“8 And Stephen, full of grace and power, was doing great wonders and signs among the people. 9 Then some of those who belonged to the synagogue of the Freedmen (as it was called), and of the Cyrenians, and of the Alexandrians, and of those from Cilicia and Asia, rose up and disputed with Stephen. 10 But they could not withstand the wisdom and the Spirit with which he was speaking. 11 Then they secretly instigated men who said, “We have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and God.” 12 And they stirred up the people and the elders and the scribes, and they came upon him and seized him and brought him before the council, 13 and they set up false witnesses who said, “This man never ceases to speak words against this holy place and the law, 14 for we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and will change the customs that Moses delivered to us.” 15 And gazing at him, all who sat in the council saw that his face was like the face of an angel.” (Acts 6:8-15 ESV)
Melting around one another, the warrior’s courage comes from a King who was Eternal and won All Things. Pinched, constricted, the heavyset nature of war beckons the martyr and the soldier to place their trust in something Higher, in Christ’s Eternal Victory, in All Things Won.
We melt insofar as our own pride peeks forth; this shall not stand! This… we have not the weight in and of ourselves to overcome that Willful Counterpositional stand. We are hated and we are shoved. We are lambasted and we are scorned. In no wise does it make “sense” that we would still have something to fight for. The fear is there: that the tides are against one another and theirs… theirs had a headstart, a decade or a day longer to prepare; that we are off kilter and on our heels; that no matter who “wins”, something inchoate is lost, something fungible is destroyed, something treasured is mocked and derided.
Therefore the soldier learns to Trust God to bring about a burrowing, complete, thorough-going Victory. God literally uses this and more, to demonstrate His power of Love, His ways of punching the wall rather than us, punching His own Son, to elicit or illuminate or pattern-match or suggest, a Refusal to Concede and a Fighting Spirit that dares to Forgive.
Who needs forgiveness? It is all sensitive stuff, that we talk about in the confessional. Our own excesses… these are not always easy to repent of and reform ourselves around their absence: we do repent, but we forget that we are still possessed of an apple called Knowledge, that taints our walk. However, we also have known Immediate Restoration, as being us unashamedly leaning on the gathering, to know Forgiveness Now. To know venturing forward Now. To know that former associations, tempting scenarios, scenes of sinful excesses, these no longer hold sway over us, yes, and so little do they hold sway over us, we forget and dance as though utterly free of temptation. Only, the temptations are the greater having once attempted to rid ourselves, once having attempted to “fast”, once having resolved to use “Law” against our own inclinations and trials.
The soldier, therefore, is a motley crew member because so many “out there” do not “get it”. That we are patient parents as unto a child, an unconverted child, we love on and attempt to lean down towards, to die a bit on behalf of, and this… this “Enemy” mocks and hates and dismisses. All our hard work dissipates. We see the movie alone, though it was in all sincerity intended to Bless. We see the Christ-centric storyline… Alone. And time moves ahead, the sands pour out, the next steps are already Informing us as to the New Story and the Headship still positioned, assigned, blessed: here is what the inheritance consists of; here is what the Lamb of God has designated for His shelter and upbringing. You are, after all, refusing to submit, only this, that all of us submit to Something, to Someone. And the Christian’s test of submission may be some investment in the forgotten unconverted souls. It may be some Duty to the house’s horror tales, or to the rank and file who come with the Estate.