Easter
Bishop Ray Sutton

Sometimes victory appears as defeat. Many years ago a famous battle was fought between the English and the French at a place called Waterloo. Two great generals faced each other, Wellington and Napoleon. When the battle was over, there was only one way of immediate communication. Signalmen, as they were called, used special coded flags by which they communicated the news. They relayed by semaphore from station to station. These stations, to be seen, were positioned on the highest places, buildings, ships in the English Channel, and in the towers of churches. The last signalman on the English side was placed high atop Winchester Cathedral. When the historic battle at Waterloo was over, signalmen busied themselves with the news of who had won and who had lost. The message was received by a ship in the channel. The signalman sent the first word to Winchester, “Wellington.” Quickly he passed along the second word, “Defeated.” But as soon as he relayed these two words, one of those dreary fogs arose. The ship was swallowed up by the cloud. What the signalman on Winchester Cathedral bell tower received was, “Wellington defeated.” The country was thrown into sadness. Gloom filled the countryside. All was thought to be lost. Three hours later, as rapidly as the fog came, it dissipated. The signal came again. This time the message was, “Wellington Defeated the Enemy.” All of England rejoiced. All along, the victory had been secure. For moments, all appeared to be lost. What looked like defeat was in fact victory.

In a similar way, Easter morning is met by Christ’s first followers with the sense that all was lost. Yet what seemed to be a signal of doom was actually a message of victory. God’s semaphore of victory is none other than the empty tomb. All of the Gospel writers tell us about the mistaken conclusions of those who first witnessed the vacated burial site. John tells us, “The first day of the week, Mary Magdalene came early to the tomb, while it was still dark, and saw the stone already taken away from the tomb” (John 20:1). Mark records, “And very early on the first day of the week, they came to the tomb when the sun had risen. And they [Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Salome] were saying to one another, ‘Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance of the tomb?’ And looking up, they saw that the stone had been rolled away, although it was extremely large” (Mark 16:2-4) The empty tomb was screaming the message of victory to them. The huge stone, heavier than any one man could move, was pushed back. The Roman seal, ordered by Pilate to mark closure and no admittance to the grave of Jesus, was broken. The only time such an insignia was shattered was in the case of defeat. A conqueror would always have the vanquished enemy’s crest brought to him and broken before his eyes as a sign of victory. Indeed, the seal was so important that Roman guards were stationed to protect not just the tomb but the seal of Rome. And the number of guards was probably greater than the two we imagine. It could have been as many as fourteen guards positioned in front of the massive stone. Thus, with the guards gone, the legendary Roman seal broken, the stone moved away, and the absence of a body, all spoke of victory.

To those initial visitors to the tomb, however, the message was, “Jesus Defeated.” In reality what declared defeat so profoundly, sent the other message that the empty tomb itself has become in history the pre-eminent symbol of Christus Victor, Christ the Victor. In the midst of apparent defeat, there was a greater symbol of victory.
It was May Day, 1990, the place, Moscow's Red Square. "Is it straight, Father?" one Orthodox priest asked another, shifting the heavy, eight-foot crucifix on his shoulder. "Yes," said the other. "It is straight." Together the two priests, along with a group of parishioners holding ropes that steadied the beams of the huge cross, walked the parade route. Before them  passed the official might of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics: The usual May Day procession of tanks, missiles, troops, and salutes to the Communist party elite. Behind the tanks surged a giant crowd of protesters, shouting up at Mikhail Gorbachev. "Bread!...Freedom!...Truth!"

As the throng passed directly in front of the Soviet leader standing in his place of honor, the priests hoisted their heavy burden toward the sky. The cross emerged from the crowd. As it did, the figure of Jesus Christ obscured the giant poster faces of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, and Vladimir Lenin that provided the backdrop for Gorbachev's reviewing stand. "Mikhail Sergeyevich!" one of the priests shouted, his deep voice cleaving the clamor of the protesters and piercing straight toward the angry Soviet leader. "Mikhail Sergeyevich! Christ is risen!"

We now know that the same Marxist leader eventually gave his life to Christ. In fact, he was recently seen at the shrine of St. Francis of Assisi, whose life he has made his life’s study and admiration. But on that day when the power of the Soviet Union filled the air with its monuments of might, Christ is risen once again overcame.

The day Christ’s disciples first came to the empty tomb, they could only accept half a message that seemed to indicate, “Jesus defeated.” Eventually, however, Jesus appeared to them completing the message, “Jesus Defeated the Enemy.” As our Easter Gospel from John concludes, they like John “saw and believed” (John 20:8). And so it is with you and me. Until we trust in Him, all may seem to be lost. We will not see. He might be considered dead when in fact He is alive. But when we believe, whether Mary Magdalene or Mikhail Gorbachev, we will come to our own personal Easter. We will be able to answer “Christ is risen” with “Christ is risen indeed!” Amen!!