There is nothing new under the sun. There are, however, seasons. We forget the former when we grow comfortable in the latter. We like the season we are in, and in turn expect it to last forever. When the cold winds begin to blow, and the leaves begin their descent, we become Chicken Little not realizing we are merely entering the winter of our discontent.
Storm clouds are brewing in the post-Christian west as the broader culture has blown through its Christian capital like Congressmen at budget time. The scapegoats of the coming age are the joyful, the fruitful, the faithful. Which means they are coming for us. How then should we prepare?
When God’s enemies massed against God’s people there was one simple call- put behind you your idolatries, and serve the Lord. Which is just what we need to do. When we weep over the loss of our cultural position we show that we saw our privilege not as a weapon by which to press the crown rights of Jesus, but as an idol. We were cultural leaders, world shapers. Now we are becoming cultural pariahs, hated by the world we are called to preserve.
What are our idols? The need to be deemed acceptable, and normal by our neighbors. The need to be a feared voting bloc. The comforts and ease that our neighbors have enjoyed. In short, peace with the world. The good news is that God in His grace is the one destroying our idols. What looks like the kingdom of God in retreat is actually our Lord routing the idols in our camp. We do not weep at His iconoclasm, but ought instead to cheer Him on, joining Him in smashing to bits the mute testimonies of our folly, the blind totem of our ambitions. Weep not for Babylon the great, but look for the city whose builder and maker is God.
How then do we serve Him? The same way we always have, by dying to self and visiting widows and orphans in their trouble. We serve Him by serving His body, loving the brethren. Ironically this is also how we love our enemies. As we live in the city on the hill, as our corporate lives are marked by genuine joy in our community, they might be drawn in by His Spirit. We serve Him by serving the least of these. Go into the very heart of the battle, where the wickedness of the wicked is at its most gruesome, where babies are torn limb from limb from their mothers’ wombs, at their mothers’ requests. Go there with our one weapon, the gospel of Jesus Christ. Call on them to turn, to leave the darkness and come into the light. Call on Him to come, to descend from heaven on His chariot of war to defend the defenseless.
We feast, and we fast. We weep, and we cry for joy. We marry and build homes while the foundations all about us crumble. We still, as much as is possible with us, live in peace and quietness with all men, remembering all the while that in this world we will have trouble. They hated Him; they will hate us. We preach as He preached, knowing the fruit of that preaching- the death of the one so preaching.
All this we do in the midst of the war, in the heart of the storm, knowing that we have been given a peace which the world cannot understand, knowing that we are the very bride of Him whom even the winds and the waves obey. All of this we do, and we go to bed each night enjoying the sleep of the innocent. For in Him, so we are. Fight by dying. Rest by living. And be of good cheer, knowing He has already overcome the world.