Build a Bigger Better Bomb

Last week I finally sat down and watched the 1930 film rendition of Erich Maria Remarque's anti-war story, All Quiet on the Western Front. Some of you might be wondering what took me so long.  All I can say is my life's riddled with imperfections, one of which is the tendency to overlook diamonds lying out in the open in the tall grass of life.  Remarque's grim tale certainly falls in the category of a rare gem.

It had been said that WWI was the war to end all wars; AQOTWF should've been the story to end all wars.  Sadly, both prognostications have long since been obliterated by an unrelenting barrage of ordinance of incalculable quantity.  Since the days of WWI, when millions of faces of pawns had been sent up against dispassionate walls of machine gun lead to no purpose other than pride of might and nationalism, the slaughter has continued unabated.  Only, today we are more sterile in our execution; we launch missiles from aircraft deployed hundreds of miles away from a target.  We watch the unsuspecting target via satellite as the rocket surgically incinerates human beings--nameless faces of both the guilty and the innocent.  And we congratulate ourselves because, as one person explained to me, "If we don't destroy our enemy, our enemy will destroy us."

Really?

In this week's issue of the American Chemical Society news magazine, C&E News, I read about the extensive research being conducted to build the bigger better bomb--that is, chemists are working to improve upon the ever faithful explosive RDX by synthesizing a new explosive of equal or more explosive power, less sensitivity, and--get this--less toxicity to the environment.  I can only comment as the physician did at the end of Bridge on the River Kwai while witnessing senseless and futile carnage unfolding around him: "Madness. Madness."

It may be the old Prussian idea of soldiering as essential to completing a man has largely died out; but clearly other drivers such as nationalism, prejudice, and fear live on.  Don't be fooled, though; as misdirected as these motivations are, governments have institutionalized them in order to more easily goad the taxpaying public into war.  People willingly leap in front of bullets for some vague sense of justice contrived by their leaders, who we have to suspect are actually in it for self-interest and power.

Did I mention power?

Power belongs only to our creator God to wield and allocate, because only God is Good.  And the only path to the justice and peace we all claim to want will be through the proper dispensing of this power according to God's kingdom principles of love in holiness.  Only through the consistent extension of mercy in the face of opposition will we ever hope to see the end of war.

Some have suggested I want a free ride on the backs of those willing to risk their lives for my home and country by going off to war.  But war has never bettered the world, and it never will.  War cannot solve the problems of human society because it contradicts what is truly human.

Of course, war is here to stay until Jesus returns to fully establish His kingdom; so I know all too well Christians must be a part of this ongoing tragedy.  But we must do this by giving to Caesar what is Caesar's, and giving to God what is God's.  Walking with Jesus in His kingdom juxtaposed with the kingdom of this fallen world is a both/and proposition, not an either/or proposition. Thus, Christians must not sit in the bleachers; instead, they must willingly sacrifice themselves by first working in their local spheres of influence to relieve the poverty, injustice, prejudice, and fear fueling human conflicts;  Christians accomplish this without trying to make the people they minister be something the people are not--that's God's job to do--but by encouraging them towards the eternally satisfying condition they can find only in God's kingdom.

And, yes, Christians, must enter the battlefields--no free rides; not to kill, but to pick of the pieces, mend the wounds, and grieve with the mourners.  The actor who portrayed the main protagonist, Paul, in AQOTWF became a pacifist during WWII, to the detriment of his career.  Yet he bravely risked his life countless times as a medic during the many raging battles.  I don't know if he did this for Christ's sake, but his actions illustrate the both/and concept I'm advocating here.

Understand, I am not judging my fellow Christians who have taken up arms for their country; that is not my intent, nor do I even have any right to pass such judgment. C.S. Lewis, the premier Christian thinker of the twentieth century, fully embraced war.  He spoke glibly of how two Christians on opposite sides could kill each other one minute, and be laughing together in heaven the next.  It might be convincingly argued, as well, that the only way to stop a Hitler is to kill him.  Certainly, Chamberlain's brand of pacifism--peace in our times--wasn't up to the task.  But are we really confident that a third non-violent approach wouldn't have worked to bring down the Nazis?  We'll never know.

