The Russian invasion of Ukraine has been overwhelmingly sad and sobering. While the indiscriminate brutality and aggression of the Russian government is shocking, the indomitable spirit of the Ukrainian people, who will fight to the finish for their freedom and dignity, is inspiring. What are we in the West, watching from our cozy warm homes, to make of all this? Here are some brief observations:
THE STRUGGLE AGAINST GOOD AND EVIL IS REAL
We are witnessing something akin to the aggression of Hitler under Nazi Germany. Putin has quashed dissent in his country by brutal force and is now murdering women and children in a land grab to restore the “glory and power” of the former Soviet Union. We are shocked that this is happening in our day, but we shouldn’t be surprised. Unfortunately, there are many totalitarian dictators throughout the world, and the threat of totalitarian regimes in Russia and China should sober us to the reality of human aggression. There is more at stake here than the price of gasoline, and deep down we know that we may be called upon in our lifetime to shake off the lethargy of materialism and fight for the dignity and freedom of others (and maybe even for ourselves).
November 14 is a national holiday in Ukraine; it is the “Day of Dignity and Freedom.” It marks the victorious struggle of Ukrainians to throw off the chains of oppression through two “revolutions:” the “Orange Revolution” in Maidan Square of 2004 and the bloody Revolution of the winter of 2013-2014. I encourage you to watch the Netflix documentary Fire in Winter, which chronicles the courage of the Ukrainians in their original fight for dignity and freedom in 2014. Putin sorely miscalculated the resolve of the Ukrainians, because once you have tasted freedom and dignity, you cannot go back. At the heart of freedom and dignity is the idea that every one of us are made in the image of God, and that there is a Higher Power that will demand an accounting of violence: “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man his blood shall be shed; for in the image of God has God made humans” (Genesis 9:8).
LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF
The struggle for freedom and dignity is at the heart of the God of the Bible. The classic example is the liberation of the Hebrews from the oppressive Egyptian slavedrivers. Once freed, their God taught them that they in turn must treat others with that same dignity and freedom that God had shown them. They must not covet what others have; they must not murder. Rather, they are to love their neighbor as they care for their own. And that “neighbor” is not just the people who are like them; it includes people from other countries, people who are different from them. Our “neighbor” is every human being because all of us are made in the image of God and deserve dignity and worth. “When a foreigner lives with you in your land, do not mistreat him. The foreigner living with you must be treated as one of your native-born. Love him as yourself, for you were aliens in Egypt. I am the LORD your God” (Leviticus 19:33).
Love (or the Hebrew word hesed) was the defining and differentiating characteristic of the Hebrew God. In contrast to the aggressive gods and dictators of Egypt and Canaan who ruled by force, the God of the Hebrews “hears the cry of the afflicted, defending the fatherless and oppressed in order that man, who is of the earth, may terrify no more” (Psalm 10:17, 18). “The great surprise of the Hebrew Bible is not that God is awesome or holy. These characteristics we would expect from God. The great surprise is that he is kind, that he is a God of hesed. That is what fundamentally makes him unlike any other god, then or now.”[1] The God of the Bible calls us to treat each person with love, freedom and dignity.
GOD IN THE TRENCHES
This very same God of the Hebrews, the God who aligns himself with the outcast, the poor, the widows, and orphans, has taken the ultimate journey to fight for us humans. He has become one of us, enduring all that we endure, and finally absorbing upon himself all the power of hate, fear, accusation and even death (Colossian 2:15). For the people of Ukraine, the people in Russia suffering under Putin, and for all of us, we do not have a God who is “far off” from our suffering, but One who is with us to continue to fight for truth, love, and human dignity. From the words of theologian Helmut Thielicke:
Jesus Christ did not remain at base headquarters in heaven, receiving reports of the world’s suffering from below and shouting a few encouraging words to us from a safe distance. No, he left the headquarters and came down to us in the front-line trenches, right down to where we live and worry about what the [Communists] might do. This Companion is with me in the front-line trenches.[2]
BEWARE OF THE GOD OF NATIONALISM
We must also beware of the nationalism that is currently gripping the world, pitting nation against nation. Just like Hitler did with the German church, Putin has been able to coerce (or persuade through enticements of power and glory) the leaders of the Russian Orthodox Church in Moscow. The Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church in Moscow, Vladimir Gundyaev (or Kirill I) has aligned himself with Putin and supported the invasion of Ukraine. Before the crackdown in free speech in Russian, many Russian Orthodox leaders bravely denounced Kirill, and most Orthodox leaders around the world have done the same. The church must always be wary of aligning itself too closely to any government in power. As Martin Luther King said:
The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state. It must be the guide and the critic of the state, and never its tool….But if the church will free itself from the shackles of a deadening status quo, and, recovering its great historic mission, will speak and act fearlessly and insistently in terms of justice and peace, it will enkindle the imagination of mankind and fire the souls of men, imbuing them with a glowing and ardent love for truth, justice, and peace.[3]
LIFT UP HOLY HANDS IN PRAYER
There is much we can do for the Ukrainian people by contributing to various aid funds to help relieve their suffering. And we must also pray. As Paul told Timothy, “I urge then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgiving be made for everyone–for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. This is good and pleases God our Savior, who wants all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim. 2:1-2). “For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, [the weapons we fight with] have divine power to demolish strongholds” (2 Cor. 10:3,4). Those “weapons” are prayer, calling on the Spirit of God to break down “strongholds” and gridlocks that only he can. Our weapons also include the gospel of Jesus Christ, the love of God, the truth of God’s Word, and our service and grace to people of this world. Christians in Eastern Europe in the 1980s believed that it was the power of prayer that eventually brought down the Iron Curtain and the Berlin Wall. Philip Rykin tells the story of Christians who met every Saturday night in Aberdeen, Scotland to pray for the demise of Communism in Eastern Europe, and they believed their prayers were what brought about the change: “The prayers of God’s people really are at the heart of what God is doing. When the true history of the world is finally written, we will discover that Christians like the ones in Aberdeen had a profound influence on world events.”[4]
[1] Michael Card, Inexpressible: Hesed and the Mystery of God’s Lovingkindness (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2018), 43.
[2] Helmut Thielecke, Christ and the Meaning of Life (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1975), 18-19.
[3] Martin Luther King, Jr., Strength to Love (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1963), 64.
[4] Jonathan Leeman, How the Nations Rage: Rethinking Faith and Politics in a Divided Age (Nashville, TN: Nelson Books, 2018), 196.