A wonderful thought occurred to me this morning as we were worshipping. It was that Jesus has never ever been in a situation where He has failed. Three scenarios went through my mind in quick succession. I saw Jesus walking as a man on the earth, Jesus on the cross, and Jesus seated on His heavenly throne. In each scenario, without doubt, He was the triumphant victor.
When he walked this earth, having laid aside all His Majesty to walk as a man among men, He did it perfectly, without sin, in complete harmony with His Father in heaven. This was true when confronted and tempted by the devil, when flattered by men who were trying to trap Him, when left by those who were meant to be His friends, and when accused and vilified by those he had tried to teach the way of peace and freedom.
Reading the Gospels and watching His life unfold is just a joy and a delight, as we see Him handle so many varied situations with such grace. He never put a foot wrong, and even in His hour of trial in the Garden of Gethsemane and when we see Him before Herod and Pilot, it is clear that He is in fact totally in charge and the only one not on trial that day. Everyone around Him was getting highly agitated, ripping their clothes, or feeling trapped and guilty, but Jesus is composed and ‘in control’, Matthew 27:14.
Then we see Him on the cross, now surely we will observe some sort of failure, but no! He deals with it all in the most triumphant fashion imaginable. A few years ago, we joined a Good Friday walk through a local town. We were told to stay silent and look sad. We were not to speak or laugh. I just could not believe it. I know we were meant to be acting out the journey Jesus took to the cross, but the public around were not given any idea of the significance of this day. Most people today have no bible knowledge and very little understanding of anything Christian. Seeing us all looking sad and staying silent, I can only imagine, would have confirmed them in their belief that Jesus was a good man who failed and that the Christian church was not for them.
I wanted to shout, wave a banner, let people know that this day represented the greatest victory the world has ever seen. That at this tragic time, Jesus was not failing but winning ‘big time’. Yes, we would celebrate the resurrection when Sunday came, but why do the sad day publicly and the resurrection day behind closed doors? Jesus didn’t fail while He walked on earth as a man and He didn’t fail as He died on the cross. In the most staggeringly triumphant way possible, He took on the devil, and at the same time ignored His taunters, blessed His friends and Mother, ushered the thief on the cross beside Him into the Kingdom of Heaven, and chose when to release His Spirit to the Father. Luke23:46. No wonder the centurion standing by could say, “surely He was the Son of God”. Matthew 27:54.
There is no doubt about His triumph in my third scenario – in heaven – but we do need to declare it. I say this because I was talking to a young Christian recently, who expressed concern that inspite of that death and resurrection the world seems to be getting no better, in other words she is asking, ‘Has God’s plan in fact failed?’ Well if we have a listen to the elders and four living creatures in heaven we can see how His victory looks to the angelic world, it’s far from a failure, it’s total victory, Revelation 5:11-14. Here on earth we need to remember that He is even now ‘in the highest place’, and that it is just a period of time before every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord, Philippians 2:9-11. One day too, ‘all His enemies will be His footstall’, Hebrews 1:3-13.
We can thank the Lord for the fact that He is so wonderfully victorious, that He is our never failing God, but also let us thank Him today for the incredible truth that our ‘Never Failing Jesus’ has made His home in you and me, so that we now have a share in His victories. This is the gloriously rich mystery, that Paul speaks of. ‘Christ in You, the hope of glory’, Colossians 1:27. When we were ‘born again’ we received the life of Christ into our spirit. We now have that ‘treasure in jars of clay to show that this all surpassing power is from God’, 2 Corinthians 4:6. With Christ within, it’s no wonder Paul can declare ‘thanks be to God who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ’, 2 Corinthians 2:14.
This is not ‘triumphalism’ which can be caricatured as a kind of a victorious Christian life where nothing ever goes wrong. It is rather an amazing truth that we can revel in, and enjoy. Brian Simmonds translates these verses like this. ‘God always makes His grace visible in Christ, who includes us as partners in His endless triumph. Through our yielded lives He spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of God everywhere we go. We have become the unmistakable aroma of the victory of the anointed one of God’. 2 Corinthians 2:14,15. The Passion Translation.
Let us thank the Lord today that we share in the triumph of our never failing Saviour. That we can grow to live life more as Jesus would, not because we are wearing a bracelet, (not that that’s a bad thing to do), but because He is living in and through us, so that we are ‘bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to His glorious might’, Colossians 1:10-12. Living, as Paul says, with ‘great endurance and patience, joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in the Kingdom of Light’.
