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Morning Reflection
April 9, 2026
“Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.”
Isaac Asimov
“It is said that God is incomprehensible. If God is incomprehensible, that is not because God is so very difficult to understand, but because there is nothing that counts as understanding God; there is nothing to be understood. The things of God must be understood in a different way. It will involve understanding that you do not understand.”
Gareth Moore: Believing in God
Reflection by Peter Vanderveen
Isaac Asimov’s comment was published at the end of an email I received last week from The Economist magazine. It followed a number of reports of global news that the magazine sent out under the heading “The World in Brief.” And in this context, it’s hard to imagine that Asimov’s comment wasn’t meant to be a critical statement about the increasingly brazen infatuation that world leaders have with waging war. It points to those who don’t have the skills or patience to pursue other solutions – at the cost of other peoples’ lives.
There is nothing new about this, and it’s specifically played out in Matthew’s Gospel. The Pharisees – astute politicians themselves – decide that in order to get rid of Jesus they have to publicly embarrass him. They try to “trap him in his words.” They fail miserably at this, each time being embarrassed themselves by Jesus’ wit and cunning. They then decide that their only option is to kill him. And the rest of the story (almost) tells of the success of their incompetence. By all accounts, Jesus’ crucifixion was a wildly popular event. And in this sense, we acknowledge that we are all among the incompetent.
The resurrection of Jesus, however, was not just an initiation of some vague promise of life after death: something that has no pertinence in this world. It was also God’s declaration that the world where violence wins has come to an end. Even the total elimination that death represents – never to be brought back again – is less than a decisive victory. The most severe violence itself proves to be incompetent. That’s worth remembering.
When Jesus appeared after his resurrection, he didn’t try to claim renown as the triumphant one. He didn’t claim power over anyone else. Instead, he quietly informed individuals that the binary rules of the world – of winners and losers and of the rewarded and the judged – have been overturned. God liberates us from the tyranny of these measures. Jesus never attempted to explain this. It was simply shown. It was given: a peace that wasn’t negotiated. It was bestowed. Though this remains utterly incomprehensible, this incomprehensibility makes it no less real. The Christian life embraces this mystery.
This is vital when, more and more, God is invoked as the one who will guarantee victory in the wars that are being waged. This, of course, has always been a religious temptation – across all faith traditions. But this is to use God for one’s own purposes, and to do such is to ignore the root testimony of the Gospels.
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Neither might the gates of death,
Nor the tomb’s dark portal,
Nor the watchers, nor the seal,
hold thee as a mortal,
But today amidst thine own
Thou didst stand bestowing
That thy peace which evermore
Passeth human knowing.
V. 4: Hymn 200 - Come ye faithful raise the strain
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