Resurrection Sunday reminds us that Christ is the victorious Lord who is risen and ascended, ruling and reigning and putting all his enemies under his feet. Good Friday reminds us that the path to get there was a bloody one of suffering, abuse, persecution, and death.
Our glorious Lord was mocked (Luke 22:63), lied about (Matthew 26:60-61), and called demon-possessed (John 7:20). He was beaten (John 19:1), spit upon (Matthew 26:67), and violently executed upon a cross of wood. For the salvation of his people, he underwent the height of humiliation and suffering.
The death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ – and the attendant good news that Jesus is Lord of all – means that foul, guilty sinners (such as you and me) can be forgiven for all our sins and made new in Christ. And if you are truly Christ’s, then you have been called and equipped to follow your risen Savior. All that he has is yours, and all that you need he will give, and all that he does is for you.
None of this, however, means that your path will be one of ease and comfort. The pattern of Christ is suffering first, victory second.
The Captain of your salvation has not only called you to eternal joy, but to a temporal war. You have been summoned to life amid a theater of war. This world is Christ’s and following him means serving his mission of recovering it.
That strong and wicked worm called Apollyon, though mortally wounded, lies like an accursed slug, pressing down upon the treasured souls of men that belong to the rightful King of the Mountain of the Lord’s House.
But we are the sons and daughters of the second Adam, and we have come to reclaim our homeland.
In that quest, we must not expect a fairer reception than our forerunner, Immanuel himself, received.
“The disciple is not above his master, nor the servant above his lord,” Christ Jesus said. “It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master, and the servant as his lord. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more shall they call them of his household?” (Matthew 10:24-25).
Christ was treated with the utmost opprobrium and malignity by those craven inhabitants of that cursed town of Mansoul. Indeed, the very men he came to save were wont to heap curses and imprecations upon his holy head.
And if you are to bear his name, you must expect nothing less. If you are to take his banner forth, into the fray of idolatry and vice, expect to meet stiff resistance. If you are to plant his flag upon the tor of an apostate culture, be prepared to summon the most fiendish and accursed opposition to your righteous cause.
They slandered the Son of God with demonic appellations, and then called for his slaughter at the hands of pagan potentates. And the devil, that great dragon of depredation with wounded head and injured pride, possesses yet enough strength of convulsion to strike at the company of the true King. So, we are to be furnished by the Master Armorer, clothed with strength unto the battle, even as we gird up the loins of our mind, sober and steadfast in all things (cf. Psalm 18:39; 1 Peter 1:13).
And yet, we have been at ease in Babylon. We have exchanged a bivouac with our brothers for a seat at Satan’s table. We have exchanged a walk-on part in the war for a lead role in a cage.
Such an ignoble course has secured to us an imagined spiritual ceasefire, but it has cost us the bloody ground that our forefathers in the faith won for us. Now, awakened from our slumberous apathy, we find ourselves on the defensive. But the battle belongs to the Lord, and there is nothing left now but to sally forth from our spiritual enclaves and rally to our King, who ever remains at the vanguard.
We must away, ere break of that great Day, and march under his banner amid the torrent of darkness and ignorance. We must reclaim all that is his. Every square inch belongs to him, and there is not one stronghold in the deepest recesses of humanistic pride that will not fall before him.
Yes, we will be hated, we will be maligned, we will be mocked. But they called our master Beelzebub, and we can ask for nothing more than to follow him. If we are Jesus Christ’s and he is ours, then we are not of them who draw back unto perdition, but of them that believe to the saving of the soul. We are of them called to rejoice that we are counted worthy to suffer shame for his name.
The author and finisher of our faith, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is now set down at the right hand of the throne of God. The shame first, then the glory. The heavy losses first, then the victory. D-Day first, then VE-Day.
Lancaster County is not a neutral sector on Christ’s map. The few faithful churches that remain must remember that the Christian life is not a playground, but a battlefield. The faithful discharging of Christian duties will lead to peace for the progeny of the righteous, but that day is not today in Lancaster County. Not while perversion is celebrated at convention centers or quaint small-town parks. Not while civil magistrates oppress and harass the innocent. Not while government indoctrination centers deal in the doctrines of death among the youth. And not while the name of Christ is hidden under the bushel of retreatism and comfort.
Let us then engage the enemy and take back what is our Lord’s – namely the soul of this county and the souls of those who, for the moment, stand opposed to him. To do so, we must be prepared to face the diabolical music of slander or worse.
But it was the cross before the crown for our Savior, and it will ever be the same for his followers.
Chris Hume is the host of The Lancaster Patriot Podcast and the author of several books, including Seven Statist Sins. He can be reached at info@thelancasterpatriot.com.
