This week, I came across an article about a sermon C.S. Lewis preached at the beginning of World War II. The title caught my eye, “Learning in Wartime.” He begins with this question:
“What is the use of beginning a task which we have so little chance of finishing? Or, even if we ourselves should happen not to be interrupted by death or military service, why should we—indeed how can we—continue to take an interest in these placid occupations when the lives of our friends and the liberties of Europe are in the balance? Is it not like fiddling while Rome burns?”
Lewis had already served in World War I and dedicated his life following the war to his studies—famously writing Chronicles of Narnia and many other timeless works. Learning in Wartime unpacks the human struggle of how to keep living despite being surrounded by intense circumstances. What is the duty of both the Christian and the soldier in times of great trial?
“The war creates no absolutely new situation; it simply aggravates the permanent human situation so that we can no longer ignore it… If men had postponed the search for knowledge and beauty until they were secure, the search would never have begun. We are mistaken when we compare war with "normal life." Life has never been normal. Even those periods which we think most tranquil, like the nineteenth century, turn out, on closer inspection, to be full of crises, alarms, difficulties, emergencies. Plausible reasons have never been lacking for putting off all merely cultural activities until some imminent danger has been averted or some crying injustice put right. But humanity long ago chose to neglect those plausible reasons. They wanted knowledge and beauty now, and would not wait for the suitable moment that never comes.”
Knowledge and beauty—those 2 words encapsulate the drive of all humanity. We long for fulfillment in discovering knowledge and marveling at real beauty.
I propose this quest is fulfilled in Jesus. He is the fullness of all knowledge and beauty. Yet, His story is one of great trial, tragedy, and unimaginable hardship. From Genesis to Matthew, we can trace the lineage (seed) of Eve all the way to the birth of Jesus. He had a broken family line burdened with sins and failure. But in its midst came forth the greatest beauty ever known—the knowledge of God—found by sinful man.
In the Old Testament, the prophets searched and inquired at what time Christ would be revealed1. They endured persecution, rejection, and in some cases torture2 for the assignment of unveiling the knowledge and beauty of God to an ignorant world. This is everything the powers of darkness are warring against. The battle is over God being known.
This is our assignment: proclaim the Gospel of the Kingdom to the ends of the earth. We use whatever ordinary means we are entrusted with to exalt the worth of Jesus in both word and deed. We dig, inquire, ask, seek, and give our lives to finding and proclaiming the treasures of the New Covenant.
“If the knowledge of God were an ocean, may the balladeers be like whales: those who dwell in the depths, pursue the glories God has concealed, and bring them back to the shallows for the schools of fish to feast on and wonder at.”
— Stephanie Quick, Ruins of the Renaissance
C.S. Lewis makes the case that our lives are more than rigid categories of “sacred” and “secular”. If God fills everything with Himself, it is impossible to consolidate our lives into one or the other. There is a way we live fully in this world, with our eyes set fully on the Kingdom of God. This is only possible through Jesus because all things in heaven and on earth are united in Him.3 We live in both realities in Christ.
As the evil of this world rises, the greatest thing we can do is the greatest commandment: You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 4
We are instructed to:
Teach God’s word diligently to our children.
Talk about God’s word when we sit in our houses, walk by the way, lie down, and when we rise.
Bind God’s word as a sign on our hands, as frontlets between our eyes.
Write God’s word on the doorposts of our houses and on our gates.
The miracle of the greatest commandment is we do it whether we are at the battlefront or in the classroom. Whether we are at the office or we are at home. Our occupation in this world is secondary to the call of teaching, talking, binding, and writing the knowledge and beauty of God in every area of our lives. At the same time, the Holy Spirit takes our messy lives and broken families to become a living testimony of the Gospel we proclaim.
Only the Holy Spirit can reveal to us the worth of Jesus. What He has to offer is foolish to the world, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.5 The beauty of God is concealed from the human mind because we don’t know what real beauty is apart from Christ. As we renew our carnal minds with Scripture, He changes our appetite for real beauty. We begin to crave what’s eternal. We cry out like the Psalmist: The law of your mouth is better to me than thousands of gold and silver pieces.6
In peace and war, our calling is the same. The cross unveiled the Son of God and we are now image-bearers of His glory.7 We were made for Him. As the ground shakes beneath our feet, our King Jesus is seated on the throne above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come.8 No war, trial, tragedy, diagnosis, or death is above this throne. He is seated above.
And that is where we are seated too.9
For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. — Colossians 3:3-4