(a Steve Orr Lent reflection)
It was all a lie.
Sun Tzu, the guy who wrote the book on war, believed deception was a key to winning.
"All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when we are able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must appear inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near."
In other words: lie.
And that’s exactly what the Allied Forces did in fighting the Germans in World War II.
Recruits with skills in drawing, painting, stage craft, theatrical lighting, sound production, and the like were assigned to the “23rd Headquarters Special Troops,” a non-combat unit. During the last year and a half of that war, the 23rd had one of the strangest jobs in the military: it had to bring to life Sun Tzu's precept on deception.
Using radio scripts, sound trucks, loudspeakers, and deceptive visuals (like inflatable tanks), they created illusions, delivering a false understanding to the enemy. At times, Command needed the enemy to believe invasion forces were massing a hundred miles south of the actual location. The 23rd took care of that. If Command needed the enemy to think the army was closer than it actually was, the 23rd took care of that. The enemy was watching and listening—and acting on what they saw and heard.
The 23rd was a “Ghost Army.” And it was incredibly successful. (For more on this Ghost Army, see the links below)
Our enemy uses deception on us, too. In this week's selection from Psalm 51, there are many negatives. Satan would be very pleased if we became dispirited by such things as being sinners, having done evil and fearing God's judgment for having done so. Satan wants us to believe God is further away than He actually is. Our enemy wants us to believe: “God cannot possibly love me!” He employs deception to convince us of it. He "shows" us the big guns pointed at us and makes us worry about the impact such things will have on our lives. It is all designed to look and sound like assaults we cannot survive, to distract us from our true ally, and to defeat us by any means.
Satan wages a war for our souls. He wishes to mislead us and distract us from this Psalm 51 truth: Even then, even under the unyielding Law of Moses, the Psalmist knew that God possessed steadfast love, could have mercy, could forgive, and could "blot out my transgressions." The Law of Moses taught that the nation’s sins could never be completely eliminated (only be rolled forward each year). The idea that sins could be "blotted out" was radical.
The Psalmist used his own sin to emphasize God’s boundless love. The Psalmist knew that God could actually create a clean heart in a living human, place a new and right spirit within, actually restore a person to the joy of salvation.
It has, of course, always been true: God can forgive our sins. God can make us new and whole, can completely ignore what we've done. God can continually energize our newly installed spirit, teaching us wisdom in our most secret inner being so we continue in a state of grace-filled forgiveness.
Satan never wants us to know that. He will use his ghost army to keep us from remembering that God is greater than our failings, draws near to us when we seek Him and loves us more than we can even love ourselves.
But we know we are at war, and we are not deceived.
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MORE ABOUT THE GHOST ARMY (a PBS Special, a book, and a possible movie)
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