Which wood matters?

We live in dangerous times.

Over the last few days—and even again this morning—I’ve been receiving warning emails from a whole variety of Christian agencies.

It seems that their third-party database provider, Beacon, has suffered a data breach. As one email warned: “This breach does put you at greater risk of being targeted for fraud and phishing attempts.”

So who is Beacon, and why is it so important?

Well, it seems that Beacon is a London-based software company which supplies charities with a system for recording and managing information about supporters and donors, serving more than 1,000 charities.

The probability is that you too have received such an email, which means that you too need to be alert to scams.

Basically, there are people and organisations out there doing their best to get us. And throughout history, people have felt that even the cosmos itself was against them.

In ancient religions the gods were experienced as powerful but unpredictable. They could be jealous, easily offended, partial or vengeful. Human beings therefore tried to appease them through sacrifice, ritual and careful behaviour—sometimes even through human sacrifice.

Read—or watch—The Odyssey. Here the gods of Homer’s world are not necessarily loving or dependable; they have to be placated. You have to watch out. When Antinous strikes a helpless beggar, one of the other suitors warns him: “You idiot—what if he’s a god in disguise?”

Even in the Psalms there is this sense of a pervasive threat. “The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night,” promises Psalm 121, reflecting the dangers and fears associated with both day and night. Incidentally, our word lunatic comes from the Latin luna, the moon, reflecting the ancient belief that the moon could exert a harmful influence.

And then there are those forces, described by the apostle Paul, which appear to be out to get us. We’re not quite sure what all these powers are, but if they could, they would do their best to separate us from God’s love.

So he writes: “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:38f)

Why such confidence? Whatever is out to get us has been defeated at the cross by Christ—a victory we may find difficult to comprehend, yet one which, if really grasped, would transform the way we live our lives.

So total is their defeat that the apostle can write: “Christ disarmed the rulers and authorities and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in it.” (Colossians 2:15)

The Message gives us an even more vivid translation: “Christ stripped all the spiritual tyrants in the universe of their sham authority at the Cross and marched them naked through the streets.”

Ours is simply to enter into Christ’s victory by entrusting our lives to him. The threat is still there, as the apostle Peter writes: “Discipline yourselves; keep alert. Like a roaring lion your adversary the devil prowls around, looking for someone to devour.” (1 Peter 5:8). 

But no big deal as another apostle writes: “Little children, you are from God, and have conquered them; for the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.” (1 John 4:4)

This means that we may enjoy a security which the world cannot afford. So no need to touch wood, carry a lucky token or avoid the number 13.

For here lies the difference at the heart of the Christian faith. We do not believe that the universe is ruled by hostile or capricious gods who must somehow be persuaded not to harm us. We believe in Christus Victor.

As Fleming Rutledge, author of a major modern work on the cross of Jesus, puts it: “Jesus won the victory over everything that would destroy us.”

That does not mean, of course, that nothing bad will happen to us. Christians are scammed, become ill, suffer accidents and eventually die like everybody else. We may even face martyrdom.

Rather, our security lies deeper. Whatever happens, nothing can finally get us. Nothing can snatch us from God’s hands; nothing can separate us from his love; and no power, however frightening, has the last word.

That is why the Christian response to a dangerous world is neither superstition nor complacency. We still change our passwords, ignore suspicious links and take sensible precautions. Peter, after all, tells us to “keep alert.”

But we need not live in fear.

The decisive battle has already been fought. The powers may still prowl around, but they are defeated powers. The future belongs not to them but to Christ.

So perhaps “touch wood” is not such a bad place to finish—provided we remember which wood matters. Not a lucky piece of furniture, but the wood of the cross.

For there we see that God is not out to get us.

God is out to save us.