Wednesday 25 March 2009

This week, devotions are based on a section of "The Strength of Love" called 'Our God is Able" - by Martin Luther King, Jr.

Let us notice also that God is able to subdue all the powers of evil. In affirming that God is able to conquer evil we admit the reality of evil. Christianity has never dismissed evil as illusory, or an error of the moral mind. It reckons with evil as a force that has objective reality. But Christianity contends that evil contains the seed of its own destruction. History is the story of evil forces that advance with seemingly irresistible power only to be crushed by the battling rams of the forces of justice. There is a law in the moral world - a silent, invisible imperative, akin to the laws of the physical world - which reminds us that life will work only in a certain way. The Hitlers and the Mussolinis have their day, and for a period they may wield great power, spreading themselves like a green bay tree, but soon they are cut down like the grass and wither as the green herb.

Within our corporate confession we admit that we are a part of this evil just as much as we are a part of the beloved ones of God. Just as evil wins us over at times, so too can evil win the day in the world. But we are told that our God is able to resurrect life that has been beaten down by injustice, intolerance, hatred, and all the ways of evil among us. Therefore, even when the day appears to be won by what is in opposition to the love of God's Reign and this evil will outlast me or you, God is able and will raise up new life in which love and justice and mercy will again shape life and bring about a day where hope becomes quite visible. It is good to hear King remind us that evil contains the seed of its own destruction. Even when it is riding high, it will not remain there. Evil will be exposed even when it wears the masks of respectability. At that time, once again, God is able raise up new life...even from the stones of ruin around us.

Connection: It takes patience and action to stay vitally alive when evil is at hand. We must be patient to see the many sides of the evil and we must act from a place of peace when the evil is to be confronted.

God, you are able to subdue all the powers of evil. And yet, in the day at hand, we cannot see that evil is being put in its place and your rule has become the order of the day. Guide us so that when evil is present we can be a part of your rule of new life that resists the powers that attempt to rule your beloved. Amen.