struck down. . .but not destroyed

Today I was surfing through the many, many channels of nothingness that is cable television while waiting for a football game to come on. Through all of the overplayed infomercials (which I usually watch time and again) I finally found something worth pausing over for a while: a movie channel was running The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. It was at the place when Aragorn saw the thousands marching toward Helm's Deep and was racing to warn the city. Since I knew that a great battle was approaching, I put down the remote.

Every time I see the multitude of Orcs quickly attacking the city walls I get the immediate feeling that this battle is already over. Those within Helm's Deep are vastly outnumbered and the night grows increasingly dark. The enemy is advancing through the gates and scaling the walls with much destruction. Eventually everyone is huddled in the innermost portion of the city - the last place of refuge - with the doors failing to hold any longer.

I can remember the first time I saw this movie being amazed that there were any left, not to mention the main characters of the story. Then they notice that morning has broken and all are reminded that this is all they had to do - fight and survive until the dawn. It is then that Aragorn and the king ride out and advance upon the evil, only to be met with Gandalf and his mighty army. The enemy is destroyed.

This is the church. . .clearly. Although there is much evil that surrounds us and comes against us - much of which attacks and scales the walls with great quickness and efficency. Yet there is much battle to be done and we are called to fight and survive until the dawn. Perhaps we are sometimes called to pull back into the deepest recesses of safety. . .and then we are called to advance on the encroaching evil. When the morning breaks we will see a glowing rider on a white horse that will come and wipe clean the very ground on which we fight.

"We have a future, but this tale is not over yet - not by a long shot. We now live between the battle for Helm's Deep and the Battle of Pelennor Fields. Between the beaches of Normandy and the end of the war. Between the fall of the Republic and the fall of the Empire. Between Paradise lost and Paradise regained. We live in a far more dramatic, far more dangerous Story than we ever imagined."
John Elrdredge, Epic (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2004), 99.