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Sympathy for the Devil, the Morning Star
A few days ago I found my self wondering through an art gallery that carried a small
collection of books. I picked up and leafed through a book devoted to the representation
of Satan in contemporary art.
The artwork featured was predictable: Satan and sex (or at least lust), Satan and
violence, Satan and tele-evangilism, Satan and consumerism, and the mandatory
representation of Satan’s relationship with George Bush and U.S. foreign policy.
Each work I looked at confirmed my suspicion that the book’s editors and the artists
they chose to highlight possess a superficial understanding of whom, or what Satan is.
Or, as I prefer to call him Lucifer… his name prior to being cast out of heaven.
Before his fall, Lucifer was an arch-angel, God’s favorite. It is written that Lucifer’s
love for God knew no equal. And, it was this love for God, which Lucifer held most
dear, most precious, that was his undoing.
When God created the arch-angels he commanded them to worship only him. But then
God created man, and decreed that the angels worship his newest creation as well.
Alone, Lucifer refused. His love for God was so complete that he could not bring
himself to worship anything or anyone else other than God. And for his defiance, his
pride, he was cast out of heaven. He was exiled from the one thing that mattered most
to him, God’s love.
Lucifer isn’t the great bogey man we imagine him to be. He has nothing to do with
humanity’s failings. He isn’t a catalyst for evil. He is nothing more than a lost soul,
condemned to wander the earth until the end of days, his heart consumed with a love
that will never be returned. He knows that there is nothing he can say, nothing he can
do, that will cause God to change his mind.
Imagine, for a moment roads Lucifer has walked down, the vistas he has looked over,
unable to see anything more than the overwhelming grief of an unreturned and failed
love. Imagine the pain.
Yes, there is a hell, and Lucifer is its poster child. Hell… is to love someone deeply and
truly with the knowledge that your love will never be returned, never reciprocated.
Lucifer isn’t plotting anyone’s demise; it never even enters into his mind. Rather, he is
lost in a wilderness of sorrow and longing. That is why, while others may condemn, and
fear him, I will always be sympathetic to his plight.
When you say your payers, pray this: that you will never walk down the path of
Lucifer. May you never know what it is to love truly and completely, but in vain.
A few days ago I found my self wondering through an art gallery that carried a small
collection of books. I picked up and leafed through a book devoted to the representation
of Satan in contemporary art.
The artwork featured was predictable: Satan and sex (or at least lust), Satan and
violence, Satan and tele-evangilism, Satan and consumerism, and the mandatory
representation of Satan’s relationship with George Bush and U.S. foreign policy.
Each work I looked at confirmed my suspicion that the book’s editors and the artists
they chose to highlight possess a superficial understanding of whom, or what Satan is.
Or, as I prefer to call him Lucifer… his name prior to being cast out of heaven.
Before his fall, Lucifer was an arch-angel, God’s favorite. It is written that Lucifer’s
love for God knew no equal. And, it was this love for God, which Lucifer held most
dear, most precious, that was his undoing.
When God created the arch-angels he commanded them to worship only him. But then
God created man, and decreed that the angels worship his newest creation as well.
Alone, Lucifer refused. His love for God was so complete that he could not bring
himself to worship anything or anyone else other than God. And for his defiance, his
pride, he was cast out of heaven. He was exiled from the one thing that mattered most
to him, God’s love.
Lucifer isn’t the great bogey man we imagine him to be. He has nothing to do with
humanity’s failings. He isn’t a catalyst for evil. He is nothing more than a lost soul,
condemned to wander the earth until the end of days, his heart consumed with a love
that will never be returned. He knows that there is nothing he can say, nothing he can
do, that will cause God to change his mind.
Imagine, for a moment roads Lucifer has walked down, the vistas he has looked over,
unable to see anything more than the overwhelming grief of an unreturned and failed
love. Imagine the pain.
Yes, there is a hell, and Lucifer is its poster child. Hell… is to love someone deeply and
truly with the knowledge that your love will never be returned, never reciprocated.
Lucifer isn’t plotting anyone’s demise; it never even enters into his mind. Rather, he is
lost in a wilderness of sorrow and longing. That is why, while others may condemn, and
fear him, I will always be sympathetic to his plight.
When you say your payers, pray this: that you will never walk down the path of
Lucifer. May you never know what it is to love truly and completely, but in vain.
