Saturday, March 3, 2018
Matthew 20:18 Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem …
VICTORY PARADE
On August 26, 1944 French General Charles De Gaulle led a victory parade of Allied troops down the streets of Paris. It was now clear that Nazi Germany was in its death throes. But the war was not yet won. American soldiers in parade formation marched right from the city streets into combat.
As Jesus proceeded toward Jerusalem in the days before His death, the Lord, we might say, was on parade. Yet fierce combat still awaited him. "Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and to the scribes; and they will condemn Him to death …"
We might liken it to the Allies parade through Paris during World War II. The war not yet won, but victory was in sight. The final outcome of His war on Satan, sin and death was in clear view for our Savior. The outcome of this war had been assured since the LORD God had made that first Gospel Promise in the Garden of Eden where it was promised that "the Seed of the woman" would crush the head of the serpent, Satan.
Once again this Lenten season we "march" with Jesus to Jerusalem. We go with Him into the Garden of Gethsemane as He is arrested and unjustly convicted. We follow Him through the horrible sufferings on Good Friday. We finally join Him in the victory celebration on Easter, marking His triumphant resurrection from the
dead, where we see the head of the Serpent crushed beneath His risen feet.
Like the Parisians celebrating the liberating march of the Allies, we celebrate Christ's Victory Parade year after year. As we do so we also look ahead to the final victory parade when Christ returns on the Last Day. Then believers also will rise victorious, and the words of the holy writer shall be fulfilled: "That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father" (Philippians 2:10f).
-- From the "Lutheran Spokesman"
