What Kind of Sovereign?

Sermon preached Sunday, November 20, 2022, Christ the King/Reign of Christ Sunday, at Lutheran Church of Our Saviour in North Chesterfield, VA. 

A few minutes ago, I explained to our youngest members that today is the last day of the church year. Next week we begin again the cycle that will take us through Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, and Easter. The history of this Sunday is interesting. For a long time, it was referred to as “Judgment Sunday,” calling to mind the second coming of Christ and the end of time. In fact, it wasn’t until 1925 that Pope Pius XI decided that the name should be changed and other church bodies followed suit.

Think about what you remember about this time period from your history classes or Hollywood historical drama. What was going on in the world, particularly in Europe?

In 1925 Europe is almost exactly between the end of World War I and the beginning of World War II. Nationalism was on the move in Europe. Benito Mussolini was amassing power in Italy. Two years earlier, Adolf Hitler attempted a coup and his Nazi political party was gaining popularity and influence. What was the message that seemed to be so appealing to the beaten, war-weary people of Europe?

It was a message that was rooted in a nationalist identity, one that blamed others, blamed outsides, blamed people who were different for the ills facing the so-called “normal” people. And it was a message that declared there was salvation and a way forward could be found in only one place—or rather, in only one person. It was a message that focused on the power of humans and downplayed or downright ignored the role of God in human history.

As Pope Pius was watching this unfold he decided to make a statement. In his encyclical Quas Primas, he introduced “Christ the King Sunday” as a response. There is a lot in this encyclical, but boiled down it proclaims that if we say that Christ is King, as our scriptures do, then Christ should be King over our whole being. Christ should reign over our bodies, minds, and hearts, and our faith should be in God, not in our national identity or in any mortal power.

This is a message we continually need to hear because we are continually tempted to put our faith in ourselves or in other human authority. We might come to church on this Sunday and nod our heads and say, “Yes, of course, Christ is King!” …but it’s one thing to say it. It’s another thing to feel it. It’s another thing to live like it’s true. It’s another thing even just to know why, exactly, it matters to us.

Christ being king, Christ reigning over us matters to us because of the kind of ruler Christ ends up being. In just about every way, Jesus embodied everything that kings and rulers are not.

Jesus was poor. He grew up as a member of the lower class. He lived in occupied territory under the thumb of an oppressive regime. He traveled from place to place and, in his own words, had no place to lay his head. He relied on other people for food and shelter and by all indications had no worldly possession to his name.

Jesus was loving and generous to people who were considered outcasts. He regularly ate with people other would avoid, like tax collectors. He cared more about the people forgotten by society than the people who were well-off and well-settled. He sought out the powerless and didn’t care if he had the favor of the powerful.

Jesus was peaceful. He called for his disciples to pray for those who persecuted them. He told them to offer up their other cheek if they were hit. When Peter drew his sword at the end of Jesus’ life, he tells him, “All who take the sword will perish by the sword.” He called for justice and righteousness and peace among people.

But even still, Jesus was passionate. He was not some milquetoast Messiah who never raised his voice and never took people to task. He wasn’t afraid to call out the Pharisees for their unfair practices. He didn’t back down when facing Pilate’s interrogation. He even got angry. He flipped over tables and made a whip out of cords in the temple to drive out people taking advantage in the temple.

He was all of these things. All him being all of these things angered people. That’s why we get to the Gospel reading for this morning. He didn’t fit the mold of what a king should be…and so we killed him. He wasn’t like the kings of the ancient Israelites because he wasn’t a military leader. He wasn’t prepared to remove the Romans by force. He wasn’t any king the Romans would recognize because he didn’t amass power by suppressing others.

Even as Jesus is being crucified, most people do not understand who and what he is. The inscription over him says “King of the Jews,” but it is a mockery, not a sincere claim. They are laughing at their own clever joke, because how in the world could a king be killed in such a way? It is one of the criminals next to Jesus who recognizes his authority. “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”

I want to make something clear about what crucifixion is. First of all, it was not an unusual method of execution. It was used with some regularity by the Roman Empire. Jesus and the criminals killed on either side of him were not the only three to experience it.

Also, crucifixion was not just about killing someone. It was not just about taking someone’s life—it was about humiliating someone and torturing them. People died from suffocation, once they got to the point where their arms could no longer hold themselves up. The cross as mode of death was a particular favorite for individuals who were considered lower class but had tried to rebel against the Empire. The thought was that these people had tried to rise above their station, had tried to lift themselves above their betters…so if that’s what they wanted, the Romans would do that for them. “They want to be lifted up? Oh, we’ll lift them up.” And they were, and often left on display for days or weeks as a public warning about what happens when you defy Rome.

In fact, the cross was so horrifying a symbol that it took Christians until over a hundred years after Jesus’ death for it to be used as a widespread symbol. We’ve sanitized it now, but for a Jesus-follower two thousand years ago, it would be like worshipping with an electric chair or guillotine in front of us.

But our king is crucified. Our king is unexpected. Our messiah, our savior, our sovereign is, by all accounts, a criminal executed by the state…and that doesn’t sound terribly kingly to most people. But we didn’t need God to come into our world as the king the world expected…We needed God to come into the world as the king that is so desperately essential.

We need a ruler who leads with abundant love instead of only caring about those who are deemed “worthy.” We need a ruler who relentlessly pursues peace and justice instead of vengeance and looking out for number one. We need a ruler who is generous instead of one who either hoards or squanders resources.

