Deliver Us from Evil (3)

Deliver Us from Evil (3)

This is my third reflection on the petition deliver us from evil of the Lord’s Prayer.

At one unique moment in history all the evil this world could unleash coalesced. There, at the cross, Jesus waged war on evil. At the cross Jesus deliberately sacrificed his life. His own deliverance from evil was never the goal. Our deliverance was. God in the flesh allowed evil against himself, gave it a short-lived victory. Because of his victory, we now experience a never-ending rescue operation of our souls, our world, and all that exists. We join our Lord in this work of deliverance by prayer and action.

Evil fought against love but lost. Always will. Now, by prayer, Jesus affords us victory over evil. He gives us three ways to stand against it.

First, Jesus took evil seriously. He did not do what ostriches do at the first hint of danger, bury their head in the sand. Not Jesus. Nor his church, where evil is often given short shrift . It’s as if it doesn’t matter. This laissez-faire attitude betrays Jesus’ sharp eye for evil. The presence of evil mattered to him. A lot! He faced and defeated wickedness so we too could. We mustn’t play ostrich. The fire of evil rages on today as it did at his birth, life and death. Evil thrives when unopposed.

The Apostle Paul tells us to pray without ceasing because evil is relentless… “we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm.” (Ephesians 6.12-13) How does your church pray against evil?

Second, while Jesus saw the horror of evil, he never got fixated on it. Some people wallow in it. Like news reports, they see only bad things happening. I knew a young man who saw demons under every rock. He came to our workplace and victoriously announced: “I just saw a frog on the sidewalk. He wasn’t jumping. I laid hands on him, exorcised the demon and it started jumping again.” Politely, I said nothing. Meeting a devil around every corner was not the way Jesus saw things.

During the times of Jesus groups of people fled Jerusalem for the desert because they saw nothing but evil. They became anti-everything zealots. Not Christ. Not his church!

Third, Jesus put evil in its place. He neither ignored it nor gave it undue attention. His first solution was always the rule of God in the hearts of men. We can defeat evil. Our participation is arduous but effective. Jesus saw to it that the kingdom would be impervious the evil one. He was confident that the church, his instrument to spread heaven’s reign on earth, would extend to and prevail against the edges of lostness. How? By persistent prayer, sacrifice and love. With this assurance Jesus marched forward into the horror that was Gethsemane and Calvary.

Heaven is on the side of Christ and his church. This gives us great assurance that the Lord who defeated evil by prayer, by action and humility fights alongside the church in its march against evil’s gates.

Evil is real. It matters that we know it. Though real, it’s not all there is. We must unlearn our sense of evil’s domination. Evil is present. But we must not drown ourselves in it. We serve a risen Savior who’s in the world fighting with us. And if the Lord is for us, St Paul asked, who can stand against us?