A Sermon
Presented by Rev. Merlin T. Batt,
Pastor of St. Matthew’s United Church of Christ
At Maiden,
On Christ the King Sunday,
November 26, 2006
Scripture Lessons: Revelation 1:4b-8; John 18:33-38
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Today is the last Sunday of this Christian year. Unlike the secular calendar which sets the end of one year on December 31st and begins a new one on January 1st, the Christian calendar ends the year today and begins a new year on the First Sunday of Advent, which is next Sunday. This last Sunday of the year is a day the Church calls “Christ the King Sunday.”
There’s a kind of symmetry to this. We begin the Christian year in anticipation of the coming of Christ (Advent), and we end the year in celebration of the universal reign of Christ (Christ the King). For us Christians, you see, time is defined by Jesus Christ. The years are measured from his birth (this being, of course, 2006 AD which means ‘in the year of our Lord’). And, as I said, each year begins with anticipating his return and ends with celebrating his universal reign.
Every Sunday in worship here at St. Matthew’s, when we repeat the Apostles’ Creed, we acknowledge this central truth about Jesus Christ, that He holds ultimate authority. We say, “he (Jesus Christ) ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty.” In this regard, I’m reminded of a story I read recently about a kindergarten-age child named Bobby who spent the weekend with his grandmother. On Saturday morning little Bobby and his grandmother went to a neighborhood park. The night before it had snowed, and by morning everything was covered with an inch or two of powdery snow.
Bobby’s grandmother, eager to pass on her faith to her grandson, remarked to him, “Bobby, doesn’t it look like an artist painted this scenery?” Bobby was quiet. When he didn’t respond after she asked her question a second time, she made her line of questioning even more personal. She said, “Bobby, did you know that God painted this scene just for you?”
After another long pause, the child finally said, “Yes, Nanna, I know that God did it, and I know He did it left-handed.”
“What makes you say that God did all this with his left hand?” his grandmother asked with both amusement and curiosity.
“Well,” said Bobby with all the assurance of a kindergarten child, “we learned at Sunday School last week that Jesus sits on God’s right hand!” Makes perfect sense, doesn’t it? Bobby learned that Jesus “sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty,” and in Bobby’s imagination that means God sprinkles the playground with snow with his left hand.
More seriously, one of the central questions asked by the first Christians was this, “Where is Jesus now - now that he is risen and ascended?” According to the New Testament, they were absolutely convinced they had seen Jesus alive after he had risen from the dead, and some of them had even eaten a meal with him. Then there was that strange, awesome experience some of them had of seeing their risen Lord ascend out of their sight. So they pondered, “Where is Jesus now?”
As faithful Jews, they searched their scriptures for an answer, and, of course, that was what we call the Old Testament. And in the Book of Psalms, the prayerbook of
The LORD says to my lord,
Sit at my right hand
until I make your enemies your footstool!
Originally this verse had to do with
That was the answer they found to their question, “Where is Jesus now?” He sits at God’s right hand until God defeats his enemies, or in the language of the Apostles’ Creed: He sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty, which means that Jesus Christ now occupies the position of supreme authority over the entire cosmos, as his enemies are unmasked, subdued, overthrown, and, so to speak, made a stool for his feet. Christ the King ruling at God’s right hand – this is the image set before us on this last Sunday of the church’s year.
But immediately we have a problem on our hands. There’s so much apparent evidence to the contrary! To find the tragedy, the heartbreak, and the despair which surrounds and bombards us daily, we have only to scan the front page of the morning newspaper, or turn on the TV, or log on to the computer and go to a news source like CNN, or take a moment to recall the terrible things that have happened to members of your family and your circle of friends and acquaintances, or even pause to remember your own journey through the trials and tribulations of a lifetime. There’s a tremendous weight of evidence to suggest that the image of Christ the King is a pious fiction, a kind of whistling in the dark to help us manage our fears.
Thanksgiving Day this year, for example, a beautiful, peaceful, deeply satisfying holiday, a time for gathering at table with family and friends to renew family ties, enjoy abundance, and give thanks to God, I awoke and logged on to my computer to check my e-mail. There staring me in the face on the computer screen was a gruesome photo of chaos in the streets of
It was a stark reminder that for every ounce of beauty, kindness, and compassion in the world, there is a ton of horror, vengeance, injustice, and sadness. We who celebrate Christ the King must face head on this question about our claim that Jesus Christ “sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty” reigning over creation, his enemies being unmasked, subdued, overthrown, and made a stool for his feet!
In our media-saturated age, we are all exposed to this onslaught of chaos and sadness, and in such constant, graphic, and large doses that we must act to defend ourselves. So we flip the channel when the evening news turns grim, as it always does – this we do so in self-defense. We avoid reading the current events sections of the daily newspaper, and turn our attention instead to the sports page, the comics, the recipes, and the puzzles – we do so in self-defense. We keep conversations and even relationships superficial to avoid the pain that inevitably comes with truth and intimacy – this we do in self-defense. A kind of psychic numbness settles in upon us who, on Sunday, worship King Jesus and who, the rest of the week, are stunned by the apparent evidence that something more sinister has the upper hand. All this is why British theologian David Ford has accurately called our age the “age of overwhelmed-ness.”
So how in this “age of overwhelmed-ness do we live as Christians, as followers of King Jesus, as believers that he “sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty”? A clue is found in the opening chapter of the Book of Revelation, a book written for Christians during a time of great hardship and persecution. In the late first century and the opening of the second, little bands of Christians in what is now western Turkey were surrounded by the power of pagan, Roman culture. They were clinging for their lives on the fringe of the Empire, communities of faith so small, so insignificant, so overwhelmed by their circumstances. What were they to do? How were they to live in an age of overwhelmed-ness? After a fashion, that’s our question, too!
Their pastor, John, wrote to encourage them from a prison cell in which he was being held in chains on the Aegean
John to the seven churches that are in
To him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us to be a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.
Look! He is coming with the clouds;
every eye will see him,
even those who pierced him;
and on his account all the tribes of the earth will wail.
So it is to be. Amen.
“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the LORD God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”
This, you see, is the way we Christians are to live in an age of overwhelmed-ness! That is, we are called to live with confidence in the power of God ultimately to win the victory over the power of evil. It takes great patience, deep faith, and good courage, but that’s how we are called to live in this time when Jesus Christ is, indeed, King, but his kingship is not universally acknowledged, nor his authority universally obeyed. Remember, Jesus taught us to pray, “Thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven,” which means at the very least that his authority as King will one day fill the earth as the waters cover the sea!
Do you see the effect such confidence would have? Believing in Christ as King, trusting that he “sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty,” protects us from being overwhelmed, guards us from becoming emotionally numbed, prevents us from avoiding the pain of the world. Now we can face the pain and look at evil squarely, and not be cowed by it or overwhelmed by it, because we know that Christ, not evil, will have the last word.
And, further, believing this, we can be His agents as He intended, doing our part to shed light and love of Christ the King into the darkness of the world, and knowing all the while that we’re not just “spitting into the wind,” but giving witness to the ways things will be when Christ the King rules on earth, even as now he does in heaven.
As we come to the end of our service today and prepare to re-enter the life of this world where there is yet so much tragedy, heartbreak, and sadness, we will sing one of Charles Wesley’s great hymns. On this last Sunday of the Christian year, it is fitting that we join our voices in a hymn which strengthens our trust that Jesus Christ reigns, indeed, that He “sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty;” and, therefore, Jesus Christ, not his enemies, will have the last word! In praise of Christ the King, let us sing together “Ye Servants of God, Your Master Proclaim.