And this is what we have: not in any mortal in power or in control anywhere in our world…but in our incredible God whose sovereignty is not limited by national boundaries, ethnic identities or cultural differences.

When we look around and wonder where our trust belongs, it is in the one who has claimed us and named us in baptism. It is the one who feeds us with his very body and blood at this table. It is in the one who forgives us and loves us unconditionally. This is our king. This is our God.

Amen.

Who Was, Who Is, Who Is to Come

Sermon preached Sunday, November 25, 2018, Reign of Christ Sunday, at St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Littlestown, PA. Audio may be found here. 

Today is Christ the King Sunday, or, as some now call it, Reign of Christ Sunday. It is a relatively new liturgical holiday, instituted by Pope Pius XI in 1925. It was originally conceived as a response to rising fascist and nationalist movements in Europe. As more and more people began to identify their preferred political leader as the ultimate hero of the people, the church pushed back and proclaimed, loudly, that only Christ is king and our allegiance is appropriately given to God alone. While this feast day had particular implications in the 20s and, especially, the 30s, it still is a valuable observance today.

Today is the day that we remember that Christ is the true sovereign of our lives, not any government or political party or individual leader, regardless of how inspiring or charismatic we might find them. Instead, our king displays power and strength through sacrifice and vulnerability. Today is the day we remember the one who was, who is, and who is to come: our King.

If you remember anything about humanity’s history before Christ, you know that our history with kings is fraught with disaster. When Moses led the Israelites in the wilderness, they wondered if they would have a king. When they entered the promised land, they begged God to give them a king. The new peoples they encountered all had kings and they wanted to be like them. They wanted to be the same. God resisted, reminding them that they were not the same as all the other peoples and that God would be the only king they would ever need. They insisted, but God instead put judges in place to guide them.

The judges lasted for a while, but it wasn’t long before the cry went up again from the people for a king. God warned them that a human king would exploit them, take their property, treat them poorly, and lead to destruction. The Israelites didn’t care. Finally, like an exasperated parent tired of the questions and demands, God relented. Saul was crowned king, then David and then Solomon, and then a long line of kings, some of which were faithful to God, but many of whom lost their way and abandoned God’s word. It turned out exactly as God had warned.

The people knew their history, so it is even more curious how ready the people were to crown Jesus as their next king—a human king, that is, not understanding who Jesus really was. At the beginning of the Gospel of John, Jesus meets Nathaniel, who he will call as a disciple and Nathaniel identifies Jesus as the new king. When Jesus feeds the five thousand, the people clamor after him, hoping to make him their king. When Jesus enters Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, the crowds call out, praising him as their king. …but none of them get it. None of them understand what Jesus being our king means.

That brings us to the text for today, when Jesus is being questioned by Pilate, who has surely heard stories of Jesus’ ministry. He asks Jesus if he is a king and Jesus doesn’t answer yes or no. He is King, but not in the way anyone expects. He is the King who was, who is, who is to come.

“Who was, who is, who is to come.”

That phrase is one of the places we can get a little lost. “Who was, who is, who is to come.” It’s a bit outside of outside of time, a bit outside of space, a bit outside of our understanding. The reign of Christ has already broken into the world and we see glimpse of it…but we also understand that it has not yet reached its fulfillment.

“Who was, who is, who is to come.” This struggle to understand can lead us into despair. It’s like a recent episode of the sitcom, “The Good Place.” Has anyone watched it? It’s like a crash course in philosophy with really clever and funny writing. If you’re not familiar with the show, or aren’t caught up to this season, I promise, no spoilers. But in this particular episode, the main characters learn that time is not linear, like they believed it to be, with events happening one after the other in a nice, orderly fashion that moves distinctly from the past through the present and on to the future. Instead, they are told that time is more like “Jeremy Bearimy”—time actually looks like what the name Jeremy Bearimy looks like when written out in cursive, doubling back on itself and full of loops. (You can watch this scene here. SPOILERS!)

The responses from the characters to this new information are phrases like, “I’m sorry. My brain is melting,” and “This broke me.” It’s impossible for them to comprehend and makes them frustrated and confused and throw their hands up in frustration. That’s how it can feel when we try to really wrap our minds around what it means for us to have a God who was, who is, and who is come—for God’s reign to have been, to be, and to be coming in the future.

The other option, though, is not despair, but wonderment. When we embrace the knowledge that we can never really understand any of it, we embrace the mystery and embrace all the ways in which God works in ways beyond human imagination.

The full reign of Christ, the reign of the one who was, who is, and who is to come, is full of beautiful and incredible things we can’t explain.

God, the One who was: The one who created the universe and called forth order out of chaos. The one who led the Israelites through the Red Sea and into the promised land. The one who took on our flesh and lived among us. The one who was arrested and tortured and executed. The one who died and rose again. The one who ascended into heaven. The one who came upon the disciples at Pentecost.

The One who is: the one who encourages and continues to reform the church. The one who forgives us. The one who loves us. The one who claims us as beloved children in baptism. The one who meets us at the table and feeds us with bread and wine, body and blood. The one who gathers us into community with each other as the Body of Christ.

The One who is to come: the one who will reconcile all of creation once again. The one who will raise us to eternal life. The one who will reign into eternity.

The One who was, who is, and who is to come. Amen.