Does the State bear the sword in vain?

"It is expedient that one man should die for the people, rather than that the whole nation should perish." (John 11:50)

The state bears the sword in vain when it becomes a mask for our fear, a stop-gap against the chaos monsters that rule our besieged imaginations. But are the "monsters" real? Do our acts of human sacrifice placate them? Do our nighttime rituals of execution make us secure, or are we collectively giving ourselves over to the powers of death?

The state bore the sword against Christ, our executed God. And yet we still live by the logic of death--we kill lest "the whole nation perish." Do we believe in resurrection? Might we sacrifice our own bodies, that the true God might be made visible?

-Eric Getty