November 25, 2001
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Is... Reign of Christ Sunday Prayer: Open our eyes, O God, so that we will always see how to make room in our hearts for you, and for all who will see you through us. In Jesus’ name. Amen. You may not know it, but today is the last Sunday of the year. I am not reading the calendar wrong, I know that there are five Sundays after this one in 2001. But on the liturgical calendar, the church year begins on the first Sunday in Advent which is next Sunday. But today, on the last Sunday of the church year, many congregations today is the day that the reign of Christ, or Christ the King is celebrated. In this period of heightened security and changing alliances, in a time of democracies, dictatorships, and theocracies, to speak of Christ the King can seem to politicize Jesus Christ. After all, kings have a certain amount of political power. Certainly, Jesus was not about political power as we think of it. He was not interested in high public office, or in spinning his message of the day, or in gathering to himself a constituency that carry him from one election to the next. The reign of Christ is not about political power. As one writer has explained, “Christ’s dominion was achieved during his lifetime not by the use of force, but by suffering love; and in his teachings he stressed that in God’s commonwealth the advantage comes from servanthood rather than from political power.” (Thankful Praise, Keith Watkins, editor. St. Louis, CBP Press, p. 123) It is on this Reign of Christ Sunday, a good time to say remind ourselves who Jesus is for us. To celebrate the reign of Christ the King is to be about the focus of the church where it belongs, and on the work and ministry of Jesus, whose realm, or kingdom is mirrored on earth, but as we pray each Sunday morning, is really in heaven. Luke and Colossians help us to see again who Jesus is and to claim his ministries as our own. I know that the story of the crucifixion seems out of place this time of year. This is not the right season to emphasize suffering and death. This is a story best told at the end of Holy Week when we expect to hear such things. This passage from Luke seems out of context today. But sometimes when we experience something out of its context, we pay attention to it. The reading from Luke is one of the lectionary readings for today because it emphasizes that the reign of Christ is about making holy the giving of oneself in service to others as Jesus did. We learn again that Jesus is the one who offers his life for our own. And there is the truth that while it may be jarring for us to hear this story now, it is really not surprising. After all, most of us know how the story of Jesus ends. We also know that the church has historically told the story of Jesus in flashback. It in fact begins with the death and resurrection of Jesus. Someone asked as people still ask, what happened? Tell me about Jesus. Who is he and what was he about? How did he end up on the cross, and the story was told, and continues to be told. We celebrate the ministry of Jesus today. Celebrations are times of memory. As we celebrate the reign of Christ and his ministry, we can recall how much of his ministry was about helping people find renewed and transformed lives so that they could then find new opportunities to live in faithful relationship with God, through Jesus Christ. The same is true for us. Who is Jesus? Jesus is the one who moves and motivates us to see what can be. Look at the thief at Calvary who came to understand who Jesus is. The others there, the soldiers, the religious leaders, the crowd saw only an opportunity to mock Jesus. “If you really are the Messiah, the son of God, save yourself.” But as the thief heard Jesus forgive his murderers, he was able to look at his own situation and long for forgiveness and grace. He was able to make an eternal life request. “Jesus remember me when you come into your kingdom.” He then discovered that Jesus is both a promise maker and a promise keeper so I have no doubt that when Jesus said to him, “Today you will be with me in Paradise”, it was so. Now some will say, does it really matter who Jesus is? After all, we now live in a multi-cultural, multi-religious time when there are many faiths each with its own integrity. That is true. But who Jesus is for us matters for three reasons. First, there is nothing especially peculiar to this era about living in a multi-cultural, multi-religious time. Jesus did, and we do. We need to respect those other religions and work with them for our common good when we can. The second reason who Jesus is matters is that we cannot fully engage with people of other religions until we fully know and understand our own. In the aftermath of the tragedy of September 11 there has been a resurgence of interest in religion. Copies of the Bible and the Koran are being bought and hopefully read in greater numbers than they were at the same time last year. At the beginning of the Islamic holy days of Ramadan, several mosques held open houses to explain the practice of Islam. What would it look like if churches held open house in holy week or in Advent to explain the practice of Christianity? The third reason it matters who Jesus is has to do with our role as members of his church. The story of his ministry has been given to us. If we do not tell this story with love and passion, no one else will. Being part of the church is like being part of a family or nation. We are part of a family, we are citizens of a nation, and part of our heritage are the stories we share. But our family ties, our nationality does not negate other families or other nations’ citizens. In the church, the story of Jesus Christ is ours to tell and to live, and every now and then ours to defend. That