In the shadowed valleys of sacred history, where the blood of prophets and the tears of the faithful have soaked the pages of Scripture, we find ourselves replaying the ancient lament. As Eden collapsed, kingdoms rose on the altars of the zealous, only to crumble beneath the divine judgment of their own rebellion. This sorrow is as long as Eden’s fall, yet it thunders with redemptive promise in our fractured, faith-starved era.
We erect towers of Babel—ideologies forged in pride, buttressed by the cries of the oppressed—and wonder why the heavens have not blessed them. There is no idle parable in our fallen world; it is a relentless battle between the consuming fire of sin and the refining fire of the Holy Spirit, urging us towards the cross or away from it.
Our flight from the Creator has damaged the creation. Eden’s lush expanse, once a testament to God’s generosity, is now groaning under our covetousness – wounded by plowshares beaten into swords, poisoned by greed, devouring neighbor and earth alike. In the absence of living water from the throne of God, rivers run murky with the residue of brother-against-brother strife, while the heavens weep tears of smoke from forges which multiply mammon over mercy.
We are not strangers from the void; we are wayward children of the King, exiles in our own inheritance, pursuing mirages of self-rule that disappear like mist before the dawn. When we grasp for thrones that mock the Lamb’s, we have surrendered the liberty we won at Calvary’s altar. The idols we adorn ourselves with are flags that fray and lords that wither, and we burnish them with the labor of our souls intended for eternity.
How do we sustain this relentless pilgrimage into darkness? Strip away the veils, and there is the fractured image of God within us: a mosaic of fears etched deep by the serpent’s whisper. Faith should anchor the soul against the hollow ache of the abyss without Him. Emblems are our shields against an universe that, in truth, bends to the sovereign will of the Almighty.
Those false gods, distant and demanding, serve as substitutes for the Father we doubt; riches, barren and brittle, serve as substitutes for the bread of life that we hunger for. In the temples of commerce and trenches of war, the drama repeats: hoarding at the expense of the least of these, oaths whispered in shadows echoing Judas’ kiss. In addition to carving barricades in clay of creation, we also do so in the fertile soil of agape love, drawing both family members and foe into the vortex of our unrepented wrath.
I recall a twilight vigil on the ragged edge of a battlefield, many years ago, when the veil between heaven and earth thinned like the veil of the temple. A distant cannon thundered through the night air, a dirge for weary souls. A ring of pilgrims gathered around a single candle, reflecting the Light of the World, as they traded testimonies of grace rather than conquest.
A shepherd recounted pastures reduced to cinders for lines etched by rulers blind to the Good Shepherd’s voice. A widow recalled the vanished melody of her little one’s song, quenched in enmities as ancient as Cain’s curse. Their gaze was filled with not despair, but holy defiance: the unyielding belief that resurrection follows every burial, that the risen Christ mends what empires shatters.
I continue to remember that sacred huddle like a verse half-recited in the dead of night, a beacon that even during a tempest, mercy’s rivulets pierce through stone. While the prince of this world would make us believe that we are chained to this wheel of sorrow, sacred writ is not an unyielding edifice but a living scroll woven together by the Weaver.
Consider the pivotal moments where grace prevailed—not through edicts from on high, but through the incarnate humility of the humble. The prophet who sow gospel seeds in scorched soil, the peacemaker who crosses gulfs with pleas for reconciliation, the psalmist who hymns division’s wounds in hues of heaven’s palette. As the refrains to redemption’s song, the still small voices announce the coming of the Kingdom, these are the refrains to redemption’s song.
How, then, do we outrun this encroaching night? This begins with metanoia—the turning of the heart, raw and relational, in front of the throne of grace. It is crucial that we dismantle the strongholds we have inherited—the creeds of the world, engraved like false commandments, and grudges left as tainted birthrights. Does deliverance not depend on the scales of celestial accountants, but rather on the daily discipline of giving up our lives, as He did?
Imagine communities where Christ’s conscience is not a burden, but a beacon leading us toward economies of stewardship over plunder, a system of governance rooted in servant-kingship rather than scepters of subjugation. No, this is not an ethereal reverie; it is the wisdom of the ages embodied. In the crucible of strife, testimonies have indicated that when the flock unites in the narratives of the Cross, through confession circles or covenants of common labor, the flames of feud dim and fade. We are knit for koinonia, after all; estrangement is the anomaly, communion is God’s design.
Even though the path is littered with caltrops, the siren call of zeal – the holy fire charring nuance – is both sweet and searing. To withdraw requires valor like the empty tomb: vulnerability, the audacity to prostrate in contrite communion, not in bondage. For which banners do we shed our soul yet present only husks, when the Bread of Heaven sustains for eternity? In that holy hush, sow the mustard seeds of renewal.
While dispatches of rifts in tottering treaties pierce the gloom as the first light of this October dawn dawn in 2025 pierces it, I remain unshaken by eschatological hope. Despite howling, gales yield to the Prince of Peace, scouring the skies for the rainbow covenant and nourishing the soil for soul harvests. The divine drama is not merely a drama for spectators; we are co-heirs with Christ, etching epistles of faith with every fiat we make.
Over the thorns of strife, let us choose the fruit of the Spirit, and the olive branch over the olive press of agony. At the center of the assault pulsates the radiance of the Redeemer—a realm where the only battles we join are against the shadows of the old self, and triumph.
Until next time: God Bless you all and Courage
