Sing and Shout and Pray

A few days ago when it was announced that President Mubarak of Egypt was gone without a bloody fight it seemed almost too good to be true. Peaceful solutions don't happen anymore--not in this world of terrorist attacks, ethnic cleansing, drug wars and decade-long wars. And especially not in a country where 90% or more of the population is of Muslim faith. There are those who tell us that all those people are violent, hateful and believe in nothing but "holy war." When lo and behold the dictator who had the police and the miliatary at his beck and call left the country with barely a shot being fired.

What was the secret to this astonishing turn of events when it had all the components of a bloody uprising? I know only what the media shared but I would gather this much. This multitude of thousands shouted and chanted slogans. They sang. And they prayed. The overhead pictures revealed hundreds and hundreds of people kneeling in orderly rows praying. They had also gathered stones--piles of them. But there were few targets.

There was that brief time when the hired thugs came charging through the throngs on horses and camels. There was resistance but in the huge crowd of people even horses and camels had no place to go, and badly outnumbered they soon turned tail.

Day after day, night after night the people were there. they listened to the hollow, vain promises of the dictator but would not be dissuaded. There they were, their voices worn to a whisper and yet they shouted and sing and prayed.

It echoed of a multitude marching around the walls of Jericho blowing tumpets and with a shout crumbling those impregnable walls. I was made to think of a desperate throng caught between sea and army listening to those strange words, "Stand still and see the salvation of God."

I can't say that the Egyptian revolution equals a biblical account of God's deliverance but it is aboundantly clear that if God works through world events God has writ large that it doesn't take AK 47s or bombs to bring about the change the oppressed long for. That just doesn't compute in this country that was birthed in a bloody conflict and has placed its faith firmly in weapons even those of mass destruction. Again and again in an effort to influence the course of events the first course taken is to export weapons. So we arm the world as well as ourselves ever becoming more fearful and insecure while a country of oppressed people shouts and sings and prays and gains their goal.