Victory Through the Cross

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, as we continue through these summer months, for many people it is a time to exhale, rest, and relax. Summertime usually involves much-needed vacations and a break from the school routine. For many, summer also includes summer sports leagues and tournaments for many young people. More than anything, they are laser-focused on getting that ring, trophy, or medal at the end of the season.  As this issue of the Bayou Catholic reflects on the theme of victory in Christ, I was drawn to reflect on a Christian understanding of victory as opposed to a worldly understanding.

We can pretty quickly see that for the Christian, our understanding of victory is radically different than what you might think.  This is most clearly evident in the reality of the Cross, where Christ won for us our victory over sin and death and made us members of the family of God.  Yet, through human eyes, that scene looks not like victory but a disastrous failure.   The acclaimed Messiah ascended not a throne of power and victory, but rather a throne of suffering and crucifixion. He stood clothed with nothing but the wounds of his scourging, a crown of thorns forced into his head, receiving not shouts of acclaim but mockery and scorn.  To the ignorant bystander, one would think that this looks like the end of a movement and the defeat of a revolutionary.

Yet by his life and especially his death, Christ reveals to each of us a very different message.  Real victory does not and cannot come through human means, human victory, or by our own strength.  Real victory comes through accepting our weakness and limitations, thereby allowing the power of God to work in us and through us.  As long as we rely on our own efforts, power, or understanding, we limit what God can do in our lives.  Jesus shows us that in Him and in Him alone do we find the ultimate source of victory.  St. Paul most beautifully reflects on this in his second letter to the Corinthians when he says that “power is made perfect in weakness…for when I am weak, then I am strong” and therefore he will “boast all the more gladly in [his] weakness” (2 Cor 12:9-10).

Boasting in weakness runs counter to everything that our culture tells us about what is required for real victory.  We are continually sold the narrative that to win, I have to be the best, the strongest, the most capable, and losing is a result of weakness and failure. With that understanding, so many people go through their lives weighed down by that burden that becomes so difficult to carry.  To each one of us who feels that burden and that pressure, Christ brings a profound and new hope.  To Jesus, your weakness is not a hindrance to him, nor does he love you any less because of your failure.  On the contrary, when we bring our weakness and failure to Him, and surrender ourselves entirely into His power, we can and will see Him work in profound and even miraculous ways.  By his suffering and death, He shows us that embracing weakness is actually the key to real victory.  That is why, as St Paul says elsewhere, “he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross,” but goes on to say that “because of this, God greatly exalted him” (Phil 2:8-9).  

My brothers and sisters, Christ won the victory for you already; you do not have to win it for yourselves.  We do not have to accept the world’s narrative of what real victory entails nor all the pressures that come along with it.  Just as resurrection comes through death, so Christian victory comes through embracing and surrendering our weakness.  May the Lord give us the grace to do just that, so that we may experience the fullness of His victory in our lives.