Battle Cries from the Cross: Victory!

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Before an audience of attentive Spartans, Dilios declares that the 120,000-strong Persian army that narrowly defeated 300 Spartans now faces 10,000 Spartans commanding 30,000 Greeks. Praising Leonidas’s sacrifice, Dilios leads the assembled Greek army into a fierce charge against the Persian army, to victory in the Battle of Plataea.

Some of the most memorable and inspiring moments in film history are the speeches given by men leading soldiers into battle. Something in the heart of man cries out, with a thirst for identity and purpose, a yearning for glory and honor, a passion for victory and adventure, a longing for justice and for freedom, an appetite for love and beauty, and ultimately, the hope of immortality and salvation… It what drives us. It’s why we love sports, ultimate fighting, video games, comic books, myths, legends, and epic tales of heroism. It’s why men feel the constant need to compete, to show off their scars, to recount the glory days of high school sports or adolescent adventures, to fight and feel pain, and so on and so forth. We all know that we are in a battle, that life is a struggle, that a war wages within our own hearts. We spend our lives pursuing these ultimate, transcendant things, but we can never truly achieve them, only shadows of them, because we’re looking in the wrong places. The beauty of the Christian life is that on the Cross, God revealed himself in his glory, and achieved all of these things for us, in our place.  Jesus Christ cries out from the Cross, “It is finished.” For some, this is foolishness. For we who believe, it’s the most beautiful thing we’ve ever heard.

Jesus Died for our Victory

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