The Triumph of the Christian

A Triumph was a Roman celebration of victory, granted by the Senate, in which the victorious general entered Rome followed by the captive leaders of the vanquished, a display of captured booty, and his own victorious troops.  The New Testament contains, I think, four 'moments' which could be thought of as Triumphs, each of which is illuminating for understanding what victory as a Christian looks like.


The first Triumph is recorded in all four Gospels (Matthew 21:1-11; Mark 11:1-11; Luke 19:28-40; John 12:12-19), and of course we celebrated it yesterday on Palm Sunday.  Jesus enters Jerusalem, accompanied by his followers, who shout his acclaim.  Although it is not explicitly identified as a Triumph in the text, the echo of the Roman ceremony would surely have been picked up by the readers of the Gospels, as it has been by the church - hence the traditional description as the 'Triumphal Entry'.  Luke records that the disciples were prompted to their cries of praise by remembering "the mighty works they had seen"; I think it's not too much of a stretch to imagine that Jesus' followers saw his progress from Galilee to Jerusalem as a protracted running battle (consider the many encounters with demons), a battle which Jesus had won and which led to the victorious entry to the capital city.  At the same time, the humility of Jesus shown in his Triumph stands in sharp contrast to the self-aggrandising display of your typical Roman general.  There is something incongruous already in this Triumph.

The second moment of Triumph brings home this incongruity.  In Colossians 2:13-15, the Apostle Paul describes God's Triumph over "rulers and authorities" - spiritual powers of evil.  These powers are overcome and led in Triumphal procession precisely at the cross of Christ.  (Whether verse 15 should end with 'in him' [that is, Christ] or 'in it' [that is, the cross] the crucifixion is still in view from verse 14, and indeed the whole wider context).  The actual victory is won at the cross; the real Triumphal procession towards which the entry into Jerusalem could only point takes place on the first Good Friday.  It's a Triumph that looks like a defeat, a celebration of victory that looks like a crushing humiliation.  Jesus is dragged to Calvary carrying his cross, stripped, and lifted up to the mocking view of all, and yet it is precisely as this happens that the rulers and authorities are 'stripped' of their power to harm, exposed as the empty things they always were, and dragged in Triumphal procession behind the crucified Son of God.  The death of Christ is the Triumph of Christ.

It is because of this deep incongruity - the suffering and the victory - that the third moment of Triumph takes the shape it does.  The Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 2:14 describes his own missionary journeys as a Triumphal procession, led by Christ.  In this use of the image we are looking at a different part of the Triumphal parade; in Colossians it was the captive spiritual powers which were in the focus, but now it is the soldiers following the victorious general who come into view.  Paul's work is a Triumph, as Christ leads his Apostle through the world, proclaiming his victory.  But because it is his victory, won at the cross, this Triumph necessarily has a curious shape; read the rest of 2 Corinthians and it is clear that for Paul his ministry was primarily suffering.  He was weak, powerless, almost despairing - and yet this was a Triumph!  This is necessarily the shape of all faithful Christian ministry, and all Christian life; conformed to the cross of Christ, and yet in that cross sharing in his Triumph.

The fourth moment of Triumph comes at the end, when the kings of the earth lead the redeemed of the nations in to the New Jerusalem, every enemy having been finally vanquished and utterly destroyed.  Only at this point will the incongruity disappear, the tension resolve itself.  They were faithful to death, they lived the cross, and now they receive their reward.

So, victory.  The Christian life is a Triumph, a following in the path of the victorious General.  It is a celebration and a display of the victory he has won.  And yet that victory is the cross, which means that Triumph can never become triumphalism.  The victory parade is a parade of suffering, weakness, and foolishness.  Until he comes.

Flee for refuge

In Ruth 2, Boaz blesses Ruth: "A full reward be given to you by Yahweh, under whose wings you have come to take refuge!"  The image of the bird spreading out its wings over its vulnerable chicks is tender and magnificent; it is heightened in Ruth 3 when Boaz himself agrees to spread the 'wings' of his garment over Ruth, becoming the answer to his own prayer, being the shelter of the Lord.

But what has been particularly striking me in the last couple of days is how much fleeing for refuge there is in the Old Testament.  The lectionary yesterday took me to Psalm 5 ("But let all who take refuge in you rejoice; let them ever sing for joy, and spread your protection over them, that those who love your name may exult in you.") and then to Psalm 7 ("O Yahweh my God, in you do I take refuge; save me from all my pursuers and deliver me").  In the evening at a church prayer meeting, Psalm 46 was read ("God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.")

Some reflections:

1.  This means life is hard.  Nobody flees unless they have to, nobody becomes a refugee willingly.  Life is hard.  Circumstances are difficult, ranging from mildly irritating to impossible to sustain.  Our own brokenness is hard, whether it is physical or mental health struggles or just the sense of homelessness that comes from being a human in a fallen creation.  The struggle with sin is hard, whether we're winning or losing.  Guilt is hard, hard to repress or ignore and even harder to acknowledge.  Flight to refuge is surely the experience of all of us at one time or another.

