This summer was another tough one for the citizenry of planet earth. In July we watched in horror as a man opened fire on a group of unsuspecting innocents. 76 died this time, most of them teenagers at a summer camp. A couple of weeks later we were stunned as four days of rioting was senselessly unleashed on the streets of London; this just a month after a similar scene played out in our own city. And we’d be remiss to not recall the Syrian president opening fire on his own populace, the Lybian president doing the same, or the famines in Somalia which are again the result of failed leadership - they almost always are.

Though mild by comparison, when the riots happened in Vancouver, you may remember the deluge of opinions we received from well meaning experts. All of them doing their best to make sense of the senselessness, offering their best “reasons why”. What you might also recall though was that over the many reasons offered, no one dared suggest that there might be something beyond our psychology which could account for the behavior. Something like an evil that is spiritual in nature, but still holds significant sway over the ongoings of the material. Something which the Bible calls sin and Satan.

Of course no one mentioned this because suggesting such ideas, or even the slightest intimation toward such thinking is tantamount to career suicide. If any well respected expert were to even hint at such a notion, they’d be fired the next day. Yet, while this is true, I suspect the deeper reason no one mentioned it is not for fear of reprisal, but actually because it’s simply not believed. While many would give ascent toward the notion of a spiritual “good” - g(G)od, or whatever else we might want to call him or her - few are willing to give the same nod toward a spiritual evil. Such thinking has long been relegated to the dustbin of unwanted myths. I would suppose that even as you read this, many of you are scratching your heads with puzzlement as well. Do you really believe this? Do we really believe this? In this day and age are we really to believe that people are burning stores in London, and shooting people in Norway because of a spiritual reality of evil that is influencing the world? Most as I say, have long ago jettisoned such ideas, or rationalized them away with a more enlightened way of thinking.

All of this is of course, fine. We are allowed to think freely. And if thinking freely means we leave such pre-historic ideas behind, then so be it. But just so we’re clear, as we journey onto more sophisticated paths of thinking, we do so alone. Without Jesus that is. Because the fact of the matter is, Jesus left no questions about his belief in a spiritual realm of evil. Just the opposite actually. He was bluntly clear about Satan’s presence in the world. He was also clear that sin and Satan were at the root of the worlds evil. And from the opening scene of his ministry on - battling Satan in a desert - he made it clear that this was the real evil he had come to contend with.

Consider this as an example. When Jesus stepped into 1st century Palestine, he entered a world seething with tension The Romans were the dominant power on the scene, ruthlessly ruling over much of the known world, including this little sliver of land known as Judea. In nearly every Israelites estimation Rome was an evil lot, needing to be overthrown, and deep with in their collective conscience was a prophetic dream: that one day a “Messiah” would come who would help them accomplish this very task.

Given this it interesting then that when Jesus arrives as this would be Messiah, he surprisingly ends up paying little attention to evil Rome. Instead he goes right to work picking a fight with Satan and his demonic minions. Why? Because Jesus had eyes to see that while Rome was definitely a problem, there was actually a greater problem behind her. Satan, if you will, was the real problem behind the “problem”. And this real problem was the one that Jesus had his sights firmly fixed on.

So here’s the obvious question: do we have eyes to see as Jesus saw? Can we understand that the evil we see around us is not as we see. We live in a world marred by sin and influenced by a very real spiritual reality of evil. This is what Jesus saw so clearly, and if we deny this spiritual dimension we’ve stopped too short. We’ve got stalled on the problem, neglecting to see the problem behind the problem.

Of course none of this is intended to absolve those who have engaged in the evil deeds. Nor is it to dismiss the gifts of modern medicine or therapy - these things can be very important tools in our healing. Rather, it’s to help us see that from the perspective of Jesus, there is a deeper root that we need to be both aware of and rescued from. We don’t fight, kill and burn cars just because we have anger problems, there’s more to it than that. The deeper reason we act like this is because we have been marred by sin and influenced by an evil one. And further still we live in a world where those around us have been impacted by the same, and sadly their marring often ends up shaping our own marring (Consider how the broken-ness of a parent ends up creating the broken-ness of the child).

I realize there are many “what about’s” and “yeah buts” that an article like this raises. Obviously a few paragraphs can’t really handle every nuance. But for the matter at hand, for all the reasons offered this summer, I wanted to offer another perspective. One never spoken, but one that Jesus himself wanted us to be clear on.

There is a spiritual reality of evil in this world. It’s name is sin and Satan and it’s goal is to steal, kill and destroy. We can argue that such a reality is a silly myth. But again, just so we’re clear, our arguments are not shared by Jesus. He saw something different. More than seeing though, he also battled and won. Through his death and resurrection, he overcame all that is in the world and in overcoming he offered the same freedom to us. That we might first of all be forgiven of our evil own acts - no matter how great or small they might be - and that we might be empowered to live another way. A way of love, forgiveness and life.

In a world where presidents kill their own people, and citizens unleash lawlessness there have to be reasons deeper than what we’ve heard. Jesus tells us there are. The question is: do we believe him?