Paradoxical Warfare
As we have celebrated the Paschal week, we have heard and maybe lived the events of it, sung its tunes, and shed few tears, but have we looked passed the events? Can we say that we witnessed a much deeper reality? Can we attest to spiritual tunes of victory behind the audible melodies? The paschal week is much more than steps to the cross; it is warfare.
In the old days, wars were fought through confrontations. The two armies would be facing each other, with both their kings on the front lines, and run into the fighting field in personal combat. The kings would be spearheading their armies; they would be the first to fight. After the war is won, the king and his army would go into the city victorious on his horse and people would go out on the streets and receive him happily. In a similar manner, Christ fought spiritual warfare.
It's only similar in that it is warfare, for Christ's war seemed out of order, unorganized, and definitely prone to failure. The order of events was peculiar; it seemed that everything worked backwards. The first day of the week, he comes into the city of Jerusalem as of a king, and people greet him with shouting "Hosanna, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!" (Mk. 11:9) Moreover, when Christ was addressed to stop the children from shouting their praises he refused, such a victory would make the stones cry out in a like manner; Christ is celebrating his victory with no visible war yet waged! And the ass! A victorious king rides on a horse , not on an ass. Horses are symbols of might, are vicious runners, and fit to maneuver over complex war landscapes; hence it is understandable when a king who just defeated his enemy in the war would ride the horse in majesty into his city to proclaim his power over his adversaries. An ass however is a simple worker used for transportations of goods and people; it is a symbol of peace, which does not fit the idea of a victorious king. No war is raged that peacefully. So what is this victory? You are not even fighting yet! But Christ continues his voyage and leads the whole Church with him, I tagging along.
As we journey with him, he sets us around a table with bread and wine. He takes the bread and says: "This is my Body which shall be broken for you and for many." and then he grabs this cup of wine and says: "this is my blood of the new covenant, which shall be shed for you and many others." (cf. Liturgy of Saint Basil). Blood? Body? You just proclaimed victory on Sunday and now you are telling us that you are dead? How can you give me your body to eat now as you are talking with me? I don't understand. He never stopped to explain this, but went into the garden to pray, so we stood far in Gethsemane waiting to see how the events unfold.
Now he falls captive in the hands of the Jews, who turn him in to the Romans. Pilate asks him, "Are you the king of the Jews?" (Jn. 18:33) and he answers, "My kingdom is not of this world…" (Jn. 18:36) Jesus, what are you saying? People cheered for you as their savior from the oppressors and you say that your kingdom is not on earth? And you are beaten up? How could you possibly win this war? He is now taken by the authorities outside the walls of Jerusalem, and while all left him, the Church still continued to follow the steps of John and Mary unto Golgotha.
No! No, no please, not the cross! Please do not destroy all hopes that I had in you being victorious. What is it that you did in the beginning of the week? Was it a joke? And he finally yells, "It is finished." (Jn. 19:30) and dies. Finished?! What is finished? The war has not started, and he claims that it is done! We suspected to see him on his throne as the Psalmist David professes that his throne is forever and ever (cf. Ps. 45:6). Now we see him hanging on a wooden cross as a criminal and that is it?! It is finished?! We expected a well-established kingdom, and all we got is a strange phrase over the man's last breath before he passes away. If you ask me, this is the worst form of defeat that could have happened to Christ: what a shameful day. He was right though; it is seemed like it is all over. He lied! His mission was a failure. People then took him, wrapped him, and put him in a carved tomb. The stone rolls over to seal the tomb and shatters the idea of any victory or even any war.
The following Sunday, the news reached our ears that He is not in the tomb, he is not among the dead, he is alive. Alive?! Alive?! I saw him on that cross, but could he have actually won the war? It was only then that I was granted the eyes of the blind man (cf. Jn. 9). Yes, the war was peculiar because I looked at it with the wrong eyes all along. The war was won since his entry into Jerusalem and even before when he said that, he saw Satan falling down like a thunder from the heavens.
The king of kings took on a war against Satan, all his hosts, and all his powers. He did not take a single soldier to fight with him, but he did it alone: one king against myriads of wicked powers. But he was sure of his victory, sure to the point of proclaiming it in earthly Jerusalem before he fights. The fight was on that cross and in that tomb; he destroyed humanity's greatest enemy: namely, the death of sin. He destroyed the sinful nature on that cross and wiped out our infirmity. We are no longer strangers to God; his cross had bridged the gap between us and the divine, making us appear in his sight without blemish. Yet, let us not forget the words of Paul: "And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins." (I Cor. 15:14, 17) His resurrection gave us life in him, we have no life outside of Christ; it is the proof that we are a new creation. When he said on the cross, "It is finished", he was right. He foresaw his resurrection and the grace awaiting us at that moment; that is God's rest, the true Sabbath. This is the day when the new creation is crafted: "For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them" (Eph. 2:10). Indeed, his war is finished and his kingdom is established. Satan is now, and unto eternity, pronounced defeated.
But what is in it for us? If he trotted along the way of victory, fought by taking on all the powers of the wicked one on his own, and single-handedly defeated humanity's worst rival, how does this affect us? That is what the Last Supper was all about; he slipped his hand from behind time (as he still does today in the Eucharist), brought the Cross and laid it on the table. When he instituted the mystery, he tied the blood of the Passover lamb that saved our forefathers from death at the last night of their slavery to his own blood that was shed on Good Friday to save the humanity from the real death which has long before separated us from God. On the Cross, he also extended his hands even further to grab the empty tomb and present it to us, since we do not partake of a corpse but of a living God who cannot perish. We mystically partake of immortality through the seemingly mortal body of Christ, even though it is truly not mortal anymore. We partook of his victory prior to the war. He made sure that he himself is the one to hand it to us not after it was accomplished, but beforehand to tell us that we are still part of that fight even though he does not need our help.
Well, what is our role now in this fight if the war is done? The answer simply is to fight an already defeated enemy. We walk into his kingdom and grab more of the hostages he had captured throughout the ages using the whole armor of God (cf. Eph. 6:10 – 18.) And we had the promise from the Lord himself when he said "and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against her [the Church]" Our fight keeps going as long as the Church lives in this world until Hades and death are thrown into the lake of fire. And at that moment, we will hear the voice saying, "It is done!" (Rev. 21:6). And it will be the same voice that said, Tetelestai!
