"My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world." -John 18:36
Jesus is not asking us to fight physical battles on his behalf. The days of ethnic Israel marching into battle with a trumpet blast, the ark of the covenant carried by the Levites at the vanguard, with the tribe of Dan serving as the rearguard, are long gone. God's people, followers of Jesus, Jews and Gentiles alike, are no longer a political entity. All the guns and ammo on the planet will not usher in the consummation of the kingdom of God on earth. Our devotion to Christ must always trump our devotion to the Constitution of the United States. We know this because Jesus said it plainly. There may never have been an ethnic group on this planet more zealously committed to their way of life and the God they believed established it than the people of Israel. Some of that zealousness remains to this very day. Jesus grew up in that atmosphere, he was steeped in Judaism and the bitterness that almost every Jew in his day felt about the occupation of Palestine by pagan Rome. One of his own disciples had been a "Zealot," and was still named with that moniker.
Yet in the upper room on Passover, when he warned his disciples that now would be the time for them to carry their sword for protection, his disciples over-zealously produced two, to which Jesus quickly replied, "It is enough." He did not prohibit the carrying or even the use of the sword for defense, but he would not allow it to be used to advance the kingdom, or to thwart the fulfillment of his mission as the Lamb of God. At his arrest his disciples asked him hastily, "Lord, shall we strike with the sword?" Peter then followed through, striking a blow at the high priest's servant and severing his right ear, a blow Peter obviously intended to be fatal. Jesus quickly put an end to the violence, commanding Peter to put the sword away and healing the wound of the battered and bloodied man (cf. Luke 22:51; John 18:10-11).
We are now in the midst of the Lenten season, a season in which we consecrate our time to God, focusing on repentance and living intentionally for his glory. We should do this every day of our lives as Christ followers, it is true. The Lenten observance simply helps us to be intentional about this idea for a season of the year. It might do us all some good, whether we are observing Lent or not, to focus our thoughts for a day on the reality that our citizenship is not here, but in heaven. Peter, the one who was willing to fight and die for an earthly kingdom at one stage in his life, reminds us in his first letter, written close to three decades later, that he has come to view things differently. We are strangers and aliens here, and aliens do not fight for a kingdom that is not their own. When our government legitimately calls us to take up arms in defense of our nation, or when we serve under the authority of the government as peace keepers, I believe we may serve and even fight. Self-defense is acceptable even as Christians. But as citizens of God's eternal kingdom, we are commanded to be at peace. We dare not coerce others to our beliefs with the sword - Jesus will have none of that. When the gospel is at stake, we must be willing to suffer for Christ, at all costs. A long line of martyrs await us in heaven, all of whom laid down their lives in obedience to Christ's command to not fight physical battles on behalf of God's kingdom. Simon Peter is one of them. Lent is a season of peace, looking forward to the observance of the day when the Prince of Peace willingly laid down his life for our justification, followed by the glorious day when he was supernaturally raised to life that we might know new life in him. Let us offer peace to one another and to those who have yet to embrace the Man who would not win a kingdom as the world wins kingdoms, but who now sits on a throne forever nevertheless. As citizens of heaven, be at peace - it is the command of your king.
Grace and peace,
Pastor Jym