The Victory Already Won

On June 19, 1865, Major General Gordon Granger rode into Galveston, Texas, and read aloud General Orders No. 3: all enslaved people were free. The crowds that gathered could hardly believe what they heard. Some wept. Some shouted. Some stood absolutely still, unable to process the words.

But here is the remarkable thing — the Emancipation Proclamation had been signed two and a half years earlier. The war had ended more than two months before Granger's arrival. Freedom was already a fact. The chains had already been broken — legally, historically, decisively. Yet for all those months and years, men and women had continued laboring under a bondage that no longer had any legitimate hold on them.

Mary Magdalene stood weeping outside an empty tomb on that first Easter morning, grieving a death that had already been conquered. The stone was rolled away. The grave clothes were folded. Victory was accomplished — and she did not yet know it. She looked directly at the risen Christ and mistook Him for the gardener.

How often do we stand weeping before tombs that are already empty? How often do we live under the weight of defeats that have already been overturned? The resurrection was not waiting to happen. It had happened. Mary's tears were real, but the grave's power was not. When Jesus spoke her name, she finally saw what had been true all along — death had lost, and the Almighty had won.