Mention
the word “armor” and most people conjure up images of medieval knights in shiny
metal suits jousting in a tournament. Mention it to a soldier serving
“downrange” in a modern battle space, however, and you’ll get a very different
image.
For
thousands of years military planners and engineers have tried to come up with a
solution to protect soldiers from injury and death through the use of body
armor. From those clunky knights to the steel vests designed for (and quickly
abandoned by) soldiers in the American Civil War to the iconic “flak jacket” of
the Vietnam era, soldiers have contended with the uncomfortable and, often,
ineffective weight and bulk of armor that only adds to the misery of war.
Take the current ballistic vest worn by soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, for example. It weighsabout 20 pounds and consists of layers of tightly woven ballistic fibers like
Kevlar, which dissipates the impact of many conventional bullets and bomb
fragments but not all of them. Armor-piercing bullets, for example, will easily
punch through standard issue body armor as will puncture weapons like knives
because they are harder, thinner, and more able to separate the weave of the
ballistic fibers than conventional ball ammunition. But perhaps the greatest limitation of the current issue
body armor is that it only covers the torso, leaving vital arteries in the arms
and legs exposed to potentially lethal wounds. While number of battlefield
deaths has been somewhat mitigated by the use of body armor, the large number
of soldiers coming home with debilitating and life-threatening wounds is still
unacceptable to both military commanders and the public.
The
search for a better solution for protecting soldiers and law enforcement
officers led researchers at the University of Delaware and the Army Research
Laboratory to begin work on a new kind of body armor that would be strong enough
to blunt the impact of nearly all hostile projectiles and flexible enough to
cover the whole body. They based their idea on fluid rather than fiber,
developing something called “shear thickening fluid” — a mixture of
polyethylene glycol imbued with bits of purified silica. When a projectile
impacts a certain point on this “liquid armor,” that section stiffens within
milliseconds to absorb the impact and then just as quickly returns to its
liquid state after the impact dissipates. Here’s a short video demonstrating
how it works:
Because there are no fibers to separate it is also highly
effective against puncture wounds, making it a godsend to corrections officers
who must deal with the daily threat of improvised stabbing weapons. The flexibility
of a liquid rather than a heavy fiber-based material means that this armor can
be worn like a wet suit over the whole body, including the arms and legs. For
the first time in history, soldiers and police will be able to truly “put on
the whole armor” in every sense of the word.
The Roman soldiers who patrolled the world in the first
century could only have dreamed of such protection. They were heavily armored
for their time, but their standard issue kit of metal and leather-based body
armor was inflexible, heavy, and
mostly covered their front, making retreat dangerous (about which Roman
commanders no doubt reminded them often) and long marches torturous. Still, it
was state-of-the-art technology at the time and the sight of a Roman
infantryman in full battle dress was an indelible and imposing image in the
ancient world.
But while a Roman soldier’s individual armor and weaponry of
sword and spear might protect him in a one-on-one fight, it was designed to be
most effective when employed in the context of the whole legion. The Celtic and
Germanic tribes who faced the Romans on the frontier would have been awed at
the sight of a nearly impenetrable phalanx or wall of shields bristling with
spears facing them across the battlefield. If the Romans maintained that
formation, they were nearly impossible to defeat, but if the ranks could be
broken and the legion separated the fight would be more even as the
vulnerability of individual soldiers would be exposed. For Roman soldiers,
“putting on the whole armor” meant more than just strapping on his own kit — it
meant being part of a unit and counting on the comrades on his right and left.
When
Paul was searching for an apt metaphor to convey preparation and protection for
a kind of spiritual warfare, it’s little wonder that he dialed to this image of
“the whole armor.” The Greek word for this armor is “panoply” from “pan” (all)
and “hopla” (referring to the Greek “hoplite” warriors, who perfected the use
of armor in a phalanx). The Roman “panoply” consisted of all the items listed
in this passage, most of which were worn only on campaign and not every day.
When a Roman legionnaire buckled on his armor it meant the enemy was close at
hand.
For
Paul, the enemy was not one of “blood and flesh” like so many of Rome’s
enemies, but rather the “cosmic powers” and “spiritual forces” of evil that the
context suggests are somehow commanded or are at least minions of “the devil”
(Ephesians 6:11-12). The omission of the Roman javelin, an offensive weapon,
from Paul’s list of armaments and his repeated exhortation to “stand” suggests
the image of phalanx deployed in
defensive posture to receive an assault, rather than massing for an attack.
Having given instructions to the Ephesians on some practical aspects of living,
reminding them that they were “members of one another” in community (4:25),
Paul now encouraged them to withstand the piercing attack of sin and temptation
that threatened to separate and destroy them all individually.
