The Son of God Goes Forth to War

As we continue to meditate on the sufferings and death of Jesus for our sins and for our salvation this season of Lent, one of the striking lessons that we need impressed over and over again is how the humility, weakness, and sufferings of Christ are His enthronement, coronation, and glory. Jesus is crowned with thorns and mocked as a delusional King, but God has spun the story of history, insisting by the power of the Spirit that His glory and power were evident in that moment. In the weakness of mockery and scorn, God was piling up the sins of the world unto His Son in order that He might be all in all, in order that all things might be reconciled in heaven and on earth in Him. In other words, God was revealing real kingship, real power, real authority in the suffering and death of Jesus. And He did this by taking our enemies, our sins, our failures, all that keeps us from peace and joy, and He made war on them all by taking them into His own body on the cross. And this is why we cannot doubt or be shy about the gospel. Jesus is King, and it should not come as a surprise that His Kingdom is coming and growing in much the same it was established. It was established in what looked like its disestablishment. Our King was crowned in what looked like His ruin. Our King was hailed in what sounded and looked like mockery and scorn. Our King destroyed all of our enemies in what looked like His destruction. Why would we be surprised to look back and see the same story throughout history in the great conquest of the world by our King? And this means that there is not anything in your life which is too ugly, too horrible, too shameful, too embarrassing that God cannot or will not transfigure into glory. We serve the God who is free and unbounded, the Sovereign God who rules all things, and His power is made especially obvious in our weakness. The Son of God goes forth to war, a kingly crown to gain, His blood-red banner streams afar, who follows in His train?