"But he remained silent and made no answer. Again the
high priest asked him, “Are you the
Christ, the Son of the Blessed?” And Jesus said, “I am, and you will see the Son
of Man seated at the right hand of Power, and coming with
the clouds of heaven.” (Mk. 14:61-2, ESV)
"Once
more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;" (Henry V 3.1.1)
The stage is
set: King Henry is invading France, and
he has chosen to make his stand at the town of Harfleur. The fighting is fierce and chaos
abounds. Yet, just when it seems most
bleak, the English are able to blow a hole in the side of the castle. They attack but are repulsed. In the chaos of retreat, Henry stops and
calls out that famous line to his troops:
"Once more unto the breach..."
It makes for
great literature of course, but the coward in me has always wondered what makes
the soldiers go back to the front lines, some of them facing certain
death. Kenneth Branagh's booming voice
wouldn't have been enough for me. It had
to be something else.
And then that
got me to thinking. If the Christian
life is like a battle, what keeps us going into the breach, into the fray of
life and godliness and hard times? Here
before the chief priests, I think Jesus provides at least part of the answer.
"Once more...
Jesus has been
betrayed, arrested, and brought before a kangaroo court to be arraigned for crimes
he didn't commit. And yet they allow him
a chance to defend himself. They ask him
point blank if he is the Messiah. A lot
must have been running through the Lord's mind at this point. This was a chance
to escape, to fly the coop, to clear his name.
And yet he doesn't. Despite it
all, he doesn't. He condemns himself
with the sacred words "I am."
And he goes
"...into the breach..."
But why? Notice the very next thing he says: "and
you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power, and coming with
the clouds of heaven." Jesus is
faced here with a clear choice between obedience to his Father's mission (the
cross) or disobedience. Thankfully he
chose the former, but the former required significant sacrifice, restraint, and
self-denial. To choose the pathway of
less pain and to stand up for his innocence would have been much easier, but
instead he goes back into the breach.
And he does this because he trusts and rests in the coming of the Son of
Man.
We first meet
the "Son of Man" in Daniel, where it is prophesied that he "came to the Ancient of Days...and to him was
given dominion and glory and a kingdom...which shall not pass away"
(Dan 7:13-4, ESV). This Son of Man would
rule and reign over all things, and would have an eternal kingdom. In short, he wins. And this victory was guaranteed and
absolute: Jesus shall reign wherever the
sun does its successive journeys run.
"dear friends, once more"
Knowing and
trusting in this, Jesus could be fully obedient to the Father in any
circumstance, because one day his Father would give him all power and
glory. And it is the same for us
too. Life is full of breaches; places
where battles for faithfulness must be fought.
They can be as simple as treating someone with respect and kindness or
as difficult as forgiving unspeakable atrocities. In either case, what keeps us going is the
knowledge that the Son of Man is coming in great power and glory. Countless wrongs could be hurled against us;
difficult decisions could keep us pinned down; shame and guilt could paralyze
us; sinful modes of thinking and acting could seem all too easy to return to. But we can keep running back towards the breach
each time because we are convinced of "the
immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the
working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the
dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all
rule and authority and power and dominion" (Eph 1:19-21, ESV).
The Christian
life is joyful, but it is also a struggle; a joyful struggle. There are good times full of peace and
blessing, but there are also times when Jesus bids us to follow him into the
breach and to work out our salvation with fear and trembling (Phil 2:12). And we can follow him there because He's been
there first, and because He has all dominion.
"Once more into the breach, dear friends,
once more..."
We would do
well to remember that.
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