Philippians 3:17-21
Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us. For many, of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.
We walk in danger all the way. The foes arrayed against Christ and His people are fearful. Not only is their rage real, the enemies of the cross do not use plastic bows and arrows or shoot pop-guns. Nor are they engaged just in war games where plans are set and strategies considered but only theoretically.
No, the threat is absolutely real, for "many walk as enemies of the cross of Christ." Satan boasts of his legions. (Mark 5:9)
Should we quake with anxiety and have hearts melt to think the enemy that loathes God also hates us? How dreadful that the single-minded aim of Satan is literally to destroy us, to entangle us with such love of earthly things that our eyes, hopes, and affections concentrate anywhere other than on Christ.
All this brought St. Paul to tears. He cried as he wrote his letter to the Philippians.
Yet his tears were not shed in despair for the church whose citizenship is in heaven, who’s Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ, works bodily resurrection. Rather, he cried for the doom of our enemies.
In 1937, a WLS Chicago radio reporter named Herbert Morrison witnessed the tragic explosion of the Zeppelin Hindenburg which came down in a ball of fire above the Naval Air Station at Lakehurst, New Jersey. His cry of grief captured on newsreels of the time echoed across the globe. "Oh, the humanity!" he cried.
This must have been much the same emotion of St. Paul as he sees raining down on people a hail of debris and crashing jetsam. The adversaries of Christ have brought to bear the full arsenal of horrible weapons: temptations, lusts, and even death against us. But they are caught in their own mesh.
The fire of devastation and ruin is not for us. Christ the Lord comes in his glorious resurrected body. He comes with power to save, not to bring down but to lift in splendor those who have walked by faith in Him. He comes in the divine power by which all things are subject to Him.
One survivor of the fateful Hindenburg catastrophe was a 14 year-old boy named Werner Franz, a cabin boy on the great air ship. Who would imagine his miraculous saving from the conflagration was through a shower of water. The flames had advanced upon him blocking any escape from the inferno. But then a water ballast burst open, and he was soaked. He is one of only two survivors still alive today.
You and I also have been soaked.
Drenched in the saving waters of Holy Baptism we are transformed from the shame of our sins into heirs of salvation. We have been drenched. Our disgrace is washed away and we are called to glory in Christ Jesus.
Satan and his dominions cannot prevail.
Jesus Christ has the power of life and resurrection. So, even though we walk in danger and the perils are real, we Christians are under no jeopardy. We have citizenship in heaven, and we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly bodies to be like his glorious body.
And that's not hypothetical.
