Shock and awe

"I believe that Christ died for me because it is incredible; I believe that He rose from the dead because it is impossible." ~ A.W. Tozer "The Knowledge of the Holy"

The term “shock and awe” was coined in 1996 by two military strategists from the National Defense University of the United States. They defined it as; "to affect the will, perception, and understanding of the adversary to fit or respond to our strategic policy ends through imposing a regime of Shock and Awe." They went on to further define it as; “"impose this overwhelming level of Shock and Awe against an adversary on an immediate or sufficiently timely basis to paralyze its will to carry on . . . [to] seize control of the environment and paralyze or so overload an adversary's perceptions and understanding of events that the enemy would be incapable of resistance at the tactical and strategic levels."

While this policy has been used very effectively by the US Military establishment I would like to point out that this has been used more effectively on a spiritual level; in the New Testament of the Bible. The four gospels and the Pauline epistles are filled with real life stories that shocked the perceptions and understanding of the religious establishment and in some cases seized control of the environment and overloaded perceptions and understanding of events and rendered those who came in contact with it incapable of resistance. The Gospel was and is shocking and for someone transformed by it’s power it should drive us to a daily humility and be awe inspiring!

Recently our Pastor preached on the incarnation and birth of Jesus Christ from Matthew 1 and he pointed out some of the shocking statements in the narrative. At this time in history there were certain groups who were viewed with suspicion and disdain; shepherds, magi and women. Shepherds and women were not allowed to testify in a Jewish court and magi would have been lumped in the category of Gentiles (non-Jews) and sorcerers. These were not the heralds we have would picked, not the way to grab an audience’s attention and not who the “religious” would identify with as a source of credibility for the Messiah. (Check out Tyndale's NT Commentary on Matthew by R.T. France...)

Yet when we think about it the entire Bible and specifically the New Testament is filled with story after story of this type of role reversal and startling visuals.

• Jesus called 12 ordinary men to be His disciples, none that the world would have considered great, scholarly or worthy of such a high calling.
• Dining with Zaccheus the social outcast and tax extortionist ally of the Romans.
• The Prodigal Son where a son disrespects his father, cannot wait for him to die and demands his inheritance, wastes it on sinful pleasure and yet is welcomed back with open arms by an undignified father who ran to meet him.
• The Good Samaritan that tells of an enemy of “the righteous” from a mixed heritage and heretical background knows more about love and compassion than the religious and law abiding. (Gordon Fee states that in our society today it would be like telling a fundamentalist that a gay activist or atheist knows more about love than us…)
• Jesus mingling with those considered ceremonially unclean and being labeled “friend of sinners.”
• Jesus speaking to the woman at the well or not joining in to stone the woman caught in adultery.
• And the ultimate; the shocking and humble death on the Cross of a Messiah that was supposed to conquer and kill the enemies of the righteousness.

This is just a short list and it doesn’t even touch on the fact that God used the chief persecutor of the early church as the one who was shocked on the road to Damascus. Paul was so paralyzed and overloaded by mercy and grace that it caused him to serve the rest of his life in wonder and awe as the “chief of sinners.”

In our day to day existence do we forget the shock and awe of the Gospel? The Gospel can stand on its own merit without knowing any of the cultural background or how shocking many of the actions and statements that Jesus Christ made would have been to a 1st Century reader. We don’t need to know the historical or cultural underpinnings of the Bible to have it affect our will or seize control of us but as we grow in our understanding of grace it cannot help but strengthen our faith and draw us closer to God.

“For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.” Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.” ~ 1 Corinthians 1:17-25