By Ryan LeBlanc

We were a verse and a half into our Bible reading – Jesus in the desert – when the student asked, “What’s Satan?”

Definitely a teaching moment worth pausing for.

Usually, students already have their own ideas about Satan and what he is, deeply informed by popular culture. The questions are usually much more detailed and have to do with movie plots.

Now, we have an opportunity for an important refresher, a chance to find ourselves on the same page.

“Satan” means “accuser” or “adversary”

“Satan” is a Hebrew legal term which is something like a Crown Prosecutor or District Attorney. He’s the one who’s trying his best to put you away. Forever.

The Bible uses this word to describe a powerful spiritual being who is always trying to get us in trouble, always seeking to do us harm.

In the story of salvation, Satan was an angelic being who was created beautiful and glorious, but who rebelled against God, choosing the ugliness and destruction of sin.

For all of time, Satan hates God, but cannot hurt God. So, he puts all his effort into destroying human beings, those created in God’s image and likeness.

And so, we could say that Satan is the immortal person who wills everything that works against our good, and is going after us with every trick he knows.

How does this Biblical vision affect how we see the world?

At first glance, this idea of Satan might seem counter-intuitive. After all, my competitors in business, the road rage driver in front of me, my ex, or anyone jabbing a pointy stick at me – surely these are my enemies?

Those living in a country with missiles, drones and tanks pouring over the border might take exception to the idea that an invisible spirit is the one who’s working against them. It actually looks like it’s that guy right there on TV. See him?

Certainly, during Biblical times and in our own day, Satan’s hallmark accomplishment is war.

Satan delights in human beings actively hating and destroying each other, locked into the imprisonment of desperately seeking safety in violence.

Entire nations, living in terror and anxiety, directing our energy and insight towards death, addicted to the lie that slaughtering our brothers and sisters will bring us peace.

Could there be anything more satisfying to one who hates humanity as God’s Creation than our own willing participation in the obliteration of our own goodness – our self-inflicted erosion of our divine capacity for love and compassion?

War is Satan’s victory – no matter who wins

If war is Satan’s victory, just think of how powerful God’s Word is when it names our true enemy as Satan himself and the pride which separated him from God. If Satan is the force that works against us, then when we are faced with conflict and oppression, our enemy is not the human beings under a different flag than us.

That’s actually a ridiculous idea, from God’s perspective.

When an oppressor acts against me unjustly, the true root cause of that violence is the sinful wound that drives the aggression. And the same goes for me when I act unjustly towards someone else.

Any human oppressor is always – always – oppressed by spiritual evil.

My basic view of the world changes tremendously from seeing before me a monster who only exists to devour goodness, to a brother or sister who has been wounded and deceived by the same force that wounds and deceives me.

When all the pointy sticks and shoot-y tubes are pointed at me, hateful eyes and words who wish my destruction, it is true that God’s will is flouted. But I do not have access to my oppressor’s heart like God does. Instead, I can only determine one person’s choice: my own. I can choose to participate in evil, or to endure it, even as I resist it.

Let us restrict our naivete: sometimes acting with force prevents a greater evil. But let us also be real: violence is always a costly failure.

It is more often the case, as it is right now in our lives, that compassion, dialogue and forgiveness need to defeat our natural inclination to wrath. Our lives depend on it.

What faith reveals to me as the true enemy, the true defeat, is that same pride, fear and hatred that would trap me into reacting with disproportionate violence – to strike back with unregulated and inordinate anger.

If I do that, the war is lost, and me with it. It doesn’t matter who’s still standing.

There is a path to victory. It’s never a bigger gun or a clever strategy.

If I’m going to win, it will be a part of what truly defeated our adversary: the Cross and the Resurrection.

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Ryan LeBlanc is a teacher with Greater Saskatoon Catholic Schools and a parishioner at the Cathedral of the Holy Family. His writing is available on his blog at ryanleblanc.podia.com

Catholic Saskatoon News is supported by gifts to the Bishop’s Annual Appeal: dscf.ca/baa.