One of the things that likely impacts how you and I respond to evil stems from how we define it. It can be easy in the current culture to call something or someone “evil” because we disagree with it or them or if it or they offend us. We need to consider our label carefully before we bandy it about as true.

Until we are clear on what evil is and its source we will fall prey to its influence and our responses will be tepid, misguided, or absent.

Evil is defined as something that is “morally wrong or bad, immoral or wicked deeds, embodying or associated with the forces of the devil.” It is not an opinion or a preference. Scripture is undoubtedly the best source of clarification of when that label is appropriate.

Because evil is so reprehensible it would seem we should be able to call it for what it is and confront it for what it is. Yet history shows in every nation and culture we can be slow to do that very thing if it isn’t impacting us directly. It can almost appear we have accepted the inevitable since we know that until the Lord returns and evil is judged once and for all that it will be present on the earth.

We may feel powerless in the face of it despite the power of the Holy Spirit within us if we are God’s children. Perhaps we tremble in fear. The key is whether we seek His counsel and direction at such a time.

Two recent books I have read have brought evil sharply into focus. One focuses on the brave men and women in the Underground Railroad who risked death, fines, and imprisonment to help American slaves flee to Canada for freedom before the American Civil War. The other looks at men and women who risked similar consequences for trying to protect Jews less than a hundred years later.

Today despite our “instant” access to news we can forget nearly 215 million Christians face high persecution for their faith. We don’t hear much about that on the news and sometimes not in our churches.

When I consider how I might respond to evil I am drawn to the heroes of the faith in Hebrews 11 as well as others who responded with courage, wisdom, and discernment. Here are quotes from just a few of those who stood against evil:

William Wilberforce faced evil head on and wrote these words:

“A private faith that does not act in the face of oppression is no faith at all.”

William Wilberforce

Dietrich Bonhoeffer faced difficult choices without compromise when he wrote and spoke. Here is one of numerous examples:

“We must learn to regard people less in light of what they do or omit to do, and more in the light of what they suffer.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Elisabeth Elliot in the face of the grievous loss of her husband faced the evil that took him with love and forgiveness. Listen to her wisdom for us:

“We want to avoid suffering, death, sin, ashes. But we live in a world crushed and broken and torn, a world God Himself visited to redeem. We receive his poured-out life, and being allowed the high privilege of suffering with Him, may then pour ourselves out for others.”

Elisabeth Elliot

Solzhenitsyn left this powerful challenge to consider in The Gulag Archipelago:

“In keeping silent about evil, in burying it so deep within us that no sign of it appears on the surface, we are replanting it, and it will rise up a thousandfold in the future. When we neither punish nor reproach evildoers, we are not simply protecting their trivial old age, we are thereby ripping the foundations of justice from beneath new generations.”

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

How do we respond to evil?

We start by defining it for what it is and its true source and then seek the Lord for guidance on our response to it when we are faced with it. Above all, we must take into account the words of Isaiah.

Isaiah admonishes us about the need to discern rightly what is evil and what is good:

“Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and shrewd in their own sight!”

Isaiah 5:20-21 (ESV)

It had been such a whirlwind for the followers of Jesus and closest disciples from the day He rode into Jerusalem and palm branches were waving, to the shocking trial and pronouncement He would be crucified. He had talked about so many things, but it had never really connected. Even as the events began to unfold, it seemed surreal. Those days when He was in the tomb, they could barely hope they would see Him again and certainly they wondered if they would be hunted down and crucified now as well.

When they heard the news, He was alive and the tomb was empty, they were stunned and overjoyed. Little by little over 40 days many gained glimpses of Him and marveled at his appearance. Then He was gone with a promise to return and of all things He was leaving them to continue on without his day-to-day teaching.

What next?

They were to be his witnesses, to carry on spreading the words He taught them. Who would believe them? How could they begin to do all He asked of them? Had what they heard finally been ingrafted into their hearts?

What would happen to them if they told the truth? But telling the truth would never be enough. They would need to live it, live life as He had done if they were to be believed as authentic.

