Greenland is the world’s largest island. However, until recent months, I don’t remember seeing even a single headline about it in the news.
Now it’s hard to miss them.
President Trump recently told reporters at the White House, “We are going to do something on Greenland, whether they like it or not, because if we don’t do it, Russia or China will take over Greenland, and we’re not going to have Russia or China as a neighbor.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the administration’s goal is to buy the island from Denmark. The US could also boost its military presence in Greenland. Or it could take the island by force, but since the semiautonomous region is part of NATO ally Denmark, such an invasion could imperil NATO itself.
Why such interest in a sparsely inhabited island three thousand miles from the US?
“Greenland matters because the Arctic matters”
According to the Trump administration, Greenland is now critical to Western security. Vice President JD Vance said last week, “The entire missile-defense infrastructure is partially dependent on Greenland.” Opinion columnist John Mac Ghlionn agreed, writing in the Hill:
Greenland matters because the Arctic matters. Melting ice has turned what was once a frozen buffer into a contested corridor. Shipping lanes are emerging. Subsea cables snake across the ocean floor. Missile paths shorten. Surveillance gaps narrow. Russia knows this. China knows this. Both are investing heavily in Arctic presence, infrastructure, and influence. The US can either treat Greenland as a distant curiosity or as what it actually is: a forward position in a region that will define future power balances.
Whatever our view of this issue, it highlights the fact that any nation’s first concern is and will always be with national security. But nothing we do can secure us perfectly. Government strategists thought our massive naval installation at Pearl Harbor would protect us from war, not cause us to enter it. We thought our oceans and superpower military might would protect us from homeland invasion until 9/11 proved us wrong.
There is ultimately only one answer to our perennial quest for security. I’ll warn you in advance that you may find my proposal simplistic and naïve. But as I’ll try to explain, that’s precisely the problem.
“You give help to those in peril”
Many readers of the New Testament know that Matthew wrote his Gospel to persuade the Jews that Jesus was their Messiah. What we might miss, however, is the fact that he needed to show Jesus to be their only Messiah.
False messiahs were common in the day. The New Testament refers to three of them: Theudas (Acts 5:36), Judah the Galilean (v. 37), and an unnamed Egyptian (Acts 21:38). However, in Matthew 9 alone, the writer documents five acts Jesus performed that only the true and divine Messiah could accomplish:
- He forgave a paralytic’s sins and healed his body as proof (vv. 1–8).
- He healed a woman who had been sick for twelve years and whose disease had been incurable (vv. 20–22; Mark 5:26).
- He raised a dead girl to life (Matthew 9:25).
- He healed two blind men (vv. 27–31).
- He exorcised a demon, thus healing a man who had been mute (vv. 32–33).
In other words, Jesus did what only Jesus could do. Now he wants to do the same for us and through us.
Around AD 95, Clement of Rome wrote an epistle to the Corinthians in which he included this prayer:
You are the God of all flesh. You behold what is hidden in the depths, you see all that men do. You give help to those in peril and rescue to those without hope. . . .
By your acts you made visible the everlasting structure of the universe and set the earth on its foundations. For all generations you have been faithful and just in your judgments and wonderful in your power and majesty. Wisely you have created, and wisely you have kept things in being. All that we see shows your goodness; to all who trust in you, you are faithful, kind, and merciful.
Clement therefore asked:
Come, Lord, let your face shine upon us so that we may peacefully enjoy all good things. May your powerful hand be a roof over our heads and may your strength preserve us from all wrongdoing. Free us, Lord, from those who hate us without cause. Give peace and harmony to us and to all the inhabitants of the earth, as you gave them to our fathers who called on you with trust and faith.
You alone can give us these gifts and confer these favors on us.
Why should we make Clement’s prayer ours today?
“Neither shall they learn war anymore”
Our God has the power to defeat the mightiest of armies (cf. 2 Chronicles 20:1–30) and rulers (cf. Acts 12:1–24). We can ask him for security only he can provide (Psalm 4:8), then trust him to walk with us through our gravest dangers (Isaiah 43:1–3) and redeem them for his glory and our good (cf. Romans 8:28; Philippians 1:6).
But we can also ask him to change the hearts of those who endanger our world.
What God did in Nineveh, he has the power to do in any nation (Jonah 3). If he could turn Constantine the Great to himself and the Roman Empire with him, he can turn any ruler and any empire from war to peace.
However, as John Wesley once observed, “God does nothing but in answer to prayer.” He may have had James’ admonition in mind: “You do not have, because you do not ask” (James 4:2).
Would God do more to prevent war and advance peace in our fractured world if only his people would ask him to?
Right now you may be thinking that this is too simplistic, that asking God to bring the warmongers of our time to repentance and peace to our planet is naïve. But is it? One day, God “shall decide disputes for many peoples,” and “nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore” (Isaiah 2:4).
Could our intercession bring that day one day closer to this day?
And could our prayers for peace draw our hearts closer to the Prince of Peace who still calms the storms of our souls?
The way we answer our questions will determine their answers today.
Quote for the day:
“All the peace and favor of the world cannot calm a troubled heart; but where this peace is which Christ gives, all the trouble and disquiet of the world cannot disturb it.” —Robert Leighton (1613–84)
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