(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Worship on November 25, 2018, Reign of Christ Sunday)
Heavenly and Powerful and Glorious
When Christ becomes king, he will
come in the clouds and everyone will see him and the nations will cry out (Rev
1:7). So says John in our first
scripture today, Revelation.
When Christ becomes king,
everyone will see the son of man coming in clouds with great power and glory
(Mark 13:26). So says Jesus
himself in the gospel of Mark.
When Christ becomes king, the
trumpet of God will sound and the Lord himself will descend from heaven, and
every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord (1
Thes 4:16; Phil 2:10-22; Rom 14:15).
So says Paul in his letters.
When Christ becomes king, all the
rulers of the world will bow down before him, and all the nations will serve
him. So says the psalmist in his
vision of God’s anointed one.
Heavenly and powerful and
glorious is Christ the king. Knees
bow before him and tongues praise him and people do his bidding. The picture is nothing less than we would
expect for king of all the world.
Bound and Imprisoned and Near Death
But it is a picture different than
the one that we see in Jesus.
Early in the gospel of John,
Jesus feeds the crowd of five thousand with five loaves and two fish. Awed by this heavenly power, the people
begin to murmur, “This is the one!”
It’s not hard to imagine that soon knees would bow before him and
tongues would praise him and people would obey his every word.
And Jesus senses this. The gospel of John says that he sees
they are “about to come…to make him king” (John 6:15).
But apparently Jesus doesn’t want
this. Because he runs away. Jesus is not that kind of king.
It is only later in the gospel
that Jesus accepts the title of king.
Only when he is bound and
imprisoned and on the way to his death.
When Christ becomes king, knees
do not bow before him but rather his knees bow under the weight of suffering.
When Christ becomes king, tongues
do not confess his name but curse him.
When Christ becomes king, the
crowd are not at his bidding but he is at theirs.
A Different Kind of King
What kind of king is this? Where is his foretold power and
glory? Where are the clouds? Where is the praise and adoration? Where is the transformation of the
world?
We like to think that one day
Jesus will come and turn the tables; that he will descend triumphantly from
heaven with power and glory.
Maybe. But that sounds
awfully familiar. That sounds
eerily similar to the plans and promises of emperors and dictators. It is not a divine dream but a human
one; a fantasy of might and muscle, of control and getting your way, a fantasy
as old as human ambition.
I wonder if we see in Jesus
something different, something indeed divine.
What if his power and glory are
not control and command but love and the communion of hearts? Look, there he is among the clouds in
power and glory—which is to say, there he is on the cross, forgiving his
enemies, loving the world unto his death.
There is Christ the king.
And what if the bent knees and
confessing lips and serving hands of his kingdom are not but lives transformed
by love? Look, there he is among
people kneeling and blessing and yielding to one another—which is to say, there
he is among hearts that have been melted by love. There is Christ the king.
Already King
Perhaps the question is not “When
will Christ become king?” Perhaps,
as Jesus suggests in his response to Pilate, Christ is already king. If we have the eyes to see it. Perhaps the question is “When will we
cease to be like the crowd on the sea of Galilee, eager to make a triumphant
king of Jesus, anxious to be on the winning side, expectant of a Christianity
that has global influence and imposes laws from on high? When will we see the kingdom of God is
already here, that Christ becomes king wherever love triumphs over force,
forgiveness over fighting back, faithfulness over fickle flight?”
I believe that in our hearts we
live already with one foot in the kingdom, with eyes that have seen and can no
longer unsee our true king. We
have caught a glimpse of his coronation and his kingdom not in the pursuits of
our world, of money or party politics or prestige, but in moments of love. When we kneel by the bedside of the
sick. When we bless instead of
contest. When we share peace with
a stranger. When we seek
reconciliation instead of revenge.
The invitation of today, Christ
the King Sunday, is not that we crown our king but that we recognize his crown
already on the heads of others.
In the kingdom of God, which is
already among us, there are no battles to be won, only battles to be
surrendered. There are no enemies
to be fought, only enemies to be made friends. There are no kingdoms to be vanquished, only our own
kingdoms that will vanish.
Today there is nothing for us to
wait for—no coronation, no ceremony, no grand arrival. It is our king who waits for us.
Prayer
God whose kingdom
Is everlasting—
Older than fight or flight,
More enduring
Than human charter or constitution—
Melt our hearts
By your unruly rule
Of love,
Which we encounter
In Christ our king,
In whose name we pray.
Amen.
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