Dear Friend,

We’ve been at war for a lot of my life, though I wouldn’t ever know it if I didn’t watch the news. That’s a privilege I’ve been struggling a lot with in these last few weeks of watching bombs fall in Iran, Lebanon and elsewhere. I’ve been thinking a lot about the moral and ethical issues with being able to be part of a nation that is at war, dropping bombs, killing people and devastating their country, while most of its citizens, including myself, go about our days unchanged. Certainly our service members and their families feel a different strain. My own brother-in-law is serving on the border of North and South Korea for this whole year and our concern for his safety is great. But, for most of us, if we don’t turn on the news, we wouldn’t know anything was happening at all.

That this is happening during Lent, reminds me that this season invites us to repentance, to confession, and to a deepening of our relationship with God by being honest about the state of our lives and our world. For me, this Lent, that means wrestling with my own feelings of being complicit in the violence that is raging right now. It means praying fervently for peace. It means praying for those in harm’s way and those who are grieving. It means praying that my own heart will not become desensitized to the suffering of others. It means praying for forgiveness that we can be at war and not suffer at all (I don’t think higher gas prices count).

May this Lenten season draw all of us closer to the God of peace, love and compassion.

Blessings,
Pastor Jenny

Armageddon

by Rev. Benjamin Cremer

Many news outlets reported this week that:
“American service members across every branch of the military have been told by commanders that the US-Israeli war on Iran is intended to induce the Biblical end times, or Armageddon, according to complaints lodged with a US watchdog.

“This morning our commander opened up the combat readiness status briefing by urging us to not be ‘afraid’ as to what is happening with our combat operations in Iran right now,” a non-commissioned officer said in an emailed complaint lodged with the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF).

“He urged us to tell our troops that this was ‘all part of God’s divine plan’ and he specifically referenced numerous citations out of the Book of Revelation referring to Armageddon and the imminent return of Jesus Christ.”

I (Pastor Jenny) thought it would be helpful to share a response to this claim of Armageddon from Pastor Benjamin Cremer, but it was a Facebook post so instead of a link to click on, I’m just posting the whole thing here. Rev. Cremer writes:
There is no “battle of Armageddon” in the book of Revelation.

Given the recent news about more than a hundred service members filing complaints that a commander told them that war with Iran is part of “God’s divine plan,” that a sitting president is “anointed by Jesus” to ignite Armageddon, it is important to make it clear how unbiblical this claim is.

This claim has more to do with the fiction series of “Left Behind” and dispensational theology than it does the Book of Revelation. Also this is why the separation of church and state is crucial!

The Book of Book of Revelation was composed in the late first century, most likely during the reign of Domitian, when the Roman Empire demanded not only political loyalty but religious reverence. Rome ruled through claiming divine sanction. Emperors were hailed as “Lord” and “Savior” and participation in imperial cults was a sign of allegiance. Refusal could mean marginalization, economic exclusion, or worse.

It is that context where John of Patmos writes his vision.

Revelation is not a coded forecast of 21st-century geopolitics. As John writes in verse one, the entire letter is the revelation of Jesus Christ. It is the way of God through Jesus Christ being revealed in the world. It is written in the prophetic genre of apocalyptic resistance literature. It pulls back the curtain on earthly empires and names them for what they are: beastly.

Rome is depicted as the first Beast, seven heads representing the seven hills of Rome. The second beast is the propaganda machine for the first beast, looking like a lamb but speaking for the dragon. Then the mark of loyalty to the beast is a number (666 or 616 in some manuscripts), and when using gematria, the number is transliterated into Hebrew (nrwn qsr) it points to Emporor Nero, one of the worst persecutors of the early church (Rev. 13). John also describes Rome’s economic system becomes “Babylon,” drunk on luxury and the blood of the saints. (Rev. 17 & 18).

John is offering a theological critique of imperialism in contrast to the way of the crucified Lamb (Jesus Christ). He is telling persecuted Christians that while the empire looks invincible is not ultimate. Its violence is not divine. Its claims to eternal rule are a parody. They will not have the last word.

This is the contrast to keep in mind when we consider the famous “battle of Armageddon,” which appears in Revelation 16:16. The kings of the earth gather at a place called Armageddon, from “Har-Megiddo,” Mount Megiddo, which is a symbolic site associated with decisive Old Testament conflicts.

But here’s the striking detail many miss: no battle is actually described.

The nations gather. The stage is set. But when we reach Revelation 19, where we expect a final and epic clash of armies, something else astonishing happens.