Hardest of all, they would need to love the way He loved.

How could they possibly do that? He demonstrated it every moment in how He touched others, listened to them so that He heard what was beyond the words they said. He looked into their very being no matter how many hours He had been up or teaching. He loved the weak, the children, the aged, and those who were from different tribes than his own family.

And who could forget that last meal in the upper room when He had taken off his garments, wrapped a towel around his waist, picked up a basin and began to wash their feet with the most tender care? He had served them more humbly than all the other times they had been together over these months since He called them.

And He had told them the truth up to the very end though it cost Him everything.

To witness now and tell the truth could get them killed, but how could they not tell the truth of this One who had given them everything including life eternal despite their flawed character and lackluster efforts so far?

Now all these centuries later as the excitement of Easter fades each of us who believes is faced with the same question, the same task. How will we live in the midst of a broken world as He calls us? What will our witness look like? Will others recognize Him in us because of what we say or because of how we live?

“The chief difficulty in maintaining Christian witness is timidity. The life of the world is gaudy, noisy, and assertive. The life of faith is modest, quiet, and unassuming. What can ordinary Christians say that will stand a chance in the brash shouting of money and pleasure and ambition? Or in the wailing laments of boredom and depression and self-pity? In a society in which the thesaurus of metaphor and symbol has been ransacked by cynical advertisers, faithless artists, and indulgent entertainers to condition us to maniacal but brainless devotion to me and now, how can the imagination be renewed so that we can say, honestly and personally, without necessarily raising our voices, who God is and what eternity means?”

Eugene Peterson in Reversed Thunder

I wonder if we do it best in the ordinary moments of our day when we don’t look for how to share the message of Christ and instead become the message. It can be taking time to smile at the person serving us food or taking our payment and noticing their name, looking him or her in the eye and thanking that person. It can mean listening to that person tells us one more time a story we have already heard without impatience or frustration. It can mean slowing our steps and the pace of our life to notice those on a path of their own.

The possibilities are endless. Truth will not always mean confronting someone with it. Sometimes it will be living it out so they see it when they have never seen it before. Truth telling may not result in death on a cross, but it will still cost you something because it will require death to our own self-absorption so we can hear the Lord pointing out this or that next little assignment that will show Him to someone else. And that is where we often get stuck. We are far more self-absorbed than we would want to admit and for as much as we want to receive love from others and all that means to us, we are less enthusiastic about the cost we will pay by loving someone else with the same care we desire.

We often say we feel inadequate to live that way, share that way and guess what? We may well be but Paul answers that dilemma for us:

“Not that we are adequate in ourselves so as to consider anything as having come from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God,”

2 Cor. 3:5 (NASB)

What’s next?

Maybe we need to ask Him.

As the sun began to set, those who had followed the Lord could not let go of the events of the day. He had clearly told them, but what they had witnessed was beyond their imagination despite His words.

What would it have been like to be one of His disciples on that long, wrenching day at the end of such an incredible week?

I wonder.

Would I have steeled myself against the horror unfolding and clung to His words while still standing at the foot of the cross or would I have been one of those who were not present?

Would I have been overcome by grief and fear of what would happen next or would I have fallen prey to doubt?

So much had happened during this week…

The triumph of Palm Sunday had filled so many with hope and celebration! Then on Monday Jesus had entered the temple courts zealously overturning the tables of the moneychangers who were buying and selling. He was reminding them this place was to be a place of prayer and not one of robbers. A noisy melee broke out in the chaos of doves and money flying everywhere, people scrambling, and reeling at the scene. They had never seen Jesus this way.

Then on Tuesday as the disciples were walking along with Him, He had cursed the fig tree that was not producing fruit. How puzzled they seemed to be at how quickly the tree had withered before their very eyes! Once more He exhorted them if they had faith and believed as they prayed, what they prayed would be done.

How astonishing were those things the disciples witnessed, but now to think He was saying they could do such things was more than they could take in.

