Christ has Risen! He has Triumphed over the Enemy!
By Fr. John Ricardo
God “disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him” (Col 2:15).
Easter. Not just a day. Not even an octave. But a whole season, 50 days, to praise, honor, and thank our heavenly Father for all that has been done for us in His Son Jesus’ resurrection from the dead. As we continue to reflect on the practical difference this makes here and now, today we look at the fact that Jesus has triumphed over the dark powers that have enslaved our race since the fall, thereby enabling us to live and walk in true freedom.
I’m not sure what goes through your mind when you read the excerpt from Colossians above. But I do know what went through the minds of Paul’s contemporaries. A “triumph” was something like a mega-parade in an Empire filled with parades. It was a dramatic way of demonstrating the Empire’s power and dominance. “The Roman Triumph was the crowning achievement of a Roman General...The procession of the Roman army, allowed within the city gates for this special event, captured leaders and slaves, and any treasure looted on campaign, was a grand spectacle of enormous proportions.” (Www.Unrv.com)
Paul is drawing on this all too familiar event to help the young Christian community in Colossae, and us, to understand who Jesus is and what He has done. In Jesus of Nazareth, God has become man and engaged in the greatest of all campaigns against the “rulers and authorities”—Death, Sin, Hell, and Satan. And He has defeated them by His cross and resurrection! And now, Risen from the dead, like a victorious general, the Lord Jesus is leading a triumphal procession with these disarmed rulers and authorities at the end of the line having been defeated and put to shame.
In Paul: A Biography, N.T. Wright reminds us, “Like most Jews of his day, Saul of Tarsus had long believed that the nations of the world had been enslaved by their own idols. They worshipped nongods, and in Jewish thought, rooted in the scriptures, those who worshipped idols became enslaved to them, trapped in a downward spiral of dehumanization” (107). Like rampaging armies, the dark spiritual powers desire to enslave our race, and one of the ways they do this is through our engaging in idolatry. While you and I might not be burning incense to statues of pagan gods in the public square, idolatry is still rampant, unfortunately.
What’s an idol, and how do you and I know if we have any lying around? Well, Tim Keller suggests that an idol is “anything more important to us than God,” or “anything you seek to give you what only God can give” (Counterfeit Gods: The Empty Promises of Money, Sex and Power and the Only Hope that Matters). Ouch. Idolatry led, and still leads, to people being held bound by the rulers and authorities Paul writes of, and these dark powers have as their end game our degradation and dehumanization.
I remember walking once with a husband and wife whose marriage had been devastated by drugs. The wife had been introduced to crack cocaine and was in a downward spiral indeed. At various times she had sold furniture, clothes, their car, and even herself—all for another hit. They were in my office one day and the husband was at his wits ends, trying to make sense of what was going on as yet one more thing had disappeared from the house to feed her habit. In anguish she started to weep and said to him, “Do you think I enjoy this? I hate this! But I can’t escape.” Such is the goal of the dark powers that war against us.
Now, crack cocaine might not be our battle. Maybe it’s money, or success, or reputation, or alcohol, or pornography, or something else. But all of us, if we’re honest, will acknowledge that we’re tempted to put things or people ahead of God, or to look to things or people to give us what only God can give.
However, Wright continues, “Paul believed that in his crucifixion Jesus of Nazareth had overcome the power of darkness...and they no longer had any actual authority. Paul’s mission was not, then, simply about persuading people to believe in Jesus…It was about declaring that the door to [our] prison stood open and that [we] were free to leave.”
Do you have any prison doors in your life? Do I? Do you want to escape? We can!
So many of us live as though we are defeated, impotent against the many dark powers that constantly assail us. The truth is that the dark powers are defeated. The Risen Jesus, the One who triumphed over Sin, Death, and Satan is alive in us! Yes, there will be struggles, and no we don’t change all at once (at least not usually). But those struggles keep us humble, remind us that we need the Lord, and hopefully make us merciful towards others along the way. We can change, though, and we can become living witnesses of the power of God to make all things new.
Again and again in ACTS XXIX, we want to shout from the rooftops that Jesus is not just kind (though He is), or gentle (though He is), or merciful (though He is), or compassionate (though He is). Jesus is utterly unconquerable! He has no rival. He is Lord, and this is so much more than the mere ending of a prayer. It means He has engaged the dark powers—Sin, Death, Hell, and Satan—in combat and has defeated them. To be sure, this defeat that has already happened has not yet been fully realized. That won’t happen until the Lord returns in glory to make all things new. Until that day, the enemy “prowls like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour,” Peter warns us (1 Peter 5:8). But the enemy knows he has lost.
This is truly good news, explosive news, life-changing news. Christ is Risen! He is Risen indeed!