The rescuer introduced by the Angel that night over Bethlehem would be called Christ.
Christ?
Yes! A Greek word for “anointed.” The very one Jewish people longed for. Messiah! He would come in the tradition of a long line of chosen, Spirit-filled men. Prophets were anointed; chosen by God to “stand in the gap on behalf of His people,” to tell them what He wanted to say to them. Isaiah said, “the Spirit of the Lord is on me because He has anointed me to preach … .” Priests were anointed. They were the mediators between a sinful, rebellious people and the God they’d offended. Courageous men these. Their mission was a constant matter of life and death for the sin they sought atonement for was punishable by death and the sacrifices they carried into the Holiest place were the sole means by which they could be spared certain annihilation. Any glitch in the process would cost the priest his life. Kings were anointed. David, the Sheepherder was anointed while he was only a boy. Later in life he became not only a King but a fierce and powerful warrior; the champion of Israel in whose steps the promised Messiah would walk.
Yes this Child would be all of these things. God, who, “on a variety of occasions, and in many different places, spoke in ancient times through prophets,” would now speak through this Child. He would come to be known as “the Word.” He would teach with an authority possessed by no other. He would be a High Priest; the sole “mediator between God and mankind.” In the end He would become the “Lamb of God who removes the sin of the world.” He would be the King above all Kings. God would give Him a name, “above all names” before which “every knee would bow and every tongue confess that (He) Christ is Lord.”
We know now, He is the ultimate “anointed.” He is the “chosen”! He is “the one”! He is, as He routinely said of Himself, “the Son of Man.” The consummate “Hero”!
But is He really our “Hero”? Is this champion walking in the steps of David the destroyer of thousands?
Years after the night the Angel declared His name to be “Christ,” on the day of His trial, His judge asked Him, “are you a King?” He replied, “My Kingdom is not of this world. If it were my followers would have fought and prevented my arrest.” With this He affirmed that, in fact, Kingdoms were in conflict on that dreadful day.
The Kingdom of this world with which He fought, the kingdom He’d been in conflict with all of His life on earth, was a Kingdom of “pleasure seekers.” That day, on the cross He suffered immeasurably. The subjects of this Kingdom He battled, as the pain cried out for relief, offered him something to numb it. He refused. He’d come to suffer every nuance of all human pain. His mission was to bear every bit of my pain and yours. His body writhed with the torture of all who’d ever lived, then lived, or would live in the future. Never once did He turn from it. With infinite courage and fortitude He suffered all suffering and demonstrated in doing so that “travail,” leads to “joy.” He who goes out in the toil of the noonday sun to put seed in the ground comes in autumn to fill his barns with grain, celebrating the bounty of the harvest. These adversaries were sensationalists. “If you’re our King come down from the cross!” They were looking for proof of His power. “Show us!” they shouted! Give us a “sign.” “Wicked people who corrupt the good by their abuse and misuse of it look for proof,” He’d said many times of them. And now they sought to sabotage His mission by taunting Him into misusing His power to prove Himself. He knew such self-serving demonstrations would be inconsistent with the will of His Father. He would not. There would be a sign. But not the kind of sign they wanted. Frankly, when I revisit this event again and again I find myself wishing He’d have just come down from that cross for but a nano second; slapped the High Priest a couple of times; and leapt back on the cross. He couldn’t do such a thing. You and I both know that in doing so He’d have lost the battle. The sensationalists of this world would have won. Image would have become everything for Him and all would have been lost. But He refused to make His own vindication His business. It would be the Father’s to insure His glory.
The kingdom he battled that day, and all through His life, was a polyglot of power grabbers. The very cross he hung on was a grim reminder that Rome, that evil Empire, was the greatest power of the day. Crosses dotted the landscapes of all its regions. Stark terrifying reminders of the tyranny that no one had been able to break. Great men died on those crosses. Mighty men were reduced to whimpering wraiths; flayed remnants of someone’s hope that this barbaric oppressor might finally be overthrown. Our would be hero locked wills with this terrible instrument of denigration and execution on that dread day. Looking at His struggle through the eyes of the Officer in charge of the execution reveals what came of the contest. As Walter Wangerin Jr. so ably tells us in his marvelous book, Reliving the Passion, this soldier, a Centurion, commander of a hundred fighting men, had seen it before. Likely hundreds of times he’d heard them curse the Empire they hated. Their curses turned to groans, then pleading and whimpering. But this man was silent. He seemed to be on a mission. About six hours into it He cried out. It was difficult for the soldier to make out what He said.” “Eloi! Eloi! …” something. One thing was clear. He really wasn’t any different than all the others. He’d been hanging there for about six hours. Six hours into the execution the strongest of them would break …
“What was that?!” The Centurion spun around torn from his reminiscing by the loud shout! Megale phone!
A shout not of pain or despair or cursing. Nothing like you’d expect to hear from a dying man!
“It is finished!”
And then, suddenly, He died. The Centurion knew when a crucified victim was dead. This man was dead. He was not simply unconscious nor in some sort of comatose sleep. He was dead. “… but suddenly! That’s what rivets the centurion. It’s as if this man chose to go fully conscious straight to the wall of death and there to strike it with all his might and, in the striking, die. Aware of absolutely everything.” …
In awe of what he’d witnessed the Centurion declared, “Truly this man was the Son of God.”
The Christ won the battle that day. The cross is, today, not a symbol of terror and tyranny but of hope. Death, too, has been conquered. We know because of His mastery of it that, through His victory, death’s “sting” has been drawn and thwarted. He is our Champion, our liberator, the Mighty Conqueror
… OUR HERO … THE ONE!!
NO MATTER WHAT IT WILL BE WELL FOR US … HE IS THE VICTOR! GOOD NEWS ... GREAT JOY!
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