… Luke chapter 10 offers us a unique expression of the meaning of the cross. There, in verse 18, as nowhere else in scripture, Jesus describes his crucifixion experience. In just one brief, astonishing, line he projects himself forwards in time to tell us what he sees at the moment of his death:
‘I see Satan fall from heaven like lightning,’ he said.
If you want a definitive description of the most powerful moment in history, then this is it. ‘I see Satan fall from heaven like lightning.’ In this one vivid phrase, Jesus describes what his eyes see from the cross, at that pivotal moment of his death. It is so intense an image, like a scene from a motion picture, that it is likely to become fixed forever in our own mind’s eye once we’ve visualised it for the first time.
Jesus, crucified by brutal enemies, whilst hanging there utterly engaged in a cosmic battle between the powers, at the very moment of his death ‘sees Satan fall from heaven like lightning’, and in a flash the world is changed substantially, for ever.
But how is the world changed, substantially, for ever, by this fall? …
– from my talk today, Christ's disciples in a world of acceptance or rejection. Readers of Rene Girard's I See Satan Fall Like Lightning will guess which way this is heading.
