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2 Corinthians 12:1-10

 

I must go on boasting. Though there is nothing to be gained by it, I will go on to visions and revelations of the Lord. I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven - whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows. And I know that this man was caught up into paradise - whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows - and he heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter. On behalf of this man I will boast, but on my own behalf I will not boast, except of my weaknesses. Though if I should wish to boast, I would not be a fool, for I would be speaking the truth. But I refrain from it, so that no one may think more of me than he sees in me or hears from me. So to keep me from being too elated by the surpassing greatness of the revelations,a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from being too elated. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (ESV)

Flanking Satan 

Wednesday in Easter 4

18 May 2011

Frontal attacks are not considered good military strategy. Pickett's charge foundered upon a wall of Union troops at the Gettysburg Battlefield on July 3, 1863. Rather than risk a frontal attack every commander works to "turn the flank" of the enemy, so as to place his greatest strength against his enemy's greatest weakness. On July 3 Union troops managed to flank the Confederate lines as they approached the Union line that day by turning out toward the left and right of the advancing troops. Caught in a box closed on three sides, this resulted in a murderous fire being poured down along the lines of the gallant Confederate soldiers. Defeat was lamentably predictable for them.

God also flanked our enemy, Satan, in the great cosmic battle for our souls. But instead of placing his strength against the weakness of the enemy, God placed his weakness against Satan's power. Setting his weakness against Satan's strength God flanked our enemy completely at the Cross. Christ's righteous death became the ultimate weapon against death. His loss of life gave life to us. His acceptance of our flesh now weakened by sin in us, returned to us a flesh cleansed from sin. He avoided using His power that His powerlessness might become our strength. He appeared to be defeated by Satan that we might receive His victory. He offered Himself on the sin-scarred battlefield of Calvary that we might grow up in the verdant fields watered by His blood. He was strength made perfect in weakness. 

 

St. Augustine

 

"What is the righteousness by which the devil was conquered? What, except the righteousness of Jesus Christ? And how was he conquered when he found in Him nothing worthy of death, yet he slew Him? And certainly it is just, that we, whom he held as debtors, should be dismissed free by believing in Him whom he slew without any debt. In this way it is that we are said to be justified in the blood of Christ (Rm 5:9). Innocent blood was shed for the remission of our sins. For this reason He calls Himself in the Psalms, 'Free among the dead' (Ps 88:5). For he only that is dead is free from the debt of death. Hence also in another Psalm He says, 'Then I restored that which I seized not' (Ps 69:4); meaning sin by the thing seized, because sin is laid hold of against what is lawful. Therefore He also says, by the mouth of His own flesh, as is read in the Gospel: 'for the ruler of this world is coming. He has no claim on me,' that is, no sin; but 'I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father. Rise, let us go from here' (Jn 14:30-31). Hence He proceeds to His passion, that He might pay for us debtors that which He Himself did not owe.

"Would then the devil be conquered by this most just righteousness, if Christ had willed to deal with him by power, not by righteousness? But He held back what was possible for Him, in order that He might first do what was right. Therefore it was necessary that He should be both man and God. For unless He had been man, He could not have been slain. Unless He had been God, men would not have believed that He would not do what He could, but that He could not do what He would; nor should we have thought that righteousness was preferred by Him to power, but that He lacked power. He suffered for us things belonging to man, because He was man. However, if He had been unwilling, it would have been in His power to not suffer, because He was also God. Therefore righteousness was made more acceptable in humility, because so great power as was in His Divinity, if He had been unwilling, would have been able not to suffer humility. Thus by Him who died, being thus powerful, both righteousness was commended and power promised to us weak mortals. For He did one of these two things by dying, the other by rising again.

"For what is more righteous, than to come even to the death of the cross for righteousness? And what more powerful, than to rise from the dead, and to ascend into heaven with that very flesh in which He was slain? And therefore He conquered the devil first by righteousness, and afterwards by power: namely, by righteousness, because He had no sin, and was slain by him most unjustly. And by power, because by having been dead He lived again, never afterwards to die (Rm 6:9). But He would have conquered the devil by power, even though He could not have been slain by him: although it belongs to a greater power to conquer death itself also by rising again, than to avoid death by living. But the reason is really a different one, why we are justified in the blood of Christ, when we are rescued from the power of the devil through the remission of sins: it pertains to this, that the devil is conquered by Christ by righteousness, not by power. For Christ was crucified, not through immortal power, but through the weakness which He took upon Him in mortal flesh; of which weakness the apostle says, 'the weakness of God is stronger than men' (1Co 1:25)." 

 

Augustine, On the Trinity, 13.14

 

Prayer 

Lord Jesus, you became weak for us that You might rescue us from the power of the enemy. Grant us the faith to accept weakness as Your strength. Amen.

For Archbishop Janas Vanags of Latvia, that God the Lord would uphold him in the faith that strength is made perfect in weakness

For peace in the Middle East and throughout the world

For all orphans and widows that God would be for them a Father to the fatherless

For all those seeking gainful employment, that they might find work in keeping with their vocation

Art: GR�NEWALD, Matthias Isenheim Altarpiece (1515)

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