In any event, so-called just wars such as WWII are rare exceptions in the long course of bloody human history.  In one sense it doesn't matter.  Should the day ever come, I will without hesitation use any lethal source at my disposal to protect my family, friends, and neighbors against a clear and present danger.  But only because I lack the faith to defend them the right way.

If we profess Jesus as Lord, then our Master demands us to address injustice in this world through means contrary to this world's methods.  We are to love our enemy, pray for those who persecute us, and never repay evil with evil, but repay evil with good.  All of which requires us to be living sacrifices through the renewing of our minds.  And whether we live or die in the process, we live; because our King, Lord, Master, Jesus overcame death on the cross.

The Presence

As with most young people growing up in Colorado, my friends and I enjoyed camping and hiking in the mountains.  I've since moved away to the flatlands; so should the opportunity present itself, I now prefer to experience the mountain scenery through large windows of a lodge, with a glass of wine in hand before a fire crackling in a cavernous fireplace under the watchful eyes of a moose head.  My friends who have remained in Colorado tell me they still love to get up close and personal with the Rocky mountains, and it shows in their thin and lithe physiques.

But back in the day (there's that dreaded phrase again), we enjoyed the mountains.  And so it was, my friend and I decided to hike up Pikes Peak on one of the trails carved out for that purpose.  I don't remember if our intent had been to climb to the top; it may had been; in any event, we ended up camping about half way up before meandering our way back to civilization.

It was just after dawn on a Sunday morning when the mountain disgorged us into the back of Manitou Springs.  I recollect the sky being overcast and the site quite deserted.  The air was still like the Sargasso Sea.  I seem to recall a pumping station for the western slope water shed, but I could be mistaken.  If so, the pumps would have made the only sound we had heard--like when the time traveler first entered the lair of the morlocks in H. G. Wells' The Time Machine.

And then I felt it.

My friend did, too, and at the same instant; his eyes told the story.  An invisible cloud of gloom diffused around us like Indian ink does in a pool of clear water.  A distinct disquiet enveloped us, displacing the fresh air with an oppression that weighed on us.

"You feel it, too," my friend whispered.

I would like to be scientific about the whole experience, but I cannot; an unmistakable Presence closed in around us that morning.  And its evil was palpable.

My friend and I were Christians, so we wasted no time analyzing or entertaining the Presence.  Indeed, after terse conversation, we bowed our heads and openly but unceremoniously prayed against it.  And as quickly as it had infected the atmosphere, it dissipated, leaving behind the cool, fresh, and thin air so welcome on Colorado mornings.

It must be noted that neither my friend nor I were prone to dwelling on matters of the occult or witchcraft; we certainly hadn't been discussing such topics during our excursion that weekend.  The Presence had appeared totally unexpectedly; we had arrived at the spot without any thoughts or suspicions of even the possibility of such a manifest evil rearing its ugly head.  You must believe me, boogie men were definitely not on our radars.  Nor had we been unnerved by the solitude of the place; my friend and I tended to be introverts in those days, so we welcomed the absence of people; we had been quite content to come off the mountain into the deserted back-streets of Manitou Springs.  No, the Presence we encountered that Sunday morning was real and malevolent.

You might be asking yourself about now why some nebulous evil should happen to pop up on a Sunday morning at such an obscure place as the foot of Pikes Peak.  Well, in the great tradition of the late Paul Harvey, here's the rest of the story.

Months later, in the commons at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, I struck up a conversation with a fellow student who had recently become a Christian.  He told me he had  come out of the occult.  He went on to explain he had been a prominent warlock at one of the local witch covens.

"Witch covens?  We have those around here, for real?" I asked.

"Quite a few," he answered.

"I don't believe it," I said.

