Clarion

Malice or Chalice, Jesus or Abaddon – Bradley Jersak

Apr 14, 2022 |

'Queen Mary Apocalypse’ London 14th century.
'Queen Mary Apocalypse’ London 14th century.
"Their king is the angel from the bottomless pit; his name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek, Apollyon—the Destroyer."(Revelation 9:11). 
I'm grieving Ukraine again today. After the latest news of escalating atrocities, two stubborn facts are feeling increasingly obvious:
  • Putin can't be negotiated with. He can only be beaten. And only by massive escalation of death-dealing means. Probably nuclear war. And not one iota of that is for me to decide. My opinion on that is moot. And thank God, so are my disordered impulses. 
  • Our instinct to say we MUST to use a military solution, however we justify it, did not in fact work in Bucha, at all. If military interventions are about harm reduction, it's evident that they've failed in this case. Even if the eventual outcome removes Russia from Ukraine and removes Putin from the Kremlin, military 'solutions' have already completely failed to bring anything but escalating trauma, death and destruction of lives that won't ever come back and families that will never recover. In Jesus's words, "satan cannot drive out satan" (Matthew 12:26). He doesn't say, "shouldn't." He says "cannot." Jesus knew. 
So I'm back to the "we" in "what should we do." I am not a head of state or a military commander and have no power to do anything related to foreign policy, militarization, or negotiations. That is not a "we" I am part of. The war is now a fact that proceeds without any reference to me whatsoever. Nor is it for me to say what Ukraine should do, or what President Zelensky should do. For my part, I can only speak to the Jesus-following we of who I am a part. 
 
"We" can be part of the Jesus Way movement he called "blessed peacemakers, called children of God." We are not powerless. My brother Rodney has seen this, bought a plane ticket, and his friends have funded his way to Moldova, where he is now working in refugee camps to support and heal survivors of war. My friends inside the Ukraine are alleviating suffering as best they can using only peacebuilding means that will not create a single death, widow, or orphan, despite the hell that's been unleashed around them. 
 
What can we do? As peacemakers, we continue to do the inner work of expunging malice and violence from our own troubled passions. And we can use our voices to remind Christians that killing has never been the Jesus Way. He forbade it from his followers. Death-dealing is both demonic and an observably ineffective path to lasting peace. If the Church (East and West) could hear and obey Jesus, it would begin by repenting of entangling itself with the beast and serving as its prophet of death. 
 
I can't prove this, but from his speeches, I'm now convinced Patriarch Kirill is not merely Putin's sidekick. He is actually forming, informing, and fuelling Putin's authoritarian delusions with doctrines of death in the name of "Christian" nationalism. What "we" can do is be a minority report of prophetic voices in our corner of the Church that resists adding Christian justifications to the naivety of violence among our own people. 
 
To those who say, "We need to…" followed by any appeal to be agents of Abaddon (Rev. 9:11), we can say this: We can follow Jesus or we can follow the destroyer. We can't put a Jesus patch on Abaddon's uniforms and claim to be children of God. Or so says Jesus. Pascha is coming (is it ever!). It's malice or the chalice–beware of partaking of the Eucharist with Judas' kiss. 
 
 

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