Today is May the 5th, Cinco de Mayo if you’re saying that in Spanish. It’s a day when the Mexican restaurant near me braces for incoming hordes of people ordering tacos and margaritas. Ask them why they are there and they will just say, “well, it’s Cinco de Mayo.” Ask them why that makes any difference, and they will probably give you a blank look.
Cinco de Mayo is the celebration of the first battle of Puebla in 1862. During that battle, an underequipped Mexican army fought off the armies of the French Empire. The news of this unlikely event gave a much needed morale boost to the Mexican forces throughout that country. Unfortunately, the high of Cinco de Mayo only lasted a little while. Less than a year later there was a second battle of Puebla, and the French won.
We have our own “Cinco de Mayos” as Christians. We have these moments when the seeming impossible happens – when everything is going well and we’re doing better than we know we should be doing. But we also know that there are more battles around the corner. No matter who you are – if you are Paul or Peter or James or John – every disciple of Jesus knows what it is like to have a momentary high followed by a crushing blow. That is unfortunately how life works in this world of sin.
Yet the good news of the Kingdom of Christ is that the war has been won. We will go through disappointments and set backs, but in the end, those won’t matter as much. Instead, those setbacks will be forgiven and we will move on. And in the Resurrection, we will look forward to celebrating our Cinco de Mayo’s – the victories that we have had on this earth removed from the stain of sin that often followed them.