"Believe it."  He looked at me with that kind of expression of cold certainty indifferent to how I might react.  "Point of fact," he continued, "except for perhaps San Francisco, Manitou Springs is home to the largest concentration of covens in the country."

Okay, so what's my point?

The next time you turn on the news, open a newspaper, or just walk out the front door into our mad, mad, mad world, tell yourself the chaos is not solely the handiwork of evil human beings, but also that of the Presence, who exploits men and women for the Presence's own evil purposes.  And even though the Presence had been defeated two thousand years ago by Jesus on the cross, it still menaces and influences our tormented world.  The Presence draws its strength from its deceptions; for Jesus described Satan, the despot of the Presence, this way: "...Whenever he lies, he speaks according to his own nature, because he is a liar and the father of lies." [NET]

Therefore, my point is this.  Our hope and security are not in our politics, politicians, philosophies, science, wealth, and the rest because they all are ready pawns in the hands of the Presence.  Rather, our hope and security are in Jesus, and Jesus, alone.  For Jesus is King; the Presence knows this and shudders.  And Jesus' kingdom cannot be shaken;  indeed, Jesus' kingdom will one day be all and in all;  and Jesus' kingdom lasts forever.

Why's it so Tough to Trust God?

At the risk of being a broken record, I want to again say we need to trust God for everything.  I suspect you are the same as I am in thinking this is easier said than done.  You may have also noticed how I endeavor to distill things down to root principles.  I do this because even though the details are important, we easily become overwhelmed and lost in the minutia.  And yes, no doubt I can be guilty of oversimplification.  I'm willing to take the risk, though, because I firmly believe simplification can lead us to fresh perspectives of what we claim to believe;  if I make an oversimplification, you jolly well know it because the exercise provoked you into thinking more deeply on the subject; and that's a good thing.

To remain true to my form, then, I propose we struggle with trusting God because we are afraid.  When we peel back all the layers of the onion of our complex lives, the flag we find at the core of our soul--flying motionless, I might add, like the American flag on the moon--that had been planted there by the first of our race to explore that cold desolation, has written on it in large bold black font the obscene four letter "F" word, FEAR.

I could end this posting right here and now by telling you to stop being afraid!  trust the Lord!  But I don't think that will help you much.  I mean, the angels who have visited various persons during the course of millennia, what is the first thing they always say?  Don't be afraid.  And how often did the visitee actually do that?  You know, how often did the person so visited relax, put his arm around the angel's shoulders and say something such as, "Que passa, dude, what's comin' down from on high?  Ah, say, Gabe.  That's your name, isn't it?  Yeah, ah, Gabe, I have, or should I say had this uncle Wooly.  I think he's up there someplace.  I don't suppose I could impose on you to ask him something for me, when you get back and aren't busy?"  The answer is never.  All of us would have been shaking in our boots.  And we will continue to shake in our boots until we successfully pull that flag from its moorings in our soul and replace it with one bearing the beautiful five lettered "F" word, FAITH, which in essence is trust.

Therefore, the way to trusting God begins with recognizing we are all afraid.  But it won't do to simply admonish each other to not be afraid; it's true, of course, but it ain't gonna pay the bill when it comes.

For me, it always helps in praying for matters such as fear, if I can approach God with some idea of what I am up against.  This is not universally the case; sometimes all I can say to God is "HELP!"  That's good, too.  However, knowing the landscapes helps me to pray intelligently and--and this is most important--more clearly recognize God's wise responses and direction.

First, then, we pray for understanding of what feeds our fear. Here are seven back-stories of fear that God might reveal to us.  Please comment on others I may have overlooked; the more insight into this fear gripping us, the better.

1) Someone we should have been able to trust, let us down.
2) I, who should have my best interests in mind, have failed myself.
3) I don't want to suffer.
4) I don't want to die.
5) I don't want to be ostracized by my people.
6) I have an inflated ego (either self-deprecating or narcissistic).
7) I need to be in control.

