Memorial Day 2018

by Ken Sehested

If, in the end, I did not believe that grace will ultimately
rob the grave of its triumph—that mercy will finally trump
vengeance—then I would opt for any and every form of
resistance to imperial sovereignty, including any and every
form of “terrorism” (whose designation is always assigned
by those currently in control, as if imperious rule is not
itself the most definitive expression of terror’s sway).

The reign of brutality must be challenged, to the death if
need be. But the nature of that challenge, its form and shape
and character, is shaped by one’s vision of the future:
to whom it belongs, by what means it is secured, and by
what authority it is granted.

If strength of arm and guile of heart form the matrix of
abiding power, then only the strong survive; and Jesus would
have fared better by calling on those twelve legions of
special-op angels (cf. Matthew 26:53), standing at the ready
to intervene in Rome’s judicial conclusion and the Jerusalem
elite’s connivance over the Nazarene’s fate.

The insurgency of divine Forbearance operates on a different
frequency, its anointed agents advancing on roads unknown
to current mapmakers, their plowshared swords and pruning
hook weapons turned from human enmity toward fertile
fields of bounty and abundance, each to rest ’neath vine
and fig tree, with none no more forever to fear.

How do you know, for certain, that the Jesus Road is the
one that leads Home? You don’t . . . or you do. Up to you.
The Spirit blows where it will, confounding all contempt,
untamed by proselytizers and profiteers alike, jailbreaking,
debt-revoking, fraud-annulling at every turn, consigning
every malice-maker to their damnable ends.

Spirit-troubling water is available, children, to all willing
to wade. But don’t just wade. Let yourself be immersed in
that reviving flood, covering even your tippy-top head.
There’s no getting right with God; there’s only getting soaked.

©ken sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org