Victory

Topics: Resurrection, Victory , Running

Several hundred years before the birth of Jesus, a crucial battle
occurred between the Greeks and the Persians upon the plains of
Marathon. The battle raged for hours. In many respects it was a fight to
the finish. Finally the numerically inferior Greeks, the underdogs,
managed a tremendous tactical win, but there was a problem. Soon the
Senate, many miles away in Athens, was to vote and would most certainly
ratify a treaty of appeasement. In desperation they sent a runner in
full battle gear to go the twenty-seven miles to tell of the news. By
the time the young boy got to Athens he had run a Marathon. It is said
he was totally spent, that he literally ran himself to death. In his
exhaustion he was able to utter only one word to the Athenians:
"Victory."

Today we come to church with the sound of the Hallelujah Chorus still
resonating in our ears. We have been to the empty tomb. We have heard
the glad news of resurrection. And now it is time for the church to send
a message back to the world. What should that message be? May I suggest
that it could be a single word: Victory.

Unfortunately, that single truth is not so self-evident to many people
today even as it was not initially to the first century disciples. We
fall short of victorious living. We must learn anew to live out the
reality of the resurrection.

Brett Blair, http://www.SermonIllustrations.com, May, 2000