Thought for Today
Genesis 1:21 So God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, of every kind, with which the waters swarm, and every winged bird of every kind. And God saw that it was good.
Psalm 148:7 Praise the LORD from the earth, you sea monsters and all deeps,
Matthew 11:18 For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, 'He has a demon';
Matthew 12:40 For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so for three days and three nights the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth.
If you have ever seen an ancient map, you may have seen the notation “Terra Incognita.” That Latin phrase means ‘unknown land’ or ‘unknown territory.’ There would often be a further notation along the lines of ‘Here There Be Monsters.’ Are there monsters lurking in our world? Are there demons?
Many young children are afraid of the dark; some fear there are monsters under their beds. I have frequently mentioned that prayer offered by the English poet Alfred Noyes, “From Ghoulies and Ghoosties, long-leggety Beasties, and Things that go Bump in the Night, Good Lord deliver us!” (wordhistories.net) Is God’s Creation full of ghoulies, ghoosties, long-leggety beasties and things that go bump in the night? Is that the explanation for all of the evil in our world?
Our earliest ancestors-in-the-faith understood that there are some very large creatures in the oceans, τὰ μεγάλα (tah megala). That Greek word is usually an adjective simply meaning large, spacious, wide, long. When it’s used as a noun, whales and giant squid come to mind, possibly even the mythical kraken. Most young children who encounter the story of Jonah are fascinated by the idea of Jonah 1:17, “But the LORD provided a large fish to swallow up Jonah; and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.” But, in that story, the whale does nothing monstrous. The whale is merely a whale. Are there monsters lurking in our world? Are there demons?
The problem of evil and its association with the unknown has existed since the very dawn of humanity. One does not get very far into the Bible before encountering evil in its most basic form, disobedience to the expressed will of God. God instructed Adam and Eve not to eat the fruit of a single tree. Everything else was theirs for the taking. What did they do? They ate! Their excuses, “’3:12 The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate" and, “’13 The serpent tricked me, and I ate.’" The Bible doesn’t even tell us the serpent was evil, merely that it was “3:1 more crafty than any other wild animal that the LORD God had made.” That Greek word φρονιμώτατος (phronimotatos) has the meaning of “relating to the quality of one’s thinking resulting from insight, wise, intelligent, sensible.” (Friberg, Analytical Greek Lexicon) Who was the monster, the instigator of the evil? Adam? Eve?
Similarly, in the story of Cain and Abel, who was the monster, the devil responsible for the first death, the first instance of fratricide? As a Christian, I know that Cain had other options. What made Cain think that killing Abel would repair Cain’s relationship with our Creator God? Were there ghoulies, ghoosties, long-leggety beasties and things that go bump in the night whispering in Cain’s ears?
I am ‘of an age’ that I remember the cartoon character Pogo. The main line I remember from that character is “We have met the enemy and he is us!” I may have mangled the exact quotation, but the idea remains. Every time I hear a news story or watch one on television depicting a mass shooting, I think of those words of Pogo. Much as I would love to blame the ghoulies, ghoosties, long-leggety beasties and things that go bump in the night, the monsters and/or the demons, I remember Pogo.
Evil is real. Evil exists. Evil is pernicious and sometimes seductive. Good things happen to bad people. Bad things happen to good people. Good things happen to good people. Bad things happen to bad people. Leibnitz was correct, “You cannot reconcile the existence of an omnipotent God, a loving God and the existence of evil.”
As a Christian, I know that our primary recourse to it all is prayer. Cain should have talked to God. Jonah should have listened to God. We all can work toward and pray for a world where God’s will is done just as it is in heaven. It’s up to us.
Stay safe, work toward the Kingdom, trust God,
Pastor Ray