Thursday, August 17, 2006

Weak things

God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong (1 Corinthians 1:27).

Napoleon once made this snide remark about religion: "I observe that God is usually on the side of the strongest battalion." But it is dangerous to taunt God. In 1812, the glittering military ranks of France and its tributary kings—an army numbering over 600,000 men—crossed the Niemen to invade Russia. They captured Smolensk, won the bloody battle of Borodino, and approached Moscow itself. It was then that God sent down on them the soft, feathery flakes of feeble snow. The snows of God, the soft snows that can be melted by nothing more than a warm breath from the mouth, were too strong for Napoleon’s mighty battalions. The French soldiers perished by the thousands, and the Russian Cossacks with their wooden lances routed the miserable, frozen, famine-stricken remnant that had not been slain by that cold, northern winter. God was not on the side of the strongest that time; Alexander of Russia knew to whom he owed the victory, even if Napoleon did not, and he had the following words from Psalm 115 engraved on his commemorative medal: "Not to us, O Lord, not to us but to your name be the glory."

Is it safe to assume that God is always on the side of the strong? Not at all. God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. Jesus the Son of God was the prince of heaven, yet He did not enter our world by being born in a palace. He did not travel by royal carriage. He did not choose the intellectual elite to be His inner circle of students. He did not die the dignified death that one would expect of a powerful ruler. Instead, Jesus was born to common people in the storage shed of a roadside motel. He got where He needed to go by walking on dusty, unpaved roads. When He organized His church to continue His work after His departure, He chose men who worked with their hands to be the ones who would pass on His teachings, and He asked widows to support the ministry financially. He met the end of life with a mock trial that found Him guilty of things that He never did, but sentenced Him to a torturous, humiliating death anyway; even the grave He was buried in was a last minute gift from one of His followers.

God detests those who revel in having power. And so the Lord often reveals Himself to us through weak things, because in so doing He is showing us that He also loves and cares for we who are weak, and seem to be of little importance to the world around us.

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