The Victory Feast of Joy: An Easter Sunday Homily

There came a day when the anointed king of Israel had been surrounded by his foes and abandoned by those who'd claimed they'd follow him. But it wasn't yet the day you might think. For this was King David. We hear tell in the Scriptures of a battle at Pas-dammim, where the Philistines had assembled at a large barley field, and they were so overwhelming that the Israelite army fled, forsaking their anointed king. Only one man stood with David in the middle of the field “and defended it and killed the Philistines. And the LORD saved them by a great victory” (1 Chronicles 11:13-14). No doubt that faithful soldier ate dinner at David's side at David's table that night. And so began a great history of “the kingdom of the LORD over Israel” (1 Chronicles 28:5), “the kingdom of the LORD in the hands of the sons of David” (2 Chronicles 13:8).

A thousand years went by, until there was born “in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:11), “and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David” (Luke 1:32). As he ascended toward Jerusalem for that fateful week, even the blind begged, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” (Luke 18:38), inspiring praises to God. “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” (Matthew 21:9). But when the temple priests sought to censor this Anointed One of God, he warned that “the kingdom of God will be taken away from you” (Matthew 21:43). They did not understand.

Passover was fast approaching, the covenant feast that had preceded God's battle for Israel against the false gods of Egypt, the battle for Israel's freedom. Only on the other side of that preparatory feast and the divine battle could the tribes be forged into “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exodus 19:6). And so, too, now. This Passover was a preparatory feast of the King with his captains before the battle. “You are those who have stayed with me in my trials,” said Jesus, “and I assign to you, as my Father assigned to me, a kingdom, that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel” (Luke 22:28-30). Here the apostles became a kingdom of priests, destined for thrones and a table. But, in fact, it was through service at the table that they would most perfectly govern their people (Luke 22:24-27).

The next day, the tables seemed turned. In the night, when the devil-infested apostate apostle led soldiers to capture the Christ (Luke 22:47-53), his apostolic army fled for fear, one and all (Mark 14:50). As others feasted but fed him naught, his kingship was the very charge laid against him and question put to him: “Are you the King?” (Luke 23:3). What could the people expect “if he is the Christ of God, the Chosen One” (Luke 23:35)? And yet his captors robed him, crowned him, saluted him; thinking to mock, they oversaw his coronation (Mark 15:17-19). On the cross, beneath his title as 'King,' he was enthroned, “lifted up” to gather his subjects to his salvation (John 3:14; 19:19-22). “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God glorified in him” (John 13:31).

No doubt the demons, those sneering Philistines unseen by mortal eye, jeered and cheered as the light of day faltered and failed. They could not see that there, in this darkness, the Son was offering his Father an infinite act of worship: on behalf of humanity, the sacrifice he rendered to God the Father was the entire life and death of God the Son. “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit” he cried as the temple's seamless veil ripped from heaven's end on down (Luke 23:44-46). How little did the demons know that, by this sacrifice supremely sufficient to solve the sin of the world, he was “canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands; this he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the principalities and powers and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in it” (Colossians 2:15). In his faithful sacrifice of self, he won the battle.

But in dying, he opened the next phase of his campaign. While grieving men wrapped his crucified corpse and rested it in a tomb for its sabbath sleep (Luke 23:50-56), his human soul was a Trojan horse, smuggling the fullness of God into the belly of death to burst it from the inside. For “he entered into Sheol and brought out its prisoners; he fought with the Evil One and conquered him; he trampled him and broke his foothold and spoiled his possessions.”¹ Like Samson bringing the Philistine temple crashing in on itself, so the soul of Christ “by his own power uprooted Sheol..., shattered the bars of Sheol, and came out of the darkness.”² “Sheol saw me and was shattered,” he could've said, “I have been vinegar and bitterness to it.”³ Death was left “like Goliath, who with his own sword perished” at the hands of David.⁴ “Then the powers of darkness sat in mourning, for Death was humbled from its power..., its hands paralyzed...; it lamented and shouted aloud.”⁵

And the bitter wails of Death ring out this morning, I tell you, through the cavernous echoes of an empty tomb. The very body once crucified was now permanently transfigured by the glory of life, leaving his shroud to testify: “Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the Seed of David” (2 Timothy 2:8). His heavenly servants rolled the stone away for his triumphal procession. And to those who came in early morning too late to grieve at the grave, his heralds queried, “Why do you seek the living among the dead?” Why look for the Victor where victims lie, why hunt the Triumphant in the annals of defeat? “He is not here; he has risen!” (Luke 24:5-6). “Weep no more, for behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered” (Revelation 5:5). “It is time... to sing victory songs to Christ, for he has conquered the world for us...”⁶

And what does a king do after a battle but hold a celebratory feast with his troops, “a recognized means of formally concluding a campaign and declaring victory”?⁷ No wonder we read, that very day, that the King of Glory re-recruited two discouraged disciples on the road, finagling his way to their table so that “he took the bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to them, and their eyes were opened” (Luke 24:31), overwhelmed by the joy of defeat turned to victory. No wonder we read, that very night, that the King of Glory invaded their midst to prove his physical reality to them by his beautified wounds – “for the trophy of victory over death was the showing of this to all”⁸ – and then, “while they still disbelieved for joy and were marveling,” by sharing with them in the leftovers of their Easter supper (Luke 24:36-43). It was a victory feast of joy, at which the King of Glory “presented himself alive to them..., speaking about the kingdom of God” (Acts 1:3).

The victory of life hasn't ended: “Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:57). Neither has the joy been exhausted. St. Augustine, preaching on Easter Sunday over sixteen centuries ago, celebrated “joy in your coming together, joy in the psalms and hymns, joy in the memory of Christ's passion and resurrection … Just look how these days, when alleluia is ringing in our ears, our spirits soar!”⁹ “The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a communion in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a communion in the body of Christ?” (1 Corinthians 10:16). The victory feast of joy goes on, with the Risen Lord himself as our feast! And this meal of celebration in his victory won for us is, at the same time, a preparatory banquet for his ongoing warfare in us and through us: the war of faith against unbelief, of truth against deception, of wisdom against folly, of hope against despair, of joy against mundanity, of heavenly love against the darkness. So let us rejoice, let us exult; the kingdom is coming – keep the victory feast of joy!  Hallelujah!

1  Aphrahat the Persian, Demonstrations 14.31, in Moran 'Eth'o 24:81.

2  Jacob of Serugh, Homily 54.178, 182, in Texts from Christian Late Antiquity 14:58.

3  Odes of Solomon 42.11-12, in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha 2:771.

4  Ephrem the Syrian, Hymns on the Crucifixion 7.4, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 145:174.

5  Aphrahat the Persian, Demonstrations 22.4, in Moran 'Eth'o 24:233.

6  Cyril of Alexandria, Festal Letters 19.1, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 127:88.

7  Matthew Wade Umbarger, A Table in the Presence of My Enemies: Banqueting and Battling in Ancient Israel (Cascade Books, 2024).

8  Athanasius of Alexandria, On the Incarnation 22, in Popular Patristics Series 44A:99.

9  Augustine of Hippo, Sermon 229B.2, in The Works of St. Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century III/6:274.