Giving
functional names to each of the pieces of the panoply gives us a clue of the
kind of assault Paul expected to come crashing into the ranks of these new
Christian recruits. He begins with the “belt of truth” (6:14) that enables the community to
“put away falsehood” and that leaves no “room for the devil” (4:25-26). Rumors
and gossip can easily divide a church, thus Paul begins by promoting protection
of the community’s soft underbelly. The “breastplate of righteousness” (v. 14)
and the “helmet of salvation” (v. 17), which are echoes of similar images in
Isaiah 59:17, remind the community that their eternal safety is bound up in
God’s mighty act of grace in Christ, the knowledge of which protects the heart
and enables the believer to think and do the right things. The Roman “caliga”
or half boot, standard military footwear, enabled not only solid footing on the
battlefield, but also enabled the legions to move quickly over Roman roads so
that they could keep the peace. Paul’s image of feet made “ready to proclaim
the gospel of peace” indicates that the community of faith, too, must be able
to move quickly and broadly in order to deliver the good news of Christ. The
more we are moving about and sharing Christ, the less that idleness and doubt can
creep into the community. Sometimes the best defense is a good offense and vice
versa!
The
“shield of faith” is critical to the Christian individual and community, just
as it was to the Roman legions. One of the standard battle tactics of the
ancient world was to fire flaming arrows into the ranks of the enemy, a move
designed to get individual soldiers to drop their shields long enough to put
out the fire and thus exposing them to attack. Some sources suggest that Roman
shields were made of heavy wood with a leather covering that could be soaked in
water before battle to extinguish these flaming projectiles. Paul’s image of
faith being such a shield conveys again the idea of cohesion between members of
the community in the face of spiritual attack. Some scholars have also
suggested that the “flaming arrows” have a more specific meaning here. The
Greek god of love, Eros, and his Roman counterpart Cupid were believed to
engage their human victims with the flaming arrows of passion, thus Paul might
be suggesting here that the community guard especially against lust and
adulterous behavior. Nearly every Christian community knows of people who
dropped their guard when assaulted by passions and weakened the whole body.
And,
lastly, the image of Scripture as a “sword” (v. 17) is a familiar New Testament metaphor (see also
Hebrews 4:12). The Roman “gladius” was 20-24 inches long and used for close-in
fighting once the javelin had been deployed. Once the battle was joined, a
soldier had to know how to best use this weapon to good effect. The same is
true when it comes to an assault by sin and temptation. Scripture and the
revelation of God’s Spirit within its words and within our own spirits are
vital weapons of defense.
The
martial metaphors here are very familiar and thus it is easy to trivialize them
or think of them as historically interesting but not necessarily relevant to
today’s Christian community. After all, we’re more individually focused than
our spiritual ancestors and we hold up the image of the individual warrior like
Rambo or Schwarzenegger as the ideal rather than focus on the unit. Even the
U.S. Army adopted the slogan “An Army of One” awhile back. These snake-eating,
machine gun-toting commandos don’t need no stinking body armor, thank you very
much, just the smell of napalm in the morning and superior firepower to fuel
their quest for victory.
But any real soldier will tell you that he or she is only as
good as the rest of their unit. Whether the armor is liquid, Kevlar, or
old-fashioned leather and iron, an individual is never more effective on the
battlefield than a cohesive unit. Maybe that’s why “An Army of One” gave way to
“Army Strong” as a better slogan!
Throughout this series we’ve been looking at the ways in
which Paul describes the coming together of the church as the Body of Christ,
whose mission is to go into the world and make disciples, sharing the good news
of Jesus Christ. In the first sermon we looked at the amazing gift of grace God
has lavished on us. In the second sermon, we saw how that grace brings together
people of different communities and backgrounds to form them as one body. Then
we looked at the call for those people who have been saved together to “grow
up” toward the goal of the Christian life—to maturity, to the full measure and
stature of Christ. Last week we saw how that maturity should permeate our
relationships—that we practice together the disciplines and rudiments of
reflecting Christ to one another in our families, our workplaces, and
everywhere we go.
The armor of God, then, is what enables us to take that
message of grace to the frontlines of the world, protected by the truth of
God’s grace and yielding weapons of mass invitation for others to come and know
Christ. Paul knew that if we engage in this mission, the forces of evil will
always try to stop us by breaking us apart. The church, however, is to stand
together strong, firm in the knowledge of who God has made us in Jesus Christ.
Like soldiers, we submit to the discipline of training in maturity and
effectiveness. The church is our training ground, but the world is where the
battle takes place—a battle that can only be won with love.
So, onward Christian soldiers! May we put on the flexible armor of God and be more mobile
in bringing the Gospel to the world!