Christ appears as a rider on a white horse. His robe is dripping with his own blood, not his enemy’s. Legions of angel armies are flanked behind him, armed to the teeth. Then they just stand there. The word comes out of his mouth, which is described as sharper than any double edged sword (the advanced weapon of the time). And the Beast and the kings of the earth are defeated, not through violent warfare, not, but by the word that proceeds from him, but by the word that is revealed through him, by the Word that is him (John 1).

There is no prolonged fight. No exchange of blows. No suspenseful military drama. No Christian foot soldiers taking up arms against hostile evil forces as the “Left Behind” series would have us believe. The “battle” is over before it begins. We are then given a casualty report of the enemies of God in Rev 19:20-21.

It is a powerful depiction of how Jesus has defeated sin and death through his self giving love on the cross.

Even earlier, in Revelation 5, John hears of the Lion of Judah. But when he turns, he sees a Lamb, standing as though slain.

This is the entire theological center of the book!

Victory in Revelation does not come through superior violence. It comes through faithful witness, sacrificial love, and divine judgment enacted by truth itself. The conquering Messiah conquers as the slain Lamb, not as a beast.

It is a fragile, insecure god that needs weapons and armies to achieve victory. It is an all powerful God that creates and dismantles simply by speaking a word. The Word.

Empire thrives on spectacle, like parades, armies, intimidation, and crucifixions lining the roads. Revelation subverts that spectacle. It stages what looks like the ultimate imperial showdown and then refuses to narrate it as a conventional war.

Why? Because the point is not that God wins by out killing Rome. The point is that Rome’s power is the hollow and endless cycle of violence. God’s power is the redeeming, nonviolent power of self sacrificial love (the cross).

In the ancient world, empires justified war as divinely sanctioned. Rome claimed Pax Romana, which means the “peace of Rome,” and it was secured by conquest. Peace through domination.

Revelation exposes that as counterfeit peace. “Babylon” falls not because Christians take up arms, but because her violence results in a self inflicted wound as all empires inevitably do, leading to her collapses under divine judgment. The merchants weep when she falls, not because of lost lives, but because of lost profits. It is a piercing indictment of economic exploitation fused with military power. Same story repeats throughout history and today.

The so-called final battle reveals that God does not need legions to defeat tyranny. Empire gathers for war. God simply speaks.

So this is the crucial theological meaning of the book of Revelation:

-God’s victory is not symmetrical with empire’s violence. God does not mirror the beast to defeat the beast.
-Faithful witness, not armed revolt, is the church’s calling. The saints “conquer” by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony (Rev. 12:11), not by seizing power.
-Imperial claims are temporary. What looks absolute is already judged in heaven’s perspective.
-Evil always self-destructs when confronted by truth. The absence of a literal battle underscores that evil has no ultimate substance before God’s reign.

All this to say, when Revelation is read as a blueprint for inevitable global warfare, it can be co-opted to sanctify violence or to arrogantly believe that Jesus’ return can be manipulated into happening by causing “Armageddon” as we are seeing again today. In its original context, it functioned as a pastoral encouragement to marginalized believers: Do not fear the empire. Do not worship it. Do not become like it.

Armageddon is not a call to arms. It is a dramatic unveiling of the futility of arms before God.

The final word of Revelation is not war but renewal. It is a new heaven, a new earth, and a city where the nations bring their glory, not their weapons, into the light of God.

The empire gathers for battle.
The Lamb reigns without fighting.

The battle was already won on the cross.
That contrast is the critique.

We want the warhorse.
Jesus rides a donkey.

We want the eagle.
The Holy Spirit descends as a dove.

We want to take up swords.
Jesus takes up a cross.

We want the roaring lion.
God comes as a slaughtered lamb.

We keep trying to arm God.
God keeps trying to disarm us.

Scars, Growing Older, and Lighting Fires

By Shawn Smucker

I found this article to be a beautiful reflection on aging and how doing so in an intentional way is much like praying.

Smucker writes: “But is this long, slow process of becoming less actually a negative thing? Does it have to be an experience we enter into kicking and screaming? Or is there a gentler, more peaceful way to grow older? Henri Nouwen writes, “The compassionate life is the life of downward mobility! In a society in which upward mobility is the norm, downward mobility is not only discouraged but even considered unwise, unhealthy, or downright stupid. Who will freely choose a low-paying job when a high-paying job is being offered? Who will choose poverty when wealth is within reach? Who will choose the hidden place when there is a place in the limelight? Who will choose to be with one person in great need when many people could be helped during the same time? Who will choose to withdraw to a place of solitude and prayer when there are so many urgent demands from all sides?”

