination of this mythical story and the actual presented details. In fact it doesn’t matter who this snake is or isn’t (the writer is brilliant at refusing to answer our questions, and instead point us onward). All that we know from the text is that the snake is working against God and is trying to separate God’s human creatures from Him by poisoning them with doubt and distrust.

In the prophets and Revelation we are given other clues about what was happening before the Garden came into existence. We’re told that there was a War in God’s heavenly court, amongst all the created beings and that Lucifer (light-bearer), the head creature (prime minister?), decided he wanted to be God. He launched a campaign against God - telling the court that God was vindictive, arbitrary, cruel, and bossy. He attempted a coup. It failed. He was removed from the court, along with all the creatures that followed him, a third of the members of the realm. They were cast to Earth, where they roam too and fro, watching, waiting.³

Did you know that Bible is a sci-fi story? It really is very rarely presented in this way. Very seldomly do we discuss this background conflict. Maybe again, because it sounds too fantastical?

And yet people love movies that talk about these ideas: super hero movies, movies about Greek and Norse mythology. Why is that? Because it seems to me that we need more founding stories, and have none.

By the time we get to the Garden of Eden there’s already a lot on the line. The snake may be Satan, or it may simply be an emissary of that other anti-kingdom. It doesn’t especially matter. What does matter is that Adam and Eve are given a choice of which Kingdom they will inhabit. They choose the one that promises freedom, individuality and self-actualizing power. They choose the kingdom that puts us at the pinnacle of control and not God. “Who does that guy think he is, anyway?!”

God comes to walk with them, as is His usge. But they avoid Him, and shrink away from His presence. They are already being swept out by the strong current of distrust and disobedience, already blaming each other and ultimately God Himself for offering them this choice. “How DARE you!” They scream at everybody except themselves.

They get their wish, they get to be part of the anti-Kingdom. It’s dark. And we get to be in charge with all the “power,” “freedom,” and, “individual reign” you can shake a stick at. It’s just as awful as God promised it would be.

We’re all invited into this same story, into this same choice. Will we choose to reign over our own hearts and lives? Or will we allow God to guide us? Do we believe God to be trustworthy? We show it with our lives, and with all our choices.

And even when we feel we’ve made good choices, and done what is right and correct, bad things still happen. People betray us, sickness and death still wait on the periphery of every moment, and difficulty and struggle are the reality of this life.

Into this mess, comes Christ — Himself, God — just as He promised in that awful conversation in the Garden.

When we follow along the dusty roads of Israel, listening to His trusted companions relate their time with Him, what do we find? A leader hell bent on power, prestige, getting His way, always being right? In fact no. He’s dirty, and smells like a man after a whole day outside in the sun. He’s tired and drained. He has no wealth, and very little power in the way we’d normally categorize it. As we watch Him in that other garden, before His greatest challenge, He’s stressed almost to death. We watch Him go without resistance to His sham trial, to the beatings, to the cross.

And hanging there He says, “It is finished.”

What is finished?!

I understand it to mean, “This is everything I can do to demonstrate the kind of God I am. This is how you can know that I am actually worth believing and trusting in. This is how you can be confident that I’m not what any enemy has painted me as. This is how you know just how much I love you, I will let you murder me.”

Ironic that the church is born largely into a World that mocks it precisely for worshiping this kind of God, one that would allow Himself the most shameful of criminal deaths.

The book of Enoch can be a little overwhelming, and even scary (I was getting a little tschy just reading about it). It’s scary to remember that we’re in a war (might be another reason people avoid these foundational conversations). It’s not just a war once upon a time and long ago, it’s a war that continues to rage on all around you and I right this very minute.

Of course it’s scary, we’re in an underground resistance! Did you think it would be easy? Did you think the bad guys wouldn’t try to root us out? We literally risk our lives to be part of God’s Kingdom!

The anti-Kingdom and evil has just one weapon — death. That’s the very best it’s come up with. But God is so much life, so much actual true power that death is nothing. Death does not and can not win this war.

We know, because we have seen, that God Himself, like everyone who trusts in Him, will rise again.

So we don’t need to be scared, even as war rages all around.

That famous London poster declared, “Keep Calm & Carry On.” When you feel the panic rising, do not crack. Keep going. The carrying on is the same old boring things we’ve been encouraged to do, to draw close to God, to know Him, to never stop living a life steeped in prayer. In short, to keep trusting the goodness of God. And as we do that, our hearts continue to soften, we continue the difficult work of allowing Him to scrape off the mildew of rebellion that seems to cling inside every unswept corner of our mind and heart.

I believe that no matter what happens, and many terrible things will happen, God will make it right in the end, just the way I’ve already seen Him do over and over and over again already.

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Bits & Bobs

This week I listened to “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.” I can see why it has not become as popular as some of the other books of its era (it needs an editor in many places to slash and slay the typical Victorian wordiness), and also it’s very faith rooted. I was surprised to see reflections about how it was Helen’s faith that sustained her. She chooses in a very difficult life situation to continue trusting God to guide and support her. I watched the 1996 adaptation and it was well done, with a few modern additions. But of course they didn’t relay quite as much of her faith as was in the book. We do need more stories about people doing the right thing, even when it’s incredibly difficult, often shameful and scary. If you like Victorian literature, this is one worth reading!

Speaking of novels from the 1800’s I read this fascinating article about the English language this week

How far back in time can you understand English?

So good! And so interesting to see the letters we retired, the spelling changes that made reading so much easier, and the way Latin rushed in when the Normans took power! It was one of the most interesting things I read this week!

I always think of wonderful things to tell you, but when the time comes to write them, my frazzled mind goes blank. I got a cold this week, so that’s not helping. It’s amazing how fragile mental recall for words is when you’re sick. If today’s essay was a little scattered or left you with more questions, please comment or reply! It certainly is a topic I can continue to flesh out if there is interest.

with love,

sierra

1. Why the Book of Enoch Is Disrupting Modern Christianity

2. “The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of humans and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.” Genesis 6:4

3. I deeply hate to pull Bible verses out of context but here are a few:

“And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels.” – Revelation 12:7

“For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.” – Ephesians 6:12

“We know that we are of God, and the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one.” – 1 John 5:19