White Flag part 1
Preaching last night got me to thinking about HOW Jesus won the war to end all wars on the cross. And it seems to me that Jesus won... by surrendering. He didn't come with a show of force. He didn't come with an overwhelming army. He didn't even defend Himself. Because He knew what the end result was going to be. Jesus said, "No one can take my life from me. I sacrifice it voluntarily. For I have the authority to lay it down when I want to and also to take it up again. For this is what my Father has commanded" (John 10:18 NLT). He knew that death wasn't the end. And that only by dying could the corn of wheat bring forth a great harvest. Someone once asked me why Jesus had to die. And there are a LOT of reasons. But the one that I used in that case was that He was taking the world's best shot. Even though there were two examples of men (Enoch and Elijah) who didn't die... it's "common knowledge" that death is the end of the road. The end of the story. And even though we've focused so much of our time, talent, and treasure on AVOIDING death... and even though we've built up this whole idea of the "afterlife" (and look, I'm not saying there's not an "afterlife," I'm just saying that since we have eternal life it's not really "after" at all. Just different.)... we still look at death as the enemy. We even quote a verse like 1 Corinthians 15:26, "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death." And we look at it like WE have to fight and defeat death... some day. But look at 1 Corinthians 15:26 in the Young's Literal Translation, "the last enemy is done away -- death." Did you catch that? The last enemy IS done away. It is finished. Jesus took the world's best shot and declared it powerless. Jesus laid His life down for the specific purpose of taking it back up. Of showing death to be completely powerless. I've said this before but we need to understand that God being all-powerful doesn't mean He's the most powerful. It means He has ALL the power. LOVE has ALL the power. LIFE has all the power! And, again, He didn't win the war to end all wars by avoiding death. Or by fighting death in the traditional way that we think of fighting. He won the war to end all wars by submitting. By refusing to fight. He showed us a more excellent way. He showed us that it doesn't have to be a struggle. He showed us how much He loved us by laying His life down for us. By doing what we couldn't do. By giving His life for us, and giving His life to us. I once heard it preached that Jesus was in the grave for three days because the abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life inside Him wouldn't let Him stay there any longer! And I know He accomplished a lot during those three days. I'm simply stressing the point that the fire in Jesus was hotter than the fire He was in. Not even death could hold Him down. Not because of what He was doing--not because He was fighting--but because of who He was--because He submitted to the will of His Father. I think we miss out on things sometimes because we're not willing to submit. We're not willing to trust that Daddy has it all figured out and He knows what's best for us. We'd rather fight upstream than flow in the river of life. And I think we can use Jesus as an example of just the opposite. Jesus was so in sync with His Father that He didn't do anything unless He saw Daddy do it. He didn't say anything unless He heard Daddy say it. He waved the white flag and won the greatest victory of all!