Hmm, some of those categories seem pretty obvious, but the others--in the words of my beautiful wife--not so much.  Let me quickly demonstrate how I might contemplate a couple of these in order to better identify the fear in my life and so better know what to pray about.

Point 5 is fear of estrangement, but the more fundamental issue is where one is placing his/her loyalty.  Certainly we all want to be accepted by our people; and our people should accept us.  But when we curry their favor at the expense of truth, which is a response of fear, we drive ourselves further into fear because the basis of trust--that is, our peoples' good favor--is wholly unreliable.  If however, we submit to God, loving our people out of the desire to please God, fear will be replaced by love.  In other words, instead of seeking what we can get from our people, which will lead to fear of their disapproval, we seek to please God, and therefore, seek what it is we have to offer to our people--fear turns to love.  Understanding our situation this way helps us to pray more effectively and expectantly for God to help us overcome our fear.

Point 6 is fundamentally fear of being found out who the real me is, or more precisely, fear of exposed inadequacy.  In his novel, Steppenwolf, Herman Hesse wrote, "...self hate is really the same thing as sheer egoism, and in the long run breeds the same isolation and despair."  I would only add that the same fear is behind both self hate and sheer egoism.  And it is this fear that leads to the despair Hesse describes.  Ironically, both types of personalities are accomplished in one or more things; indeed the more accomplished either person might be the more they actually fear their inadequacies, and defend themselves from possible exposure through sheer egoism.  The extreme offensiveness of the narcissist and the false humility of the self-hater are defense mechanisms in response to the same fear of inadequacy.  And just as in point 5, the fear responses only serve to intensify the fear.  Only when they see that their talents--and we all have talents--are a gift from God to express and act in love for the profit of others, will the fear that grips them begin to turn to love.  Understanding this will help them to focus their prayers to overcome their fear.

The apostle John quite correctly wrote, "There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears punishment has not been perfected in love.  We love because he [God] loved us first." [NET]

What Do You Confess?

What do you confess?  Are you a patriot?  Perhaps you proudly state that you're an American, and insist that all your fellow Americans remember, if nothing else, that they are Americans.  So you are actually making two confessions.  The first is a simple statement of national origin, and the second is a statement of national pride.

In order to pin you down more, I will restate my question this way.  What or whom do you confess as the final arbiter of your raison d'etre, the thing by which you judge everything else?

If you think about it, you'll discover the picture quickly grows murky for anyone seriously asking the question.  For example, being an American deepens to Americanism being the only sane national alternative, which further intensifies into the American national imperative.  "I confess I am a Democrat!" you might finally assert.  "I'm a Republican!" the person next to you might then shout.  Both of you hail American nationalism with equal fervor.  So what differentiates you from him/her?  What's the beef?

It might surprise you, but the difference is not what you each perceive as the correct national imperative.  No, I propose that you and your neighbor are still not confessing what you truly confess.  Now, there are a zillion factors to be considered, but I will cut to the critical chase as I see it.

You, the Democrat, might explain, "I know where you're going with this.  Let me tell you, I am a Christian.  I confess Jesus Christ!  And Jesus taught us to care for the poor and repudiate the rich."

"And how do you live by this confession?" I ask.

"I support leaders and government systems that mandate fair distribution of wealth, and who promote peace through tolerance.  After all, this is what our founding fathers advocated.  It is the glory of Americanism, and why all other nations pale."

Your Republican neighbor quickly chimes in before I can say anything.  "I confess Jesus Christ who demands moral purity and everyone working for their bread, which means they must take care of themselves.  This is what it means to be American.  This is the national ethos that shines above the rest because it demands free opportunity under the strict rule of Judeo-Christian ethics.  Our founding fathers would be appalled by the moral laxity and entitlements being leveled on the American public, today."

"How do you live by your confession?" I ask.

"I live it by supporting leaders and government systems who limit their own authority, advocate Christian principles and traditions in the public sector, and insist that everyone carry his own weight."

I step back to watch the two of you--both red-faced--glaring at each other.