2.  The God who directs providence provides protection.  Surely the hardest thing in life is God himself.  I mean, the God who stands inscrutable behind providence; and more, the God who stands at the end of everything as Judge.  It is striking that the book of Ruth, which unless I am badly misreading it is primarily a story of providence, contains Boaz's blessing in the middle.  It is God who has directed the hard providence of Ruth 1, and yet it is God to whom Ruth has fled for refuge.  Is there a parallel here that needs to be thought?  It is God who sits on the seat of judgement and condemns my sin and wickedness, and yet it is this same God to whom we flee for forgiveness and a covering of righteousness.  The flood is his, but so is the ark.

3.  Jesus.  Where, other than in Christ, does any refuge appear?  Under whose wings can we take refuge, other than his?  Here in Christ we see that the direction of providence, the rule of the Judge, is by no means an impersonal fate or a harsh legalism.  Here I see God himself raising a lament over those who have resisted his grace: "How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not!"  Here is the loving hand that guides even the darkest providence.  Here in the God who hangs on the cross is the fortress of my soul, the rock which is split so that I can hide within.  Here is refuge.

Other refuge have I none,

Hangs my helpless soul on Thee;

Leave, oh, leave me not alone,

Still support and comfort me.

All my trust on Thee is stayed,

All my help from Thee I bring;

Cover my defenseless head

With the shadow of Thy wing.

When it is awful

When everything is awful and life is too much to bear, we need the beginning, the middle, and the end of the Bible story.

We need the beginning because we need to know that it wasn't meant to be this way.  We need to know that God did not intend for us a world of suffering and tears and chaos.  In fact, Genesis 1 and 2 can be read as stories of the systematic binding of chaos and the perfect provision of spreading goodness respectively.  We need to know that God isn't cruel, that he didn't set us up for a fall.  The beginning of the story is all goodness, and we need that if we are going to remember in the darkness that God is good.

We need the middle of the story because we need to know that we are not left alone.  We see in the incarnation of the Son of God that the Creator has not abandoned his creation.  Far from it, as far from it as can be: he has entered his creation, become a creature, the Author inside the story.  And paradoxically we see how deeply committed to the non-abandonment of creation God is at the point where the Son of God casts his eyes towards heaven on the cross and finds himself... abandoned.  God is with us, and he is with us right at that point of God-forsaken agony.  The middle of the story is God-with-us on the cross, and we need that if we're to remember that his care is not removed from us in our own suffering.

We need the end of the story because we need to know that it will not always be like this.  It is small comfort to have a God who would have loved to help, and would even travel into the depths to be with us, but could not ultimately change anything.  The resurrection of Jesus Christ points forward to a future in which God himself will make every wrong right, will wipe away every tear from the eyes of his suffering people, and will make of our sad ruin a glorious future.  That is the ultimate hope, and it bleeds through into the little hopes for today, yes, even the very little ones.  The end of the story is a new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness dwells, and we need that if we are going to persevere in the darkness.

Where is God?

When terrible things happen, people ask 'where is God?' - and I find it helpful to take the question extremely literally.  What does the witness of Holy Scripture tell us about the whereabouts of God during a tragedy?

1.  God is in heaven.

When we say that God is in heaven, we affirm that he is absolute king of his creation.  Heaven is the place of sovereignty.  "Our God is in heaven; he does whatever pleases him."  That can be hard to hear in the midst of tragedy, but the alternative is worse: our god is powerless, there was nothing he could do.  When we say God is in heaven, we say that nothing - not even this terrible thing - happened outside of his control.  Nothing shakes his rule.  Now, we can and should qualify this by saying that God rules in various ways, and his will is not fate: he does not bring evil in the same way that he brings good, or will tragedy in the same way that he wills salvation.  But he is in control.  He is in heaven.

2.  God is right here.

God is never a victim, but neither is he a stranger to suffering.  The Son of God became incarnate in order to suffer, and specifically in order to suffer with us and for us.  When events are more than we can understand or bear, we can be sure that the God who in Christ suffered for us on the cross is with us in our sufferings here and now - and not only ours, but the sufferings of the world.  He doesn't miss a single tear or a single injustice.  He is right here.

3.  God is coming.

Crucially, God is on his way.  The witness of Scripture is not to a static God, who remains in heaven, but to a God who comes, who approaches, who draws near to save.  When tragedy comes, we can remember that God is coming to judge the world.  As far as the biblical authors are concerned, that is very good news.  Judgement means the rectifying of everything that is wrong, the final end of suffering and injustice, the wiping away of every tear.  It means salvation, for all those who will lift their heads and look for salvation.  When terrible things happen, we can be sure that it will not always be this way.  He is coming.

