Excerpt from 1 John 2:18-25

"Children, it is the last hour!  As you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come…This is the antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son."

Reflection by Quinn G. Caldwell

Know what's super fun?  Picturing the world as a giant battlefield where the forces of good and evil are fighting it out.

Know what's even funner?  If the good and evil are personified by two people that can duke it out on behalf of the rest of us.  Frodo and Sauron.  Superman and Lex Luthor.  Christ and antichrist.

The idea of a cosmic battle between titans, especially one where we get to sit comfortably on the sidelines and watch, is appealing.  It takes a truth we all know—that in some sense good and evil are at war in the world—and comfortably externalizes it.  It turns it into a kind of play that we're totally into, but not in.

Lots of people tell the story of Jesus and "the antichrist" in just that way.  The author of 1 John is not among them.  The antichrist is not a single super-evil dude (and he's certainly not Satan's only-begotten son; you can thank "Rosemary's Baby" and "The Omen" for that idea).  Instead, he says, antichrists are everywhere—including the mirror.  He says any time anyone denies the Parent, who is love, or the Son, who is Life, that person is antichrist.

It's that simple: deny love and life, and you're the antichrist.  Embrace them, embody them, and you become like Christ.  Still a cosmic battle, just one being waged in your heart.

It's a lot less fun than watching Harry Potter scrub Voldemort, but it's a lot more likely to save the world.

Prayer

God, I want giant eagles, superpowers, and Dumbledore on my side for this cosmic battle.  But what I really need is you.  Amen.

About the Author Quinn G. Caldwell, a United Church of Christ minister, is the co-author, with Curtis J. Preston, of the Unofficial Handbook of the United Church of Christ, published by The Pilgrim Press.