A Mirror

I’s Figurin

History is fascinating to me; dry, suffocating, tedious, and utterly fascinating. As a product of my generation, I have had the fortune of growing up at a time when anyone with a moderate level of means has unlimited access to not only every possible recorded event in history via written text, but often video representations of that history. Whether it be old 8mm film, enhanced and digitally re-mastered to make it seem as though it were recorded yesterday, or captivating adaptations of ancient history acted out in a way that allows even the most imaginationally challenged to immerse themselves in, and even momentarily capture, the gravity of those moments in time. 

This being the case, it only seems natural that one would, at some point, find themselves fascinated by the goings ons of entire civilizations in the past. Great civilizations rise and fall, and the scraps of those civilizations are gathered up and carried forward to the next societal experiment. And while the circumstances that lead to their rising is often murky at best, the fall always seems to be somewhat more defined. Always, among those well-documented demises, there seems, so far as I can tell, a type of strife brought on by ignorance, angst, and indifference. 

One of the most notable of these historical stories for me has always been Nazi Germany. I, as I’m sure many today, was always baffled by how an entire country could subscribe to a worldview that, just 50 years later, could seem so incredibly outside the bounds of rational thought. How could a people cast all of their angst on to one race of people and believe that they were somehow virtuous in doing so? It’s hard for a modern American mind to fathom. 

Of course the truth is, as all things are, a bit nuanced. The centralizing of the country’s ills onto a certain group is only a tool to mask the ambition of those seeking power. Those whom choose to view the world as merely a struggle for power and control will always prey on the ignorance within the masses to recognize that ambition. And they don’t the entire population. In fact, if too many dawn the flag, they lose the protection offered by the indifference of the greater part of society. Truth is of little interest to the power seekers and will only be used so long as is necessary to ignite the fire and quickly done away with as it threatens the overall mission. “Make the lie big. Make it simple. Keep saying it. And eventually they will believe it.”

It’s hard not to see the striking similarities between these time-tested strategies and what we see today. The devil doesn’t announce his arrival. He distracts you with life. He keeps you jumping from one compromise to another at such a break-neck pace that you don’t have time to look in a mirror. His goal is to so transform you in the process that, by the time you finally see your reflection, you will be so unrecognizable as to have no other choice but to accept your new reality, and live accordingly. But even the transformation is a lie, and the mirror is broken. There is always a way home. 

There has always been good and evil in the world. And the evil NEVER introduces itself. Often it slathers itself in righteousness, virtue, and justice. What better vehicles could there be for it? Obfuscation of the truth has been the devil’s tool since the garden, and his only real foe has been the big man himself. That’s right–Yahweh, Abba, Elohim, Jehova, The Alpha and Omega, the Truth. The success of the West, contrary to what many may say, IMO, has been this understanding. 

Many new-aged atheist types will, undoubtedly point to the failures of the church as some type of proof that this belief is false. But this is lazy and disingenuous. You’d be hard-pressed to find a Christian out there that would claim God lives in a church. In fact, were we to believe that he only lived there, we would never leave. And it doesn’t take 20/20 vision to make out the bald spots in the congregation on Sunday morning. 

But the point of this particular message is not to engage in an apologetics crusade. I’m merely trying to hold up the mirror. Because the truth is, America in 2021 is not lacking in material need. No mentally sound individual is starving to death in our streets. The poorest among us have more material wealth and opportunity than the upper classes did just a century ago. Yet we still suffer. And the better our conditions get, the worst our angst seems to be. I’m merely suggesting that the inverse relationship between this angst and our Bible sales seems, to me, worth investigation. 

Today’s challenge is new and the same. The devil has come dressed in Christian clothing. Only the robe is made out of imitation charity and the sandals are knock-off compassion. Do we need a revival? Absolutely! But before that can be done, we must believe that it’s possible. We must get up off our couch of indifference, not to run out and condemn the devil in the streets, or overwhelm him with love. But to clean up our house. To believe that we are capable doing good. To understand that there’s always a way home and that we’re not broken beyond repair. We’re just broken.