is what Paul was doing in his letter to the Colossians. He wanted them to know that Jesus is the one who embodies a faith to be lifted up. He wrote to a church in what was a sophisticated city with diverse cultural and religious elements. Among those elements were some teachers in the church whom Paul considered a threat to the gospel. Their main point seemed to be that the true presence of God was not found in Jesus, but in a kind of cosmic energy that was found in the atmosphere. For these teachers, Christ is only one part of the divine atmospheric energy. Paul says, wait, Jesus is so much more. Paul wants the church to be able to answer the question of who Jesus is in a way that speaks to the special relationship between Jesus and God. For him, the church in Colossae and the church in Columbus and everywhere the church of Jesus Christ exists is strongest when it is clear that Jesus is the unique Son of God and has a relationship with God unlike any other relationship. We are strongest when we are clear that by the redemptive, rescuing, saving, and reconciling act of Jesus’ death on the cross, we are somehow brought closer to God. Who else, but one so in tune with God, would lay down his life for the sake of the beloved world? Jesus is who? To help the Colossians understand who Jesus is Paul reminded the people of a hymn. We do not know the tune, or the beat of the hymn Paul quoted, but he does say who Jesus is for him. He is the image of the invisible God, and the first born of all creation. We cannot see God with our human eyes, but when we see Jesus, know his works, read his word, and do his will we see and know God and understand the place Jesus has in God’s heart. He is the one for whom creation exists, he is the head of the church. He is the one in whom God’s fullness can be seen. He is the means by which we find reconciliation with God. In other words, at the center of our relations with God, Jesus is there. Doesn’t what Paul did sound familiar to us? We have no formal creed, but we have a lot of hymns and songs to tell us who Jesus is for us. You know the ones you hum or sing when you need encouragement or comfort. It may be a song from childhood such as, “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so little ones to him belong, they are weak, but we are strong.” As we got older experienced some things, matured in our faith, held on to it when times were hard, we sang, “My hope is built on nothing less, than Jesus blood and righteousness, I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but only lean on Jesus name. On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand.” When we know for ourselves who Jesus is we are free from anything that can do permanent damage to our spirits. Will we grieve, face disappointment, make mistakes, need forgiveness? Yes we will. But we also endure to the end because we know that Jesus is the one who has promised never to leave us abandoned, who has sent a comforter to walk through life with us, who because we know him can help us prepare for whatever faces us. Athletes train so they can be prepared physically. Scholars study to be prepared intellectually. Christians pray, worship, work, learn, and join in fellowship with one another to prepare for life spiritually. So what do we do? We can claim Jesus as our own and take the task of evangelism seriously enough to do it well. We can be about the task of evangelism, which is to tell people who do not know, and to remind those of us who do, who Jesus is and the difference he makes in our lives. The evangelism task is not simply about church growth though we want the church to grow in numbers, in financial support, and most of all spiritually. The growth we seek will come from reaching people who are underrepresented here, especially that group of people born between 1964 and 1980. Our traditional ways of doing things will not always touch their hearts. But we have got to reach them and anyone else in a way that interests, excites, educates, challenges, calls out their gifts, and raises up in them a desire to know Jesus. Once we know, the question is what will we do, as we discover our own ministries, we can join them with those of others who want to know more and do more. We can join with Fanny J. Crosby in asserting. “Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine. O what a foretaste of glory divine. Heir of salvation, purchase of God, born of his spirit, washed in his blood. This is my story, this is my song, praising my savior, all the day long. This is my story, this is my song, praising my savior, all the day long” (Chalice Hymnal, Chalice Press, #543). It is my story, I hope it is your story too, not just for our individual pleasure or well-being, but so we can tell the good news story of Jesus and live the story we tell. We can tell of the one who spoke truth to power and so hold one another and those whose decisions effect our lives accountable. We can in the name of the one who touched the hurt and injured with compassion and healing and do likewise. We can remember that his criteria for who will be welcomed to share in his reign are the ones who feed the hungry, gave water to the thirsty, visited the sick and imprisoned, and treated the least with the utmost respect. We can love one another and pray for one another. Who is Jesus? We heard who he is in a song the PraiseMakers have brought to us, we sang it at the end of our worship service two weeks ago. Verse one of “Song for Joy” tells us that Jesus is the one whom: “if we call to him, he will answer
us, Come now indeed and declare and live who Jesus is for you. To God be the glory forever and ever. Amen.
Dr.
LaTaunya M. Bynum |
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Broad
Street Christian Church
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