A Light That Overcomes

Lately it’s felt like the world has had about all of this messy disaster it can take, and my heart doesn't feel big enough to contain all the empathy and compassion it would take to amount for the tragedies we hear about in the news every day. My eyes haven’t seen enough in life to come close to understanding what is happening on the other side of the world, and most times it’s pretty hard to believe that it’s the reality of so many people everyday. These attacks feel so distant and yet they’re something that God has recently laid heavily on my heart.

I can’t pretend to understand everything that it happening with the conflict in Syria and with ISIS and sex slavery and all the terrorist attacks, but I would like to take time to really make us think about the role that worship and art plays in the midst of these situations and maybe to give a bit of a different perspective that has recently challenged me in a pretty big way.

We all have a heart for the victim, for the innocent person who seems to have been caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. For those who have lost their lives in shootings, those who have been used and abused, and for the millions of refugees who are fleeing their countries which have become war zones. Hearing their stories is heartbreaking and gut-wrenching and honestly from where I’m standing, beyond what I’m able to understand.

Here’s where this crazy idea I have gets a bit tricky - I was reading in Acts about Saul who would become the Apostle Paul, and how he persecuted Christians, throwing them in jail and even commending those who stoned Stephen who later became recognised as the first martyr.

It says in Acts 7:54-8:8

"At that point they went wild, a rioting mob of catcalls and whistles and invective. But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, hardly noticed—he only had eyes for God, whom he saw in all his glory with Jesus standing at his side. He said, “Oh! I see heaven wide open and the Son of Man standing at God’s side!”

Yelling and hissing, the mob drowned him out. Now in full stampede, they dragged him out of town and pelted him with rocks. The ringleaders took off their coats and asked a young man named Saul to watch them.

59-60 As the rocks rained down, Stephen prayed, “Master Jesus, take my life.” Then he knelt down, praying loud enough for everyone to hear, “Master, don’t blame them for this sin”—his last words. Then he died.

Saul was right there, congratulating the killers.

That set off a terrific persecution of the church in Jerusalem. The believers were all scattered throughout Judea and Samaria. All, that is, but the apostles. Good and brave men buried Stephen, giving him a solemn funeral—not many dry eyes that day!

And Saul just went wild, devastating the church, entering house after house after house, dragging men and women off to jail."

As I read this I began to wonder what would happen if we began to pray and sing and play and create with this set in our minds: to see the offender encounter God in a radical way. Stephen’s last words were a prayer “Lord, do not hold this sin agains them”. I began to think of what might happen if we began to speak light into the life of the terrorist, the gunman, and the assassin…

What if we had the courage to believe for and speak into the future — that God would “open the eyes of the blind” that this good news we know would find a way to the hearts of these people. That the light would overcome the darkness and that as we declare and “proclaim freedom for ALL” this challenge would come to mind: that the cross was just as much for them as it was for us and that in fact there is no us and them, but only His.

His known

His loved

We believe in a God who SPOKE the earth into being…Do we believe in the power that our words carry ESPECIALLY as carriers of the Holy Spirit?

In The Artisan Soul Erwin McManus wrote a line that has stuck with me since I read it a few months ago. “The past will be our future until we have the courage to create a new one”

He challenges the artist to create on behalf of others. Not only for their pain, but also to speak of the hope we’ve found through art, music, film, dance and whatever other outlet we may use to create.

“A significant part of the artistic challenge is to go beyond interpreting human experience to be an interpreter of human possibility. It is so much easier to create an authentic work of art informed by despair, so much more difficult to create a true masterpiece informed by optimism and hope.”

When we're singing we are singing upward as worship to God, but we're also declaring truth to people who haven't heard it yet. It's easy for us to do this for people who are on the outskirts of church that we can maybe draw in, but I really wonder what would happen if we declared this into the lives of people where it seems impossible and outrageous that they would ever know truth. I wonder what would happen if we looked at the Apostle Paul's life as a testament to what a difference leadership can have when driven by evil versus when it is empowered by Truth and the power of the Holy Spirit.

Let's not dehumanise people for their actions, but instead pray that they will have a God encounter that will change their view of humanity forever.

Photos by Ameer Alhalbi edited by Olivia Rohonczy @oliviagrce

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