Flags of Defeat

Last month, the Dallas Cowboys lost a controversial game to the Green Bay Packers, eliminating them from the playoffs. Later in the same day, I was in the grocery store and saw several people doing their casual Sunday shopping, wearing Cowboys jerseys. Being a Buccaneers fan, I'm quite used to this feeling and frankly don't have this problem anymore because I've grown used to their chronic losing, but I felt bad for those Cowboys fans. I thought to myself that, with the rabidness that football brings out in people, being seen in public in a Romo jersey after a stunning defeat must hurt one's pride.

But it goes beyond those things. "I had a brother at Khe Sanh, fightin' off the Viet Cong - they're still there, he's all gone." When the communists stormed the US embassy in Saigon, effectively ending the twenty-year-long Vietnam War, it must have cut deep to the heart of a Vietnamese soldier, who'd fought for his own freedom, to see the flag of the Republic of South Vietnam become an obsolete novelty, some collectors item as far as the communists were concerned.

When thinking of South Africa, the aged and dying members of the former apartheid government, that "angry race of fallen kings," must feel the same when they see the flag that was flown before right prevailed, before Mandela was freed, before hope shed a color.

But today, thinking of the twenty-one Egyptian Christians slain by ISIS, I don't feel that way. I don't have the embarrassment of the sports jersey, the bitter tears of freedom crushed, or the trace of regret of the power I once had. I only feel victory, that which was given to believers through the cross on which our Christ suffered and died. I take comfort in the fact that suffering is a part of following Christ with boldness, with solidarity. "For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also abounds through Christ," (2 Corinthians 1:5), and "rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ’s sufferings, that when His glory is revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy" (1 Peter 4:13).

I know that with every saint's life taken because of his or her faith in Jesus Christ, the Gospel is only spoken by those who hate, and proven true by those who kill. I know that with every scathing criticism of the Christian, every cold and apathetic remark like "what about the crusades?", Christ's prophecy is illuminated, His foretelling that we who desire to follow Him will me mocked, spat upon, and worse.

Thank God for the testimonies to Jesus Christ, stamped in history even by those who despised Him and His church! Tacitus, one of the most revered historians of ancient times, in recording the events after the great fire of Rome, wrote, "Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their center and become popular."
In spitting on the church of Jesus, though his aim was to smear Nero, of whom Tacitus was no admirer, this historian of old verifies and testifies what is confirmed in the Gospels. I thank the Lord for using this instrument. Likewise, second century Greek satirist Lucian of Samosata wrote, as part of an acerbic sendup of Christianity, "The Christians, you know, worship a man to this day—the distinguished personage who introduced their novel rites, and was crucified on that account. … You see, these misguided creatures start with the general conviction that they are immortal for all time, which explains their contempt of death and voluntary self-devotion which are so common among them; and then it was impressed on them by their original lawgiver that they are all brothers, from the moment that they are converted, and deny the gods of Greece, and worship the crucified sage, and live after his laws. All this they take quite on faith, with the result that they despise all worldly goods alike, regarding them merely as common property."
Thank God for these harsh words aimed at His disciples! For without them, there would be slightly less indisputable historical validity of the Christian claims. These scathing words are not to our shame or disgrace - they are for God's glory. Peter writes, "If you are reproached for the name of Christ, blessed are you, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. On their part He is blasphemed, but on your part He is glorified" (1 Peter 4:14).

And I know that though the Christian dies, the cross he or she bears does not become a symbol of defeat, because “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?" (John 11:25-26).
Jesus took the very instrument of His execution, and turned it into the symbol of His victory, the victory we share in Him. What was once an ugly and ominous symbol of capital punishment is now the symbol of salvation, of God's love for the world, and for eternal life.