The rest of you watching this drama playing out in my mind's eye will perhaps accuse me of creating caricatures.  I disagree.  The two patriots clearly read from the same music in their heads; the rest, as Wolfie in Amadeus said non plus, is just quibbling and bibbling, bibbling and quibbling.  The point is neither person has yet to honestly admit his/her true confession; indeed, they might not even know what it is.

I submit that despite the fact each sees the other as hopeless and--no overstatement, here--evil, they both actually confess the same thing.  Both really only want a society where they can be left to themselves and feel good about it.  Their truest confession is self-satisfaction--pure and simple.

If any caricature has been painted, it is their caricature of Jesus.

May I remind us that simply asserting Jesus is the son of God doesn't save us or our particular worldview.  Frequently in the Gospels we find the demons whom Jesus cast out of people confessing Jesus as the son of God.  But their true confession didn't change them; they only cowered.

If we are to confess Jesus in a way that effects a change in us and in the world around us, then we must confess Him as King.  If Jesus is our King, we will seek to obey Him according to His standards and not our own or those of the corrupt world.  We will obey Him by promoting His kingdom through individual initiative (i.e., not foisting the responsibility on someone else) in our sphere of influence--regardless of who might be in office, or what might be in vogue.  We promote his kingdom by caring for the poor, the infirmed, and the marginalized (isn't this what our Democrat friend claims he/she wants?) by freely distributing the wealth God has placed in our possession, fully confident of God's faithfulness.  And at the same time, bringing justice (isn't this what our Republican friend claims he/she wants?) by acting mercifully towards everyone including our enemies--yes, especially our enemies.  And at the same time willingly dying each and every moment both to and for this corrupt world as Jesus died for all of us.

No doubt this is a hard teaching.  Our king makes the most uncomfortable demands on us.  God's kingdom completely contradicts this dark world and its ways.  So, naturally there will be conflicts, and there won't be peace--at least not yet.  But if we truly confess Jesus as our King and Lord, the unrest and conflict we encounter will be a response and not our actions.  In other words, we won't be seeking sanctuary from the opposition, nor will we attempt to muzzle the opposition using the world's methods and tactics.  Indeed, if we truly trust our King Jesus, we won't be feel threatened, at all.  We will understand that the justice will only come through the power of love acting in holiness.

Jesus doesn't want us, as our two friends above are doing, to hide behind other men or women, or ideologies.  He calls us to boldly come out of hiding and invest ourselves as representatives of His kingdom to a dark, fearful, and angry world.

We would all do well to assess what we honestly confess.

Why We Despair

This last week I fell, yet again, into an emotional slump; I felt disillusioned and discouraged; in short, I despaired.

And it's really disgusting when you think about it.  By what reason do I have to despair?  Compared to literally billions of people, I live in the lap of luxury, ease, and some might even say, decadence.  I surely hope they are wrong about the latter assessment.  I don't live decadently, but the rest of the point is well taken: I clearly have no reason to despair.

Unfortunately, all too often, I do despair.  I'm a petulant human being, and I think a bit of a problem child of God.  I can hear the Lord, "Bruce, Bruce, Bruce...you worry about so many things."  He'd be right.  And worry is nothing more than a symptom of despair.

I should say at this point in my defense, I am not despairing over the things I do or don't have, rather I despair out of a fear I am not using all I have been given--the collective assets of wealth, materials, knowledge, and opportunity--to make a positive difference in this world.  I despair I am merely a consumer instead of a producer.

Okay, after you get done gagging, you might suggest if I must despair over something, then that's a good thing to despair about.  Thanks, but despair is wrong because at the heart of despair is a lack of trust, or more correctly, a lack of proper trust.

Despite all the airtime I've consumed with this blog extolling the necessity of trusting God, I do a rather poor job of practicing what I preach.  The problem is not that God has failed to prove Himself trustworthy.  God has all through history proven His faithfulness, the crowning proof, of course, being the incarnation, life, death, resurrection, and ascension of His son, Jesus the Christ.  And although I seem to quickly forget, God has also countless times proven His loyal love in my personal life.

