Christ’s Victory                                                                                  4/5/42

 

Text:  I Corinthians 15: 57   “Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” 

 

Appearances are often deceiving.  To many eyes, it must have seemed the day of victory when Jesus rode in triumph into the holy city of Jerusalem.  The world has a way of assuming victory by such appearances.

 

But the real victory of Christ was a fact not to be measured by outward appearances alone.  True, he had already won a victory in his decision to do so dangerous a duty.  But the greatest triumph of Christ is better symbolized by events which followed Palm Sunday.

 

The misleading external apparitions of victory shifted during that week with bewildering speed.  Jesus entered the city amid shouts of enthusiasm.  Presently he drove the haggling traders out of the temple.  Then the leaders of the Jewish faith countered him.  One of his own followers betrayed him for a bribe, thinking perhaps to force a showdown.  The leaders had their day, when, having seized Jesus, they were able shrewdly to enlist the power of Rome, or at least to secure its acquiescence.  Victory was then in the hands of might, armed with law and sword.  From Friday morning on, “the situation was well in hand.”  And it may well be that those who so firmly disposed of the Gallilean never actually realized how devastatingly defeated they were.

 

No man conquers, in the final sense, with the sword, or by brute force.  He may, and often does, cause a realignment of tyranny, or enslavement, thereby.  But his right to rule is achieved only when he can command the inner citadel of the soul.  And no one is conquered until he surrenders that citadel willingly and gladly. 

 

And the inner citadel should never be surrendered save to him who can fulfill its highest, deepest, noblest hopes.

 

Any despot, claiming to be conqueror by might alone, who is unwilling or unable to fulfill these highest, holiest hopes is not a rightful victor, but an impostor whose leadership is bound to end in failure.

 

There is only one leader who can fulfill the requirements of a true conqueror.  Only one whose conquest spreads rich, full, satisfying life, not death.  Only one whose rule does not frustrate, but fulfills.  He is the leader whose voice can still be heard among the endless risings and fallings of men’s bitter conflicts saying, “Be of good cheer.  I have overcome the world.”  [John 16: 33].   He is the leader whose empty cross stands against the light of countless Easter dawns as an eternal symbol of victory.

 

What happens when we surrender to the might of this victor?  There is not heard the tumult of shouting nor the orgies of those drunken with power.  But the very meekness of his spirit makes him master of our broken spirits.

 

There are at this Easter-tide thousands of homes touched during the year by death.  How black and bottomless would be their despair, for death is so relentless, so final, were it not that a victor has lit a light, like a small candle spreading from life to life until it shines like the growing brilliance of the dawn.

 

Where others might see only the end, those who gaze on the empty cross can see truly the beginning.  This victory over the blackness of death, none other can claim.

 

But his right to rule need not, and ought not wait until the end of our present trail.  For he comes to each one of us with a personal call as clear as that to Andrew, Peter, James and John.  With two short words, he offers to put into our hands the power that will free us from small and purposeless living.  “Follow me,”  [Mark 2: 14] he said, “and to as many as followed gave he the power to become.....” [John 1: 12] something far greater than they had ever dreamed they might become - so great that they should become veritable “sons of God.”

 

One of the marks of a worldly victor is the finality of his “victory.”  Having won a conflict of might he has a feeling of having arrived.  He sets himself to enjoy the spoils of his conquest - it may be loot, it may be exploitation, it may be a sadistic expression of power, it may be a bull-dog watchfulness over his gains.  But sooner or later it all melts away as vanity.  The only ultimate conquest is that which can get through the barriers of misunderstanding, bitterness, and cruelty with an understanding and friendship that shall make glad the hearts of men.  There is only one leader who can conquer in that spirit or inspire any semblance of such conquest in any of the rest of us.  And that is the leader who was able even out of agony to say of his enemies, “Father forgive them;” [Luke 23: 34]; who was able to say to his friends, “This is myself, given for you;” [Luke 22: 19]; whose spirit was so eternally victorious that even death could not control him.

 

For a decade, our world has lived through a Gethsemane.  There have been offered up from the lips and hearts of millions, devout and earnest prayers that the cup might pass from us.  And prayers have been matched or countered by acts of betrayal of many kinds.  Our world this day is still a Golgotha where the innocent and the guilty alike are being crucified in hideous torture by men and nations who have not yet learned to live above the level of selfish cunning and brute force.

 

But the darkness that surrounded calvary 1900 years ago did not mark an end.  And now, there is a Christ who can arise wherever there are enough human hearts through which his spirit may live.

 

Our interest and devotion deepens through the Lenten season.  We approach Easter as a sort of climax.  Probably more people are in attendance at the services of the several Christian communions today, Easter Sunday, than on any other day of the year.

 

With the earliest church it was not so.  Easter was not an achievement, a climax, but a beginning.  Fired by the Easter truth, the first Christians really went to work with a will and an enthusiasm never seen before.  It ought to be so with us.  Today we Christian people ought to be about our Master’s business, God’s business, our business, as never before.  Day by day, we ought to discipline our minds and open our hearts to the Christ who through us, might rise to victory over the world’s treachery and sorrow, just as he has been victorious in so many individual lives.

 

To the victorious Christ belong our Alleluias and our life’s devotion.

 

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dates and places delivered:

 

            Wisconsin Rapids, April 5, 1942