Fry - and the cross

Of course many people have offered comment on the Stephen Fry interview.  If he, unexpectedly, came face to face with God after death, Fry would essentially accuse God.  The world is full of suffering.  Cancer in children.  Hideous parasites.  God, if he made a world like this, is 'capricious, mean-minded, stupid'.  If such a God exists, he should be resisted and hated.

This is not so much atheism as anti-theism.  I am not denying that Fry is an atheist, just making the point that this particular argument is not an argument against God's existence, but an argument against God's goodness.  If God exists, he cannot be good, based on our experience of the world.

I have some sympathy.

I have definitely had moments when the world in its beauty has cried out to me that there is a Creator.  The starry sky above me certainly seems to demand an explanation, not just for why it is at all, but for why it is so great, so beautiful.  I have seen my children born and, for a moment, had no doubt whatsoever that a good God exists.

But I think more often I have been painfully aware that the world is a terrible place.  I have not really suffered, personally, but I know people who really have.  And I watch the news.  I am more often impressed by the horror of the world than the beauty.  I can see where Stephen Fry is coming from.  Based on observation of the world alone, I doubt I would be a worshipper of God.  Maybe there are philosophical answers to the 'problem of evil', but I don't think any of them would be enough to shift the suspicion that God might well be capricious and mean-minded.

So here's the thing, the one thing, that for me clinches the question of faith and suffering:  Jesus Christ, crucified.

Once you have seen God stretched in agony on the cross, it is hard to think of him as capricious, no matter what else is going on in the world.

Once you have heard God cry out with one of his last painful breaths for the forgiveness of his enemies, it is hard to think of him as mean-minded, no matter the apparent evidence from elsewhere.

A God who voluntarily suffers is not the God against whom Fry launches his accusation.  And if the Christian story is true - if that suffering was redemptive for us - then God, far from being capricious and mean-minded, is astonishingly loving.

It is not that every question about suffering is answered by the cross of Christ.  But every question is changed.  If God is so committed to the elimination of suffering, and of the moral evil with which the Bible insists suffering is associated (albeit in complex ways), then the question to direct to God in the face of ongoing horror in the world is not 'how dare you?' but 'how long, O Lord?'  You have said you hate suffering, you have demonstrated that you are serious at the cross - how much longer must we endure it?  That question is painful, but perhaps it is a pain that is bearable in the light of the cross.

Other questions are changed too.  Why would a good God create a world which contained so much suffering?  That is a valid question.  But it means something different when placed alongside the questions 'why would a sovereign God create a world in which a creature like Stephen Fry could call him stupid?  Why would a glorious God create a world in which Roman soldiers could spit in his face?'  Of course we can ask 'why have you put us all through this, God?' - but we can also ask 'why have you put yourself through all this, God?.

And the answer from the cross is: because of love.

Night

Elie Wiesel, from 'Night':

The SS seemed more preoccupied, more worried, than usual.  To hang a child in front of thousands of onlookers was not a small matter...

The three condemned prisoners together stepped onto the chairs.  In unison, the nooses were placed around their necks.

"Long live liberty!" shouted the two men.

But the boy was silent.

"Where is merciful God, where is He?" someone behind me was asking.

At the signal, the three chairs were tipped over.

Total silence in the camp.  On the horizon, the sun was setting.

"Caps off!" screamed the Lageralteste.  His voice quivered.  As for the rest of us, we were weeping.

"Cover your heads!"

Then came the march past the victims.  The two men were no longer alive.  Their tongues were hanging out, swollen and bluish.  But the third rope was still moving: the child, too light, was still breathing...

And so he remained for more than half an hour, lingering between life and death, writhing before our eyes.  And we were forced to look at him at close range.  He was still alive when I passed him.  His tongue was still red, his eyes not yet extinguished.

Behind me, I heard the same man asking: "For God's sake, where is God?"

And from within me, I heard a voice answer:

"Where is He?  This is where - hanging here from this gallows..."

Francois Mauriac, from his preface to 'Night':


And I, who believe that God is love, what answer was there to give my young interlocutor whose dark eyes still held the reflection of the angelic sadness that had appeared one day on the face of a hanged child?  What did I say to him?  Did I speak to him of that other Jew, this crucified brother who perhaps resembled him and whose cross conquered the world?  Did I explain to him that what had been a stumbling block for his faith had become a cornerstone for mine?  And that the connection between the cross and human suffering remains, in my view, the key to the unfathomable mystery in which the faith of his childhood was lost?  And yet, Zion has risen up again out of the crematoria and the slaughterhouses.  The Jewish nation has been resurrected from among its thousands of dead.  It is they who have given it new life.  We do not know the worth of one single drop of blood, one single tear.  All is grace.  If the Almighty is the Almighty, the last word for each of us belongs to Him.  That is what I should have said to the Jewish child.  But all I could do was embrace him and weep.