Certainly, the problem is not with God's faithfulness but with my own lack of faithfulness, which blooms from an improper trust, and quickly wrecks me in the ditch of despair.  We can easily see the trust/lack of faithfulness connection, by considering three main manifestations of infidelity: 1) not doing what God wants all of us to do (i.e., blatant disobedience); 2) not doing what God specifically demands of me to do because I'm too busy trying to do what He would have the other guy do; and 3) doing what God asks our own way rather than His way.  In each case I trust in myself because of self-interest, with the outcome of being unfaithful to God.  And the ensuing failure breeds despair.

At the root of all the above examples of infidelity is an improper trust; that is, we trust in ourselves instead of God.  We insist we know better than God what we and the world needs, so we trust ourselves to get the job done.  The trouble is we are an unreliable lot.  Not only do we let God down time and time again, we let ourselves down countless times.  The fact is we are a very poor object of our trust.  And as long as we trust in ourselves instead of God, we will despair.

Is despair always a negative condition?  We must be careful not to confuse despair with grief.  At the root of despair is an improper trust born out of self-interest.  But the root of grief is love.  There is an inherent hopelessness in despair absent in grief.  Despair drives us away from God; grief leads us to Him.  Despair causes us to take matters in our own hands, or worse, give up altogether.  We can despair at the misery in the world, and be overwhelmed; or we can grieve at the state of the world and look to God to overcome it.  Jesus grieved at the waywardness of humankind, and was compassionate.  Hmm, come to think of it, anger is the only emotion I ever seem to dredge up in the state of despair--certainly not compassion.

Now that we better understand the mechanism of despair, what can we do to escape its sticky web?  As we seek to do the work Christ has for us by clinging tenaciously to Him for our strength, direction, and motivation, we should pray daily with the Psalmist:

Look, you desire integrity in the inner man;

you want me to possess wisdom.

Sprinkle me with water and I will be pure;

wash me and I will be whiter than snow.

Grant me the ultimate joy of being forgiven!

May the bones you crushed rejoice!

Hide your face from my sins!

Wipe away all my guilt!

Create for me a pure heart, O God!

Renew a resolute spirit within me!

Do not reject me!

Do not take your Holy Spirit away from me!

Let me again experience the joy of your deliverance!

Sustain me by giving me the desire to obey!

Then I will teach rebels your merciful ways,

and sinners will turn to you. [Ps. 51:6-13][NET]

Yes, we will suffer; yes, we will grieve; but we won't despair because we are trusting in God, alone.

Happy Anniversary, Darling

Every year on or around our wedding anniversary I write what I affectionately call the state of the union missive to my wife.  The title is purposely tongue-in-cheek.  The sole reason for writing it is to celebrate my beautiful wife, to remind her again how much I love and adore her, and to guard myself from ever taking for granted the undeserved blessing she is to me.

Another tradition is our anniversary pilgrimage to a popular get-away vacation spot in our state.  The place we retreat is also where we were first hitched.  In fact, I'm writing this while sitting on the porch of our favorite B & B.  The day is absolutely idyllic, much as it had been the afternoon of our nuptials.  Earlier today we picnicked down by the water.  It was just us, a couple of young families enjoying their lunches, a light breeze, the periodic calls of the resident sea gulls, and a pleasure craft motoring out into the bay.

Why am I telling you this?

It is in the kinds of moments such as the one I related above, where we have our best chance at seeing our spouse.  In the calm serenity and the temporary withdrawal from the cares of life, we have an opportunity to peer into the heart of the companion God has blessed us with.  There are imperfections to be found, there, to be sure; such imperfections are also within us for our spouse to see.  But I'm suggesting in these tranquil moments, if we really want to, we can call an amnesty, and for a moment see our spouse from his/her perspective--nay, God's perspective--rather than our own.

