By Rev. Aidan Moon

Evil Can Be Beaten

You can listen to today’s devotion by clicking this SoundCloud link. 

“The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.”

Romans 16:20, English Standard Version

Lately my son has been on the hunt for dragons.

As soon as he could talk, we knew he had an active imagination. And for a little kid, an active imagination isn’t always a good thing. There are plenty of scary things in the world. There are unexplained noises in the night, scary dreams, and there’s no way to shelter a kid from everything that might frighten him.

The author G.K. Chesterton, a favorite of mine, said it this way:

“The timidity of the child… is entirely reasonable; they are alarmed at this world, because this world is a very alarming place. Fairy tales, then, are not responsible for producing in children fear, or any of the shapes of fear; fairy tales do not give the child the idea of the evil or the ugly; that is in the child already, because it is in the world already… The baby has known the dragon intimately ever since he had an imagination.” What the fairy tale provides for him is a St. George to kill the dragon.

There is evil in the world. There are dark forces at work. But the greatest of stories tells us just what all the great stories do: that evil can be defeated.

Scripture describes another dragon. A dragon called Satan: read Revelation 12 for a very different version of the Christmas story! There is an evil at work in the world that seeks to destroy God’s plan.

But Jesus fights for us. Jesus by dying destroys the power of death. Jesus battles evil. And it is in his victory, that we too, little children in a big fearful world, are promised that we have nothing to fear.

So we’ll tell our son these stories. So that he might know that he has a champion. That he doesn’t have to be afraid. That with Jesus on his side, he can fight the dragons.

Copyright Family of Christ Lutheran Church, Colorado Springs, Colorado