Spy Balloons, Bus Beatings, and Yes… the Body of Christ

You’ve seen it, right? The video of the Chinese Spy Balloon? The horrifying video of a young girl being beaten by a teenage boy on a school bus? Many have “seen” it. Many will “hear and hear… look and look, but never understand…” We are that generation. Ever seeing and never perceiving. What do these two things have in common and what does it mean for The Body of Christ? Everything. And everything.

 

This week a Chinese spy balloon was tracked, not floating adrift but steered, over the United States of America. We knew about it over the open sea of the ocean, over the rural parts of the Northwest, over the populated cities… and then moving into the heartland, before it will eventually exit US skies. Our government officials have acknowledged it is here without consent, that it breaches our sovereignty, and that there is little that can be done about it. We’ve been told bringing it down now would pose serious threat to people on the ground if it were to break up and fall from the sky. The balloon is hardly just a balloon, it is the size of 2 city buses, with as much weight, metal, and mass. But we can rest assured, the balloon specifically poses no threat to us. Not now.

 

This week also saw a nine-year-old girl viciously beaten by boys on a school bus. We now know the assault was directed at siblings, nine and ten. Multiple boys hit them repeatedly as they tried to take cover in their seat, including and primarily a much larger teen. But also, a seven-year-old was among the attackers. Seven. Put that in perspective, if you don’t have kids or teach you may not understand the size gaps… but a third-grade girl was brutally beaten by an eighth and first-grade boy, and one other unknown young man. As shocking as the actual violence, is the reality that neither the children nor adults on the bus intervened quickly. But many recorded it. The parents had gone to the school and district repeatedly about targeted bullying. But “kids will be kids…” “you should change schools…” “there’s nothing we can do…” “no threat was posed…” Until it was.

 

Let him who has ears hear. Let him who has eyes see. We have a problem–perhaps a seemingly small problem, like a balloon, that causes much greater problems, like a beating. We have a problem with authority, apathy, and sovereignty. It may seem like these are the problems of “they” and “them” out there in carnality. But friend, the problems of the sinful world often, if not always, trace their roots to a silent witness. In the Church.

 

God has put enmity between His children and wickedness. Not neutrality. Sin after sin, escalating in boldness, has floated into our atmosphere unquestioned, unopposed. Unstopped. “Just let it do its thing… it poses no threat… it would be far more dangerous to address it…” It’s too dangerous to call out the sexual sin we see. It’s too costly to object to the lawlessness we see. It (fill in the blank with whatever fleshy fruit we have chosen to normalize) is too much and we (though we operate in the authority and power of THE RESURRECTED CHRIST)… are too little.

 

Friend, conflict has cost. But so does complacency. Confrontation comes with risk. But so does compromise. Kid, living with courage and conviction can kill you. Someone should tell you that, it might as well be me. But so can quiet, passive, shame. One may be a quick or brutal death. The other a slow and dignified poisoning of the soul, without bruise or blood. But dead is dead. Decomposition and decay is no sweeter, for circumstance.

 

As a nation, as a society, as the Body of Believers… we find ourselves with less and less worth defending, shamed into silence for the sake of tolerance or acquiescing ignorance. Down goes the history and history maker. Shamed and damned, all. Erected in its place harmless, new idols. Down go the ways of life in the western world. Up with large and looming new “intelligence” and education. It wasn’t that great anyway. Said by people who smile at the lesser systems they have never suffered under. We have laid down arms over creation, over life, over marriage… over the obvious abuse, manipulation, and mutilation of children.

This is the message our measured and calculating cowardice sends: Biblical authority is not worth the fight. His sovereignty is not worth the cost. Holiness is hardly worth the hassle of objection.

 

We don’t even put up a fight, when there is an actual fight. Not even when children are the victims. Or the aggressors. There is nothing new under the sun. Children imitate what they see adults do, or in this case do not do. We have modeled apathy perfectly for the next generation. One balloon is hardly one hundred balloons. But whether one hundred or one thousand, if they oppose God… bring them down. There’s a reason God wanted us to understand HIS WORD as light to see clearly and rightly, consuming fire, dividing sword, and a hammer of demolition. And not a camera or a journal. We are ambassadors of the Living God equipped with FAR MORE THAN INSTRUMENTS OF OBSERVATION. 

 

We are here to engage. We are here to be SALT. Debris fields be damned when the lost and hurting are waiting in chains, languishing in captivity.

We will change nothing by objecting to nothing. Pleading private conviction is not truth or love. No where in Scripture is unexpressed sentiment sufficient for anything. We aren’t saved by it. We aren’t known by it. On earth or in Heaven.

Your friends may not expect more, the bully or your neighbor on the bus may not expect more, the enemy testing your resolve may not expect more. But Holy God will. And no one else will matter. There will be no congratulations in glory for the Church that did too little, too late.

HIS authority extends to even the lawless or unjust. HIS sovereignty rules in every realm. Prince of the air… psshhh. Time to act like your victory is assured and your eternity secured. EVERY HIGH THING MUST COME DOWN.