From there they went on to the temple courts that He had just cleared the day before and He was confronted by the chief priests and elders about where He had received authority to do what He had done. It was a trap they were setting for Him and He knew it. His wise answer rebuffed them and left them stymied as Jesus then refused to answer them and expose their unbelief. He tried to reach their hearts to the very end.

Then came the Olivet Discourse where He warned the disciples through another story. This time He spoke of the foolish and wise virgins charging them to keep watch. To think this admonition came prior to that long night in the Garden of Gethsemane and yet they had not taken in the meaning for either the future or the present.

How Jesus loved them and longed for His disciples to hear and understand!

I think He does for us as well. How can I possibly judge their behavior when I am not always listening and hesitating to follow if I don’t understand what He has asked of me?

It was on Wednesday that Judas slipped away from the others and made his bargain with the chief priests to betray Jesus for 30 pieces of silver. Did his fellow disciples have any clue he might be tempted to do such a thing?

It reminds me that in the “now” those I share the journey of faith with are also tempted even as I can be. How deeply and openly I share my doubts, fears, and temptations may well determine my ability or their ability to withstand it and make all the difference in this walk with Him. That means that I need to be purposeful in my times with those closest to me to help guard their hearts and allow them to guard mine as well.

Thursday was a feast day, the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and Jesus directed His disciples where to go in the city and whom to speak with about preparing a place at his house for Jesus and His disciples to celebrate the feast.

When they were gathered there, Jesus broke bread and served wine giving thanks and once more giving them information few could likely grasp. He plainly told them they would not share this meal with Him again until they were together again in His Father’s kingdom.

They sang a hymn and then left for the Mount of Olives to the garden in Gethsemane. As they walked along in the moonlight, what was their conversation? Did they wonder at the interaction between Jesus and Judas? Did they question Judas abruptly leaving them?

Jesus wanted them to be with Him, to watch with Him, and to pray.

He knew and understood what lay before Him and despite His willingness to be obedient to His Father, His heart was in anguish and He asked His Father if there was any other way while still being willing to endure what lay ahead.

As the disciples looked back on that last sweet time with Jesus in the upper room and then their failure to watch with Him as he asked, were their own hearts burdened with guilt and shame for their failure?

The ugly scene of Judas arriving with soldiers to arrest Him angered them. How could he have done such a thing? Yet their own fear caused them to flee the scene. Peter’s curiosity brought him to the courtyard where early in the morning the prophecy Jesus had spoken about his betrayal would come to pass.

It was 6 AM on that Friday that Jesus would stand before Pilate. It had been a long night. He had already suffered much, but within an hour He was sent on to Herod for a decision on what to do with Him. Pilate must have hoped Herod would handle things, but instead he was returned to Pilate where Pilate looked for a way out and offered to release one of the prisoners. The priests had spurred on the crowd and elders who had arranged the betrayal by Judas to choose Barabbas rather than Jesus.

So in the end, as Old Testament prophets had foretold, Jesus was sentenced to death and by 8AM had been led away to Calvary. An hour later the grisly crucifixion had begun with only a handful of those He loved standing nearby to testify to the events. They were the ones who watched the soldiers casting lots for his clothing and heard the insults and mocking railed at Him.

These few would bear witness to the exchange Jesus had with the criminal crucified to one side of Him who was promised paradise. They also heard His words to His mother and the admonition to John to care for her as a son.

By noon that day, darkness covered the scene and at 1PM Jesus cried out to His Father and spoke of His thirst. By 2PM they would hear His final words “It is finished”. At the end of the ninth hour, the soldiers would thrust a spear in His side to assure He was dead. An earthquake would occur and then as sunset approached He was taken from the cross and Joseph of Arimathea offered his own tomb as a burial place.

The sun sank further and further and I might think the disciples’ hearts weighed heavy as it dipped below the horizon.

Was it all over?

What would become of them?

It was God’s darkest hour as He set aside His Son’s life for me, for you, for any who believe in Him.

Good Friday?

Perhaps we for whom He died can say it was good because He gave us the best gift we could have ever received. It was the day He triumphed over evil and gave us the gift of Himself.

He gave us life with Him.