Read Ephesians 6:10-18

ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“We use God’s mighty weapons, not worldly weapons, to knock down the strongholds of human reasoning and to destroy false arguments. We destroy every proud obstacle that keeps people from knowing God. We capture their rebellious thoughts and teach them to obey Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:4-5 NLT).

Have you ever heard of the novel Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter by author Seth Grahame Smith? If not, you may have at least remembered the film of the same name based off of the same novel. It is a story that takes well-known facts about Abraham Lincoln, facts such as the loss of his mother due to ilness at an early age, growing up in poverty, learning to read and write himself, becoming a lawyer, then a politician, then president, etc., and weaved them into an alternate reality where vampires exist and Abraham Lincoln, despite what we think we know about him, is actually a vampire hunter.

In this reality, it was vampires who caused his mom to die, it was vampires who were funding the South and feeding off of its slaves. In fact, it was that very fact that was causing freed slaves to be brought back down South, to feed the vampires on the blood of those not even the Northerners would truly care about. In this alternate reality, Lincoln vows to kill the one who killed his mom and he takes up with a rather unlikely mentor to learn how to wield his axe against more than just trees and firewood.

The whole history of Abraham Lincoln is thus seen through this lense of a world infiltrated by vampires, evil spirits that look to divide and conquer an entire nation. Of course, for a time Lincoln hangs up his axes, so-to-speak, to run for and lead the U.S of A. as President as a way of defeating the South (and thus the Vampires) through legislation; however, that quickly leads to a Civil War that the country is doomed to lose unless Lincoln embraces his Hunter past and starts to fight the enemy on its own terms.

That’s more than enough context to begin to make a point that struck me as I was thinking of this story. In fact, I rewatched the film recently to make sure I was not off point in my memory. Still, this story would seem on the surface to be a retelling of history as we know it. It would appear to present, in fact, an alternate history, one that is more based in terrifying fantasy than reality. I mean, we all know Abraham Lincoln’s history. We know the history of racism in our country, and we need not conjure up vampires to pin evil down on the segments of humanity that perpetuate it.

With that said, in some ways, I argue that our version of history is actually dead wrong, pardon the pun, and this “alternate” history is actually more real than we realize. Now, of course, I am not suggesting that Abraham Lincoln was actually a VAMPIRE HUNTER nor that vampires in the physically undead sense are actually real, however, I am suggesting that evil forces have always been at work behind the scenes. That was no different in Lincoln’s day and it is certainly no different now. Lincoln on many levels understood this and the burden that he carried as a result was very visible. He was a broken man leading a broken nation toward some semblance of unity and righteousness. An impossible task on so many levels and yet, it was the task he undertook.

Our history as we present it only paints a very limited portrait. We in the modern world are so quick to dismiss things of the spiritual realm. Even we in the church try to dismiss things that might get us Christians preceived as “out there” or “fanatics” or “crazy”. Think about it, there is nothing we can do to stop people from thinking those things anyway.

Let’s be honest, we worship a God who shed divinity, took on a male human identity, got crucified and died. That same God rose again from the dead, ascended into heaven (a place we can’t see, touch, taste, hear, or smell…let alone sense), and sits at the right hand side of, wait for it, the Father-personality of himself…and that guy, that Jesus, will come back and judge all creation (alive and dead alike). If that doesn’t sound crazy, nothing will to the average person. But to us who KNOW IT TO BE TRUE, it is ULTIMATE REALITY. What’s more, we also know that there are evil forces, demons if you will, that exist in the Spiritual realm…that we are at war with dark forces and, truthfully, we are either the hunters or the possessed when it comes to those forces.

By hunter, I don’t mean one wields an axe or any weapon other than one’s faith in Jesus Christ. We do so through reading Scripture, through prayer, through fasting, through Holy Communion, through worship and attending to all of the ordinances of God. When we participate in the life of the Holy Spirit, we are filled with a life that wages war against the spirits and principalities in this world. That war has been going since the beginning of humanity’s fall and Christ will finally return and put sin, death, and evil to an ultimate end.

So, while we know that stories such as vampire stories are fictitious on one level, they do point to a truth on a deeper and more spiritual level. Out in the world, out the hostile and cruel world, there are forces at work beyond our imagining and, truth be told, vampires do exist everywhere. Anyone or anything that lives off of you by sucking the lifeforce out of you spiritually, emotionally, or psychologically is a vampire. We don’t respond to those dark influences judgmentally, but by prayerfully and Spiritually handing them over to Christ.

Jesus Christ, as in the fictitious stories, is the antidote evil in whatever forms it presents itself and we, his heavenly ambassadors, have the power and the obligation to resist such evil at all costs. Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, understood this. The Apostles, the earliest church Fathers and Mothers, the aesthetics and mystics, as well as saints such as Mother Teresa of Calcutta, Rev. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. all understood this and paid with their lives in one form or another. Friends, let us also understand this wisdom and allow Christ to prepare us for the spiritual war that is raging.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
We wage battle not with swords or spears, guns or tanks; rather with the Word of God, Jesus Christ, through our presence with and loving service to those the world shuns, the outcast, the needy and the least of these.

PRAYER
Lord, help me lead others to where they otherwise might not see. Help me to be a sign of your love, presence and grace to all I come in contact with. Amen.