LOVING OUR ENEMY

Loving Our Enemy

Jesus said, "I AM the way, the truth and the life."

Jesus is called our Brother, our Savior, our Friend, our constant Companion, our Shelter and on and on. We are even told that "the government shall upon his shoulder" - "For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace."

We are also told that the last enemy He will put down is "death."

In quite literal terms we are given a choice between:
"He who is the way" vs a maze of confusion where no way may be found.
"He who is Truth" vs the lie and the Liar.
"He who is Life," vs the world of death, a world that is foundational to us whether we have eyes to grasp its reality or not. Man on his own, or in the clutches of the liar gravitates inexorably to death.

Persons and cultures are not our enemy, but the deadly one, the liar, that has persons and cultures in his grasp. The Liar has contaminated their good natures with deadly confusion, infected "religions," "philosophies," and "cultures" with death. ... We all suffer this "sin," to one degree or another. We suffer it both individually, and as communities, and nations. When the Utopia worshipers (The New World Order Elite) manage to cobble together some form of one world government, it will merely be a more uniform expression of death.

Truth and Life cannot be separated they are as combined in essence as the Persons of the Holy Trinity. Truth and Love cannot be separated they are also as combined in essence as the Persons of the Holy Trinity.

Cultures do not form and then create people of character. Cultures are formed by the character of its people. So ultimately we see that there is no separation between truly "gaining LIFE" on an individual basis and the health of our communities and nations. For this reason for the Christian, every time the enemy is mentioned in the Psalms and prayers of the Church, one rightly looks inward. The Christian grasps that without first putting down the enemy within all other battles are worthless.

On the level of societies, the conquering of an external enemy is meaningless, if in peace all we can offer is a culture of death. Cultures of Life are produced not by philosophy and sociological theory, but by people who have gained or are gaining Life.

"We wrestle not against flesh and blood" Our enemy is never a person, but the spirit of the Liar. It is true that people and cultures can become so possessed of Death that it is nearly impossible to make a distinction between the possessed and the possessor. Certainly the persona of the radical islamic jihadists paints such a picture, since they have proved they are willing to flout every humane consideration and moderation of civilization for their "Death Cult."

Would that we could and would gain a perfect hatred for the enemy - that is, for all those things present in us belonging to or spawned by the Liar!

Archpriest Symeon Elias (aka Dr Butch) 

COPYRIGHT 2007 

The Society of Saint John