This blog serves as an outreach for Pastor Randy Powell of the First Baptist Church of Franklin, PA. Feel free to ask questions or send me an e-mail at pastorpowell@hotmail.com
In J.R.R. Tolkien's masterpiece, The Fellowship of the Ring, the titular fellowship arrives with its nine members at the Gates of Moria, the old entrance to the ancient dwarf kingdom long since abandoned. The fellowship are in desperate straits, their first attempt to move forward with the quest of destroying the One Ring had been defeated soundly when a blizzard closed the mountain pass. Now, with wolves approaching they find themselves facing a locked door. Gandalf purposes to lead them under the mountain to the other side, but the way forward is blocked. Unless Gandalf can decode the door's cryptic message, "Speak friend, and enter" by recalling the password that will open the magically sealed doors, this entire mission may end in failure before it accomplishes anything.
As the scene unfolds, Gandalf tries potential solutions in great number, all end in failure. Despite all his wisdom and skill, nothing works. That is until someone with a lot less wisdom and skill, the hobbit Merry, realizes that they had the answer all along. The door's message should have been translated, "Speak 'friend', and enter." As soon as Gandalf spoke the Elvish word for friend, the doors came open. The mystery of the sealed doors was really no mystery at all, the answer was written in plain sight.
As the Easter narrative begins in Mark's Gospel, we see Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome on their way to the tomb to honor Jesus by further preparing his body for its final burial place. Having come very early in the morning, after a Sabbath when few of Jesus' followers could have known any peace following his horrific murder on a Cross, the women don't realize until they reach the garden that they don't have a plan to remove the large stone from the tomb's entrance. Thus, "Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?" is a question that needs an answer, one the women don't have. Or so it seems to them.
In reality, God had already moved the stone, the tomb of Jesus had already been transformed from a place of sorrow, into history's most incredible victory monument. There was nothing wrong with the women being concerned about the stone, it was a legitimate obstacle from their point-of-view, but keeping with the pattern found in the scripture's of God's will and purpose being in motion whether his people are aware of it or not, God had answered their question before they even asked it.
We sometimes forget this, or at least don't act like we know it, but God has already answered all of life's most important questions for us. There are no riddles left for us to solve before we can move forward, when Jesus rose from the grave, the question, "What is the meaning of life?" had a full and powerful answer. So too did, "How am I supposed to live my life?" and "What happens to us when we die?" God has not called us to serve a cause that we can hope might succeed, but one in which the victory has already been secured, no need for us to worry about rolling away the stone.
5 The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. 6 And he said to him, “I will give you all their authority and splendor; it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. 7 If you worship me, it will all be yours.”
8 Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.’”
How many Lord of the Rings references have I made over the years? Too many to count, and with that in mind, here's one more:
Toward the end of The Fellowship of the Ring, Frodo offers the Ring of Power to Galadriel, and elven Lord who has taken a leading part in the war against evil (first Morgoth, now Sauron) for thousands of years. What will she do if given the chance to end the fight, to take in her own hand sufficient power to put aside all doubt and fear that Evil might triumph over Good?
“And now at last it comes. You will give me the Ring freely! In place of the Dark Lord you will set up a Queen. And I shall not be dark, but beautiful and terrible as the Morning and the Night! Fair as the Sea and the Sun and the Snow upon the Mountain! Dreadful as the Storm and the Lightning! Stronger than the foundations of the earth. All shall love me and despair!”
She lifted up her hand and from the ring that she wore there issued a great light that illuminated her alone and left all else dark. She stood before Frodo seeming now tall beyond measurement, and beautiful beyond enduring, terrible and worshipful. Then she let her hand fall, and the light faded, and suddenly she laughed again, and lo! she was shrunken: a slender elf-woman, clad in simple white, whose gentle voice was soft and sad.
“I pass the test”, she said. “I will diminish, and go into the West and remain Galadriel.”
