Whose Victory?--November 4, 2024

Whose Victory?--November 4, 2024

"And when you were dead in trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive together with him, when he forgave us all our trespasses, erasing the record that stood against us with its legal demands. He set this aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in it." [Colossians 2:13-15]

The question--maybe the definitive question of faith for our time and place--is, "Who is the winner when you look at the cross?"

Rome looked at the cross of Jesus and smiled approvingly, convinced it was a sign of the "greatness" of the empire.  Rome looked at the cross and declared itself the winner.

Ask Caesar. Ask Pilate. Ask all but one of the centurions there on the scene at the crucifixion of Jesus (one of them seemed to be reconsidering his allegiances there at Golgotha, at any rate). Ask any of the crowd who were persuaded by Rome's show of might and military muscle what they saw when this homeless, friendless rabbi got nailed to one of their many death stakes, and they will all say to you, "This is proof of our victory. We saw a threat. We didn't like him. We didn't like the idea he proclaimed that our Empire was not the last word on things. And so, whether or not he had actually committed any kind of crimes worthy of execution or not, we got rid of him. We killed him. It shows our power, our strength, and our way of winning. So we won, and this Jesus fellow loses. End of story."

Now... ask the New Testament community the same question.

The followers of Jesus look at the cross and kneel in awe-filled worship, convinced it is a sign of the true greatness of Jesus. It is the very victory of God.

Ask the voice of Colossians, or any of the first followers of Jesus, and they will tell you that the cross is not Jesus' near-defeat, but is in fact the very point of God's great victory. Ask the thief on the cross next to Jesus', the women huddled at the foot of the cross, or that one very perplexed-looking centurion, and they will say to you, "This is evidence of Jesus' victory. Rome thought that greatness was in killing your enemy, and here this weaponless rabbi with nothing in his hands but nails exposed that all as a lie. The Empire did its worst to Jesus, and yet still he does not give in to Rome's power, its demagoguery, its cruelty, or its indifference to justice. He still lays down his life for us, for people who have not met him yet, and even for his enemies. Rome did its worst to Jesus, and even that was not enough to break his spirit and defeat his love. Jesus wins, precisely at the point it looks like he loses. Death is not the end of this story."

Two very different takes on the same precise moment in history. And so the question remains: whose victory occurs at the cross of Jesus? What do we see when we look there?

The New Testament does not allow us to pick both Rome and Jesus as the victors there. In fact, in a rather startlingly bold passage here from Colossians, the New Testament sees the cross--not just skipping ahead to the resurrection, but the cross itself!--as the point at which the powers of the day, the "authorities and rulers" of the way of Empire, were themselves unmasked as puffed-up bullies, and exposed as impotent blowhards. The point that looks most like defeat is actually the point of victory, because Jesus' death is exactly what his way of triumphing looks like, and nothing Rome can do will stop his kind of love from laying its life down for all.

This is a really important insight from Colossians, because we often treat the cross like it is the "low" point of the story of Jesus--almost like it is the point at which it seems like God comes closest to defeat, but then, in the nick of time, Jesus gets back up off the mat on Easter morning like a boxer narrowly avoiding a knock-out decision against him. But that's not how Colossians sees it. The cross is not the cliffhanger moment; the cross is not the place evil almost wins out over the power of God. No, just the opposite--the cross of Jesus is itself the place where all human authorities, all coercive power, all empires, and all of history's Caesars, are disarmed and revealed to be empty suits. As theologian John Howard Yoder once put it, "The cross is not a detour or a hurdle on the way to the kingdom, nor is it even the way to the kingdom; it is the kingdom come." Colossians would have us believe that it is in the way Jesus lays his life down, praying forgiveness on his executioners and refusing to return Rome's hatred or intimidations back at them, that the powers of the world are just not strong enough to defeat his love. The "rulers and authorities" are not triumphant between Good Friday and Easter Sunday until the stone rolls away--their undoing has already been accomplished in the way Jesus gives himself away. The powers of the day just don't understand that they've already been had. This is the truly radical, upside-down way of thinking and seeing the world that the New Testament dares us to make our own.

And if we do, if we really do take up that new way of seeing the victory of Jesus at the cross, it will change everything else about how we live and how we understand "victory" in our own lives, as well.

It will mean rejecting once and for all the notion that all that matters is "winning" against others, even at the cost of losing our integrity, our decency, our honor, or our humanity.

It will mean that we come to see strength as the willingness to keep on loving even when it is difficult--not in giving up on love because it looks "weak" to the watching world.

It will mean we are no longer bound by some obnoxious need to look "tough" to get the last word in every internet feud or take up every situation and make a fight out of it.

It will mean we are less impressed by who has more money or how high the markets close, and more moved by the willingness to do good to others without getting anything in return. In fact, we will deliberately choose actions that we know will help others more than our own little group.

It will mean that we will not assume God is on the side of whoever is bigger, stronger, richer, or louder, but will see recognize God present in what the world calls weakness, in suffering love, and in compassion.

In fact, we will no longer assume that God wants us to be "tough" but rather that God would have us be good... as Jesus shows us what goodness looks like.

So, today, friends, the Bible itself is challenging us. The voices of Scripture are pushing us to see the world differently--differently from the way the "rulers and authorities" see it, and differently maybe even from how we used to see it ourselves. The voice of Colossians wants us to see the cross not as God's nail-biter of a near-loss, but the very point of Christ's victory that unmasks "the rulers and authorities" as frauds once and for all.

Will we dare to see the world this way, and to see Christ's victory in this upside-down way?

What do you think you see when you look at the cross?  Who is the victor there?

Lord Jesus, we praise you for your victory... and we are in awe to discover that you have won at precisely the point the world thought was your defeat.