And I would add, “Who would choose to accept growing older, when there are so many ways to pretend it’s not happening?””

Read the full article here.

The Long Day Closes

VOCES8, by Arthur Sullivan

This song was shared by a Covenant member recently and it is beautiful. A lovely song to listen to at the end of the day as a lead in to prayer perhaps?

This is a prayer put together by Sarah Bessey but written collaboratively by a group of people in the comments on her Substack page. She took what people offered in comments and wove them into this:

Lord, Have mercy. Christ, Have mercy. How long, O Lord? How long? It doesn’t have to be this way. God, we are scared. In fact, sometimes, the only prayer we find ourselves praying these days is “God, please. Please.”

So God, please. Please.

The anger is real and present – and draining! Help us to find beauty and breath and grace each day. Keep us from slipping into our own abyss of rage and resentment. Be our rest in this time of exhaustion. Grant me the strength to keep caring. Help us to keep going.

Jesus, be near and give strength and peace to those who suffer in mind, body and spirit and those who care for them. Protect the helpers as the need overwhelms their hands, give them peace, bring helpers alongside them.

Please turn the hearts of those with power and money away away from greed and corruption and toward compassion and moral clarity. We pray for you to cast some mighty ones from their thrones and for the violence to stop. Jesus, deter those who intend to cause harm. Move evil out of the way! Help adults to stop killing children. Bless the peacemakers and invade the hearts of the warmongers. Let all that is unjust turn to ash. Sweep away the darkness, the evil, the injustice and cruelty and lawlessness, and bring wholesome, fresh air, newness of life, and GOODNESS to the world, to our countries, to our community, to our hearts.

Bless, uphold, and care for all those suffering unimaginable harm from oppressive regimes and policies. Silence the mouths of the fools and end the reign of the evildoers. Bring the oppressors to justice and shower mercy and provision upon the oppressed. Raise up the people of peace. Strengthen the voices of those in power who advocate peace and justice. May they be heard.

Forgive us where we have failed. Help us to be good neighbours. Help us to be peaceful with everyone we encounter and let this peace spread throughout the world. Lord of Love, teach us to love each other the way you love us. We give you our hopelessness, and ask for your eyes to see, your words to speak, and your courage to do. Grant us the courage to keep choosing your way of love.

Please take care of our babies, Mother God, of all our babies. Oh, God, be with the mothers of children all around the world especially the most vulnerable. Jesus, you know the names and preciousness of each child harmed or hurt, we hold them in our hearts. We pray for the young ones, that their hearts stay soft even while growing up in a world marked by hard hearts. May the children in war-torn lands feel you surrounding them as a loving mother hen surrounds her chicks. Be with the families and communities that have been torn apart.

Help us in our disappointments, that we may rise above our expectations. Give us wisdom to navigate the relationships and communities that are fracturing right now.

We pray for the unintended consequences of our own actions, have mercy. We repent for harm we inflict on each other. Open our eyes to the planks that reside in our own eyes still. Help us stay present when all we want to do is hide.

We pray for comfort in grief over what has been lost and also for grief over what will never be. We pray for strength, courage, and calm. Help us to remember when community carried us while we could not care for ourselves, this is grace, too. Show us how to stand at these many tombs and weep; help us all to bear the pain of this world. And to repent the pain that we ourselves have caused.

We pray for peace in our hearts, in our homes, in our neighbourhoods, in our towns, in our countries, in the world. Help us find a way to be of use – somehow. Show us clearly what is ours to do and then help all of us to just get on with it, already.

Please illuminate the path ahead of me one step at a time. Help us see Your light in these dark times. Even when the world feels like it is crumbling around us, help us to trust that you are always here guiding and rebuilding.

Help us to remember that our own, small, flickering light matters. We still believe – we MUST believe – that Love is greater than hate, than greed, than egos, than our own fears. Show us the way of grace and peace even when angry and tired. Jesus, give us courage to face this world. Help us carry our heavy loads, whatever they are, at this time.

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven … deliver us all from evil. May our hearts stay tender in love.

Ancient One, may these prayers lift spirits, lighten loads, and strengthen the love within and between the people of this world. Help us to believe, as Julian of Norwich did, “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”

Lord in your mercy, hear our prayer.

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, one God and mother of us all,

Amen.