Snatching Victory From Defeat

Sporting events provide a familiar picture of opposing efforts: the Olympics, the Iditarod, the World Series, March Madness, the Super Bowl, and the like. The games in all these sports share one feature: they end in victory and defeat.

Competitions like these parallel what we call attention to in this ordinance: the competition between good and evil, between God and what opposes him, between the victory and defeat that come.

The most significant point is that the story we are remembering did not end at calvary; it ended at the empty tomb. That is where victory was declared. That is when we celebrate the victory, and during that celebration we observe what we would not otherwise have reason to observe—during a celebration that would not otherwise exist.

The meaning of the emblems of calvary is proclaimed by the empty tomb at the end of the competition.