Tonight, we are discussing Chapter 9, “Get Behind Me, Satan,” and Chapter 10, “The War of the Lamb,” of Richard Beck’s book Reviving Old Scratch: Demons and the Devil for Doubters and the Disenchanted. In Chapter 10, Beck discusses what it means that our leader is a sacrificial lamb.
The Beatitudes: (pp.95-97)
Beck opens this chapter with a recollection of his teaching of the Beatitudes to his prison Bible Study. (If you have time today, please review the Beatitudes in Matthew 5:3-10.) As Beck reached the third Beatitude, “Blessed are the Meek,” the discussion came to a halt. His men in white told him that meekness in prison is a sign of weakness and invites violence. As his men told him, following the Beatitudes put their very lives in danger.
Beck realizes, as we should, that the Beatitudes should be terrifying. Although the risk to our personal safety is not the same as that in a maximum-security prison, the idea that we must possess and demonstrate kindness, gentleness, and meekness to everyone in all the world should scare us.
In his essay “Kill the Commentators,” Søren Kierkegaard writes that we should “Take any words of the New Testament and pledge ourselves to act accordingly. My God, you will say, if I do that, my whole life will be ruined. How will I ever get on in the world?” Beck challenges us to read the Beatitudes (and the rest of the New Testament) in this same light. How does our following Jesus put us at a “disadvantage” in the world?
The War of the Lamb: (pp.97-101)
Back draws our attention to Revelation. The hero of Revelation is not a great warrior but the Lamb. The Lamb who sits on the throne in Revelation 5 is not only the most docile of animals (Isa. 11:6) but also appears to have been slaughtered. However, it is this slaughtered Lamb that triumphs in the Battle of Heaven in Revelation 12. He conquers only through his blood and his testimony. Christ achieves his victory over Satan through sacrificial love, not violence. It is only through love (as best defined in 1 Corinthians 13) that the battle is won.
Beck ends the chapter with two specific examples of the physical and social costs of living out a Christian life. One of his men in prison left his prison gang and was beaten so severely that his eye fell out of its socket. Another example is an unnamed individual who left his position as Director of Education at a prestigious institution to teach in a low-income, inner-city high school. (This is similar to Fr. Henri Nouwen’s journey in leaving Harvard to teach at a school for the mentally disabled.) The question that Beck wants us to ask ourselves is, in what way have we imitated the slaughtered Lamb in living our lives and engaging in our spiritual battles?
Dinner is at 6. The menu is chicken parmesan. Discussion about 6:45. Hope to see you here!
And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. 11 And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death.” Revelation 12:10-11