Some of you at this point might be thinking, "You don't know my wife!" or "You don't know how much my husband hurt me."  Of course I don't, at least not in the specific details of your situation.  But trust me, I've lived long enough to understand what you are going through; I can empathize with you.  But I'm suggesting things will never change for the good if you keep looking at your spouse in the harsh light of accusation and resentment.  Despite your take on the history, your spouse carries within him or her the same fears, hopes, failed dreams, and need to be loved as you do.  I'm suggesting if you simply take a moment to weigh out each of those areas in your spouse without doctoring the balance with your personal weights and measures, you will suddenly know how you can love your spouse for his/her benefit.  And in the process you will be better able to assess your own true situation.

Here's what I propose:

Love you spouse
Forgive your spouse
         never look back again
Love your spouse
Tear down the wall between you
         even if certain you're not the mason
Love your spouse
Hear his cry
         it may be inaudible
Love your spouse
Dry her tears
         the well might run deep
Love your spouse
Celebrate his success
         it might be all that's left him
Love your spouse
Rejoice in her strength
         she might have much to carry
Love your spouse

And never, never, never, seek to make him or her in your image.  One can never love one's spouse unless one first loves God.  And that begins with understanding He wants all of us to bear His image.

Happy Anniversary my dear, Sara.  Thank you for making it so easy to see the love of Christ.

Meet Telemachus

In the course of preparing to teach an adult Sunday school class this fall on an overview of the Gospels, I came upon the account of the very famous Christian, Telemachus, as told by William Barclay in his commentary of the gospel of Mark [Daily Bible Study Series; St. Andrews Press: 1956, pp. 208-210].  I will reprise it here in my own words.

Telemachus was a monk who believed that isolating himself from the world was the surest way to secure his salvation.  And for a while he lived alone praying and studying.  He soon realized, however--I have to think his praying paid off--that such devotion to God was more self-serving than God-serving.  So he decided to go to Rome where the need was greatest.  It was late in the fourth century, and by this time Rome, as the entire Roman Empire, was officially Christian.  Telemachus arrived to a great celebration of a victory the Romans had recently won against the Goths.  The conquering general paraded before the people along side Emperor Honorius in the proud tradition of Rome, except people now poured forth from churches instead of temples.  One thing had not changed with the advent of Christian dominion, though; they still held gladiatorial fights to the death as part of the festivities--although, these were forced upon members of the defeated armies and no longer included martyrdom of Christians.   The humble monk came to the famed Colosseum just after the chariot races to behold a restive crowd, eighty thousand strong.  The tension was palpable as the fighters took center stage.  Telemachus, shocked that such brutality still existed in an Empire that had supposedly bowed to King Jesus, jumped the barrier, and stood between opposing gladiators.  The crowd shouted for him to get off the arena; one of the fighters pushed him away, but Telemachus quickly rebounded.  As only a blood-thirsty crowd of such a long and violent tradition could, the spectators demanded, in so many words,Telemachus' head.  The order went out, and whoosh, wang, the old monk fell dead in his own blood.  The crowd grew silent.  As if awakened from a drunken stupor, the people, for the first time, clearly saw the horrid inconsistency of their blood-lust with the gospel of Christ.  The gladiators wouldn't fight that day.  The crowd dispersed, and never again were such bloody spectacles held in Rome.  Telemachus' singular act of love had ended for good the centuries-long tradition of the gladiators.

True story.

How did that little old man accomplish such a great feat?  He didn't foment, or perpetuate a culture war.  He didn't stand outside the forum disparaging the current administration.  He didn't draw a sword and start hacking away at everyone opposing his world-view.  No, Telemachus abandoned himself completely to King Jesus, trusted Christ, and bore fruit for the kingdom of God.

Now, some of you reading this might complain; "Where was Christ in all of this?  Telemachus entrusted his life to Jesus.  Why didn't Jesus save Telemachus?"

Here is Jesus' answer:

“If anyone wants to become my follower, he must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and for the gospel will save it. For what benefit is it for a person to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his life?  What can a person give in exchange for his life? For if anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”  [Mark 8:34-38][NET]