A crucial question
In my early teenage years, I went to see the Christian artist Carman perform. While the A2J craze was probably his biggest legacy, I was deeply impacted by his (lengthy) musical story-telling in "The Champion", which depicts the cosmic showdown between Satan and Jesus which was waged at the cross as a boxing metaphor. (If you're interested, here are links to the lyrics and music video.) The gist of the story was this: Satan takes his punches and thinks that he has nailed Jesus (pun intended) with a TKO - on the cross, Jesus appears to be down and defeated. Satan starts to gloat over his victory as the referee does the final countdown before declaring final victory - but at the last count (the 3rd day after his death), Jesus gets up from the mat (resurrection) and final victory goes to Jesus!! Woo hoo!!!
I didn't realise how deeply my mental picture of what was happening spiritually at the cross was impacted by this song until recently. I am currently preparing a talk on Jesus in the garden of Gesthsemane just before his death - and am now rethinking the whole thing. As much as I love the story telling and appropriate triumph of Carman's song, now I'm wondering: at the moment of Jesus' death, did Satan think he had won or lost? Thoughts?
I didn't realise how deeply my mental picture of what was happening spiritually at the cross was impacted by this song until recently. I am currently preparing a talk on Jesus in the garden of Gesthsemane just before his death - and am now rethinking the whole thing. As much as I love the story telling and appropriate triumph of Carman's song, now I'm wondering: at the moment of Jesus' death, did Satan think he had won or lost? Thoughts?
posted by Bronwyn at 8:38 am
5 Comments:
This is something that I think about every once in a while. Satan isn't stupid. He knows people, how we work, the best ways to tempt us. So on one hand I think, how on earth did he not know what was going on, if he knew that Christ was God, that he hadn't managed to tempt Jesus into sin? But on the other hand, maybe he caught up in the thought of "defeating" God that he wasn't thinking clearly. More likely, I think perhaps he was so immersed in his evilness that he couldn't recognize the pure love and mercy that was exhibited by Jesus' death. This thought reminds me of Harry Potter's final book - I don't want to give away spoilers for anyone who hasn't read them all the way through, but Voldemort just can't comprehend the love that Harry shows, so he doesn't get the trick.
To answer your question, I think he probably thought he had won, because he couldn't comprehend the totality of God's love.
For what it's worth, I'm reminded of the White Witch in "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe," who thought that by killing Aslan she had won.
I think that for Satan, "killing and destroying" are all that he knows - he is very cunning and deceptive, but I think that on some level he isn't even capable of understanding that Jesus' death would lead to eternal life for all who would have faith and believe in His death and resurrection. It reminds me of the Joker in "The Dark Night" - very clever, but totally random and senseless. That's my two cents from my desk - hope Teg is well!
max
Elle and Max, thanks for your thoughts!
I didn't want to put the "spoiler" in the main post as to the direction I've been thinking recently, but here goes:
I'm beginning to think that Satan must have had some idea of the fact that Jesus was planning to die on behalf of people... for the same reason that Jesus himself knew: both of of them knew the Scriptures which clearly foretold that the Servant of the Lord would suffer and die to redeem his people.
The more I think about it, the more it makes sense to me that Satan's temptations of JEsus in the wilderness, and in the Garden of Gethsemane, and in fact - in the words of Peter in Mark 8 - all had to do with enticing Jesus to take the path of glory (perhaps using his divine powers to procure whatever ends he wanted), and not taking the path of suffering which would save people.
If Satan is the great accuser and enemy of God's people, then to keep Jesus from dying for people and saving them would have been his great goal.
So now I'm thinking... maybe on the cross Satan knew that Jesus had obeyed to the very end and knew that he was in trouble. Maybe he didn't foresee quite how gloriously the resurrection would occur, but I'm guessing he knew that his battle to tempt Jesus away from being the Suffering Savior was over and that he had lost... My sense from the gospels is not so much that Satan wanted Jesus to DIE, but rather that he wanted him to FAIL, and even if he couldn't understand the depths of God's redeeming love - I wonder if he didn't, at some level, know that Jesus' death in fact meant that his mission was a success, rather than a failure.
Love you both.
Hi Bronwyn. sorry this isn't a comment on Satan! (Although I also remember being entranced by Carman's stories - have never forgotten LAZARUS, COME FORTH!) Thanks for your comment, always so nice to hear from you! Lots of love, miss you, Kate
i think he ultimately knew he hadn't won, but triumphed in the moment. the show. illusion and deception, even if to fool himself for a while, or to bask in fake glory, overflowing with self-congratulation even when he probably knew it would be short lived. it's what he's good at surely? would he not be the master of self-deception as well as inflicted? he is an eternal being too. he knows the history and the ins and outs, so i don't think he's naive either. i reckon he hoped he'd won, maybe a battle rather than the war, despite what he may have known better. isn't it still a battle he claims to have won - to some at least, even if it is to just fuel the nay-sayers?
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