Mere Missions

44 • M ere M issions : M oving F orward to M ultiply

follow His lead (Rev. 19.14). In Roman times, an army was made up of 28 legions and a legion constituted 4,000–6,000 soldiers. During the betrayal and arrest of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, when swords were drawn for battle, Jesus puts a stop to potential death and chaos and states, “Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels?” (Matt. 26.53). Jesus had the authority to command 48,000–72,000 angels to descend upon the small plot of garden ground. And to think that one of these angels of the Lord, “went out and put to death a hundred and eighty-five thousand in the Assyrian camp when they were encamped around Mount Zion/ The City of Peace/Jerusalem” (2 Kings 19.35). Jesus is not who you imagine Him to be but who He declares Himself to be and He has declared Himself to be “a man of war.” God, through the Holy Spirit, has chosen to reveal Himself to us in words and pictures that we can grasp in our finite minds. Some we cling to more than others. The Lord is a Warrior is not one that most of the Church wants to adopt. A warrior is violent, bloody, decisive, relentless, aggressive. But this is exactly the imagery/reality we need when we think about the evil destructive forces that are at work in this world. We need a Warrior who we serve in missions. When Jesus entered our humanity as a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger, it was in disguise. His first coming fooled the demonic forces of darkness. They knew who He was, but they didn’t know why He had entered into their domain. “Ha! What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God” (Luke 4.34). But they were wrong. It wasn’t yet the time of their demise. Jesus had entered as, “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1.29). The Lamb of God who suffered and died, rose from the dead as the Victorious Warrior. He has “disarmed the rulers and