putin's ride on the black horse of the apocalypse

“…The heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and madness is in their heart while they live…”
(Ecclesiastes 9.3)
 
Wherewith shall I come before the LORD,
and bow myself before the high God?
He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good;
and what doth the LORD require of thee,
but to do justly, and to love mercy,
and to walk humbly with thy God?
​(Micah 6.6, 8)

mad state of rebellion:
putin's ride on the black horse of the apocalypse

I recently reposted a series of five homilies entitled, “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse” on the Just Society page of this site. I did so because, in my view, what Putin is doing in Ukraine is an example of apocalyptic behavior about which John the Revelator warned.
 
Please note: I am not maintaining that what Putin is doing in Ukraine is THE Apocalypse. It is, rather, AN apocalypse. We can only wish that there were but one apocalypse. But, we are not so lucky. The apocalypse that Putin is executing in Ukraine is but one of many apocalypses that many madmen such as Putin have wrought in every era of world history.
 
In this blog post, I will briefly review but one aspect of Putin’s apocalyptic ride on the back of the black horse of John’s revelation.[1]
 
In Putin’s now six-weeks-long invasion of Ukraine, we see him as the rider on the white horse.
 
“Then I saw—imagine this! —a white horse. Its rider held a military bow and was granted a crown. He went off triumphantly, intending to conquer.”[2]
 
This horseman represents the personal and nationalistic desire to conquer and dominate other peoples and nations. Predictably, and as John so accurately observes, this desire leads to conflict at the personal level and to war at the national level.
 
“And another horse, this one red, went off, its rider given power to take peace from the earth to the extent that they kill each other. He was equipped with a vicious sword.”[3]
 
Here is Putin’s Russian war machine—a machine bought and paid for by Lucifer[4]—activating the Ukrainian war machine—also bought and paid for by Lucifer—with military resources—also bought and paid for by Lucifer—supplied by the west, including and especially America. These killing machines cause blood to flow. Hence, the second horse’s red color. But war machines are but one way to kill. And so, we come to the third horse, the focus of this brief blog post.
 
“Then I saw—imagine this! —a black horse. Its rider held a set of scales in his hand. I heard something like a voice coming from the four creatures, announcing: ‘A quart of wheat or three quarts of barley costs a day’s wage, while olive oil and wine you are not to impact.’”[5]
 
Food shortages. Hunger. These are often the unintended consequences of war. Often, they are intentional war strategies. But whether they are the consequence of intentional military planning or simply unintended consequence, they are real. We have already seen it in places like Mariupol. We are seeing, today, the initial stages of a broader apocalyptic food shortage and starvation pattern that is a consequence of Putin’s mad invasion of Ukraine.
 
“Prices for food commodities like grains and vegetable oils reached their highest levels ever last month largely because of Russia’s war in Ukraine and the ‘massive supply disruptions’ it is causing, threatening millions of people in Africa, the Middle East and elsewhere with hunger and malnourishment, the United Nations said Friday.
 
“The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said its Food Price Index, which tracks monthly changes in international prices for a basket of commodities, averaged 159.3 points last month, up 12.6% from February. As it is, the February index was the highest level since its inception in 1990.
 
FAO said the war in Ukraine was largely responsible for the 17.1% rise in the price of grains, including wheat and others like oats, barley and corn.”[6]
 
And, again.
 
“Monica Kariuki is about ready to give up on farming. What is driving her off her 10 acres of land outside Nairobi isn’t bad weather, pests or blight — the traditional agricultural curses — but fertilizer: It costs too much.
 
“Despite thousands of miles separating her from the battlefields of Ukraine, Kariuki and her cabbage, corn and spinach farm are indirect victims of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion. The war has pushed up the price of natural gas, a key ingredient in fertilizer, and has led to severe sanctions against Russia, a major exporter of fertilizer.
 
“Kariuki used to spend 20,000 Kenyan shillings, or about $175, to fertilize her entire farm. Now, she would need to spend five times as much. Continuing to work the land, she said, would yield nothing but losses.”[7]
 
This is entirely consistent with John’s revelation as portrayed in his four horsemen. And what of the fourth and final rider?
 
“And I saw—imagine this! —a pallid horse. As for its rider, his name was Death, and hell accompanied him. And he was given dominion over a large swath of the planet to slay with the sword and with starvation and with death and with earth’s wild beasts.”[8]
 
At this stage, thousands have and are dying under the weight of a madman’s unholy desire for domination (white horse) and the world’s war machines that the desire has naturally enough activated (red horse). As a result, people have and are dying of starvation. Food shortages are on the rise (black horse). The bodies of the dead are being eaten on the streets as the number of dead grow and/or the danger of gathering and burying them becomes every more dangerous. The tit-for-tat will only increase (pale horse). Many nations are being drawn into the conflict—both passively and actively.
 
Will this apocalypse spread further? How far? Will it become the traditional global apocalypse imagined by so many readers of Revelation?
 
I don’t know. No one does. But we do know this. It all began with a desire. An unholy and ungodly desire to conquer. To dominate. It all began with the Satanic will to power. To be number one. To take glory to oneself. And we know this, too. Such apocalypses will remain part of human history, playing themselves out over and over again until the humble, self-sacrificing spirit of Jesus—the spirit that puts others before self—rules the world; until the first choose to be last and allow the last to be first. Only this spirit of at-one-ment—connectedness, unity, linkage—can save the world. Otherwise, as the final word of the Hebrew Bible warns, the earth’s end will and can only be ḥerem, extermination.[9]
 
Even so, come, Lord Jesus!
 
 
[1] An extended exploration can be found in my five homilies on the Just Society page of this site.
[2] Revelation 6.2. This and all translations found below are mine.
[3] 6.4
[4] “I will buy up armies and navies and reign with blood and horror,” he threatened God when cast out of the garden.
[5] 6.5-6
[6] “Food prices soar to record levels on Ukraine war disruptions,” AP, Nicole Winfield
[7] “Russian war worsens fertilizer crunch, risking food supplies,” AP, Geoffrey Kaviti, Chinedu Asadu, and Paul Wiseman
[8] 6.8
[9] See Malachi 4.6