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"Christ Jesus Lay in Death's Strong Bands"
"Death has been swallowed up in victory" "Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?" (1 Corinthians 15:54b,55).
It is not uncommon to rejoice when your enemy meets death. For instance, after young David killed the Philistine warrior-giant Goliath, Scripture tells us that women "came out from all the towns of Israel . . . with singing and dancing, with joyful songs and with tambourines and lutes" (1 Samuel 18:6). They exulted in the death of Israel's enemy. The giant's great power had been neutralized. Fear abolished. As is normally the case, David was hailed as the victor.
How strange it is then to celebrate the fact that Jesus Christ won the ultimate victory over our spiritual enemies, not by avoiding death but by willingly embracing it! No doubt the devil and his menacing cohorts rejoiced on that first Good Friday as they witnessed Jesus, God's only Son, offering up his final breath. At last, they must have thought, we have defeated God and his Anointed One for good! The hellish tambourines and lutes were perhaps merrily passed around, and a raucous party probably ensued.
Just one problem: Jesus did not remain dead! He rose victoriously from death on the third day to show his power over that insignificant enemy and to assure us that the forgiveness of sins and eternal life has been won for all people. Jesus' victory over death becomes our victory by grace through faith in him, who is our life. Yes, by the death of Life itself, death is swept away. What a paradox!
No one delighted in this scriptural paradox more than Martin Luther. In his hymn "Christ Jesus Lay in Death's Strong Bands" (CW 161), the reformer envisions the cosmic battlefield occupied by life and death. At one point death's strong bands held our Savior captive, "but now at God's right hand he stands and brings us life from heaven" (st. 1). Yes, Luther admits, "it was a strange and dreadful strife when life and death contended," but "the victory remained with life; the reign of death was ended. . . . Death is swallowed up by death, its sting is lost forever" (st. 2). And who alone could win such an eternal victory? Only Christ, "the true Paschal Lamb . . . whom God so freely gave us." We can pull out the tambourines and lutes! "Satan cannot harm us. Hallelujah!" (st. 3).
Our Christian faith has something to sing about: life wins the victory over death through death!
© 2007 Northwestern Publishing House. All rights reserved.
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