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At first glance, the words “humble” and “victory” don’t seem to fit together – they appear oxymoronic.
Victory usually comes by power and might, not by humility. But during Holy Week, which started a few days ago on Palm Sunday and continues with Maundy Thursday, followed by Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday, we will watch Jesus accomplish a humble victory over our mightiest foes: sin, death and the devil.
We can’t see His humble victory with our eyes, but only through faith. As we read of Christ’s entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, and then His sufferings and death, Christ looks anything but powerful and victorious, but rather humble and defeated. And this is just how God wanted it. “Humble victory” is the paradoxical way our God accomplished salvation in Jesus Christ.
On Palm Sunday, many Jews had come to think that Jesus might be the Messiah from God whom they thought would restore Israel to the glory it had experienced under David and Solomon. So, the crowd was excited about the prospects of Jesus being a powerful political figure who could rival Caesar and liberate the Jews from Roman domination.
But, Jesus had other plans. He wasn’t that kind of king, and His kingdom is not of this world. He was a humble King, who placed Himself under the Scriptures. He came to fulfill the Scriptures, and as the prophet Zechariah wrote, the coming King would be humble, lowly: “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey.” Jesus had to be a humble King, because that’s what God’s Word said He would be.
And Jesus taught and lived this out: “You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles dominate them, and their great ones tyrannize them. But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for the masses,” Mark 10:42-45. If this King was going to win victory over sin and death for His people, it was going to be through humble self-giving, not by an outward show of power and might. And in doing this, He not only accomplishes our salvation, but He also sets the example for us, that we are to be humble servants of others.
Jesus is not your typical tyrant – power hungry and ruthless – but humble, a servant. Even though Jesus, as God the Son, truly was equal with God the Father, He did not consider this something to cling to or exploit for His own advantage, but instead humbled Himself, took up human flesh in order to obey God’s Law perfectly in our place, and then offer the substitutionary death for our sins that the Scriptures predicted.
While worldly rulers make their mark by the exercise of their power, King Jesus makes His mark by His refusal to exercise His power and instead suffer and die. As Jesus tells Pilate, if His Kingdom were of this world, His subjects would be fighting, but this is not the way of our Suffering Servant Lord. It is only in His lowly Passion that we finally understand the reason Jesus entered Jerusalem in such a humble manner. Only at the cross can we perceive the sort of Messiah He would be.
Through Isaiah the prophet God had said about Jesus, “He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.” Again, Isaiah said, “Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed.” Only the death of the Son of God could accomplish all of that.
Yet through all of Christ’s service, suffering and dying, we also know that through this He was victorious over sin, death and hell, and won the victory of eternal life for us on Easter morning through His resurrection. So His victory indeed is a humble victory, for with Jesus these two words fit together perfectly. “Humble victory” is a mysterious paradox by which God has reconciled the world to Himself in Jesus Christ, who says to you, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the Gospel,” Mark 1:15.
