Conquerors of the World

Eastertide
May 8Storm, 2015

Scripture Reading: 1 John 5:1-6

For the love of God is this, that we obey his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome, for whatever is born of God conquers the world. And this is the victory that conquers the world, our faith. Who is it that conquers the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? –1 John 5:3-5

A swarm of tornados passed through the central part of the USA yesterday. The weather forecasters had lost count of how many when I went to bed. They were more concerned about alerting people to take cover than keeping statistics. Most of the tornados in Oklahoma struck 10 to 20 miles south of where I live. Tornados are a challenge to predict and most of these were wrapped in rain making it even harder. Being vigilant is prudent. I was also, however, trying to watch a TV show that was about terrorist who have a lot in common with tornados. Terrorist are just as hard to predict only they are wrapped in hate. In particular this show was highlighting how terrorist use children to work their evil deeds.

Needless to say when I read the scripture for today I somehow did not feel like a world conqueror. Living with the reality of tornados must be somewhat similar to being on a battlefield. While praying for our own safekeeping, we are literally watching on TV other people’s homes, just a few miles away, being blown away.

I somehow though do have faith that we do become world conquerors through our love of God and our love of our neighbors as commanded by Jesus Christ. Our faith leads us to do what we can in regard to returning others who have been damaged by natural or human disasters to wholeness as much as it leads us to do the practical things we can to ameliorate or prevent the impacts of climate change and the systemic evil that targets God’s children to infect.

Prayer: O Lord, we pray for those who are recovering from the storms of life and ask you to hold us all in the palm of your hands so that we may be nurtured into becoming your world conquerors. Amen.

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of American. Used by permission. All rights reserved.