Galadriel passed the test. She chose to reject the power of domination and subjugation in favor of trusting in the hope that Frodo can somehow destroy the Ring, "a fool's hope" as Gandalf describes it, but better than the folly of embracing evil to fight evil.
Jesus, of course, does the same thing. He resists the easy path, the one without sacrifice, the one that has a deal-breaker of a caveat (worshiping the Devil), choosing instead to continue on the pre-ordained path of the Suffering Servant until the brutal end.
How then does this apply to 'Christian' Nationalism? A straightforward application, indeed. 'Christian' Nationalism's premise is that it can serve the purpose of God by dominating the kingdoms of this world, to do so it chooses to utilize the tools and methods of this world, crushing and subjugating all opposition, and somehow in the end hoping to create a nation that honors God. It would be laughable if it were not so deadly dangerous. It won't work, it cannot work. Galadriel was wise enough to see the folly of trying to overcome evil with evil, Jesus wasn't about to entertain it, let alone try it, so why have so many self-professed Christians today decided that they can get the better out of a deal with the Devil?
My congregation knows that I will use an illustration from the Lord of the Rings whenever one comes to me, its either a gift to them or a curse, depending upon one's view of Tolkien's masterpiece. That being said, while I was re-reading the LOTR for the 15th+ time this past week, I was struck by the wisdom of a conversation between the wizard Gandalf (who is actually an immortal Maiar named Olorin {nerd alert!}, akin to an angel), and the leaders of the resistance to Sauron (also a Maiar, i.e. a fallen angel or demon). Gandalf tells Aragorn, the next king of Gondor, Eomer, the next king of Rohan, Prince Imrahil, and the sons of Elrond that, "it is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till. What weather they shall have is not ours to rule."
What, then, is the relevance of the advice of a fictional wizard given to fellow fictional characters regarding a fictional moral and existential threat? As it turns out, a great deal. J.R.R. Tolkien's mythology, while embracing at times a Norse attitude of fatalism influenced by a belief in Ragnarok (seen in the ride of the Rohirrim to battle to aid Gondor, despite the near-certainty of defeat), remained fundamentally an ethos that reflected his own Christian worldview. Tolkien believed in God as Creator, in God as Savior, and in God as the ultimate judge of humanity. He believed that our actions, and our attitudes, matter. He believed in the reality of Right and Wrong. And so, when faced with a seemingly insurmountable evil, the advice of Gandalf, a voice that could double as that of Tolkien himself, is to do our best with what is in front of us.
It has become common in politics, and more frighteningly, for some within the Church, to look at global problems, national problems, or even localized problems, as being too big to solve. If the problem cannot be 100% fixed with any particular attempted solution, then the effort is dismissed and nothing is done. In other words, if the whole problem can't be solved in one fell swoop, don't bother trying. This myopic pessimism is both morally reprehensible and extremely dangerous. If 1,000 children were starving in the midst of a famine, and you only had food enough to save 10, how would you explain to Almighty God that you decided to do nothing, not even save those you had the power to save, because you couldn't do everything? To do nothing is an act of moral cowardice, to do nothing is a violation of what has been entrusted to us by God.
What moral evil is starring you right in the face? What problem is in your very neighborhood, as an individual, a church, or a community, that you could impact with the resources you already have? Do something, try, make an effort in the battle between Good and Evil.
Consider the words of the 18th century philosopher Edmund Burke, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." We must act, we must strive, for evil does not sleep.
With more authority, a few examples of the call to action from Scripture:
Matthew 25:14-46, the parable of the Talents (in which the one who is condemned buries his responsibility in the ground and does nothing) as well as the famous line, "I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mind, you did for me."
Ephesians 6:10-13, Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11 Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. 13 Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.
Hebrews 12:1-3, Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, 2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3 Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
James 2:17-18, 17 In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. 18 But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.” Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds.
Steven Spielberg uses this same notion as the capstone of Schindler's List, a variation of a quote from the Talmud (Sanhedrin 4:5) spoken by Ben Kingsley's character, Itzhak Stern: "Whoever saves one life, saves the world entire."
