Christ the King Sunday Sermon

It’s Christ the King Sunday. For me, I see Christ radiating glory and power and all the things promised coming true. It’s a festival day where we celebrate the one who has set us free. The paraments are white and the songs proclaim his eternal reign: Jesus shall reign where’er the sun and crown him with many crowns. It signals the end of one church year and the anticipation of another Advent season. It’s a great day.

So when I read today’s Gospel lesson with my colleagues, we were left a little stumped. Why include a part of the Good Friday Drama on a day when we celebrate Christ triumphant? Very curious indeed.

But look closely…if you take away the drama and the suffering that we intrinsically feel when we read this passage, we see Christ radiating glory, power and peace in the midst that horrifying day.

The last few weeks have had Luke leading us to this moment. Amid the doom and gloom of the readings, there has been a thread of hope leading us to this promise and this time. Last week, nations were fighting and the earth was in tumult. The week before, Jesus shared that the life of the resurrection would be greater and more amazing that the things we worry about here will not matter.

Hope is something that has been missing in my life lately. It’s really hard to get past the illnesses plaguing my family, the really long hours that church work brings, the confusing readings of systematic theology, and the other things that weigh heavy on my shoulders and my heart. It’s not even January yet and the political storm of campaigns are raging and I can’t believe that it will get more intense. Nations are posturing with each other and themselves, holding threats of martial law and nuclear capabilities over our heads. In Philadelphia, police officers have been the targets of gun violence in the last month. It’s really easy miss the point of Luke’s message and get weighed down in the doom and to stay there. It’s easy to not look closely at those glimpses of hope and to stay stuck in the woe and madness.

Think back to the events leading up to and in today’s Gospel…Jesus has been mocked, spat on, whipped, and mutilated; his clothes are being auctioned off in a game of chance; his followers couldn’t handle it and ran; and one of the criminals hanging with him is even taunting him. He rises above it all and still brings hope to the one that believed…it’s a message that I think is hard for us to swallow because it smacks our culture right between its eyes.

Really…what’s so hopeful about war and genocide? What’s so hopeful when your grandmother is waiting for test results about cancer, your dad is suffering from PTSD and is in the hospital, your new niece is suffering from chronic ear infections, you can’t pay your bills on time… TV and internet and radio advertisements are filled with images of pain and then in the next moment, it seems as if the way to get over that pain is to buy things or to medicate them away. We get so caught up in these things that we are overwhelmed with despair and hopelessness.

Today, we are reminded with pageantry and with promise that these are earthly things, and though while important today, are just that…earthly things. When we place all that we are in these earthly things, we lose what is most important…that fact that Jesus, our rock, our redeemer, took the despair, the hopelessness, and the pain upon himself and freed us to live in hope and love. This promise comes through in our psalm of the day as well. I remember holding on to the sentence…be still and know that I am God… in the days after September 11. It’s been a sentence that I play over and over again lately as I pray for peace for the world, for the nation, for my family, for me. I recently bought Peder Eide’s new CD and he wrote a song based on this. And somehow, it is cued to play when I am angry, frustrated, and ready to rant at the cars in front of me. It calms me down and helps me to look at what’s really important.

And this is the turning point…from despair and suffering to hope. This is when and how we can marvel in his amazing love and sacrifice. In the midst of pain and persecution, he recognizes the criminal and promises him eternal life. If you think about it, we are like that criminal, guilty of crimes and sentenced to die. He’s with us there and takes away the sin and reigns over all things…seen and unseen, where the sun shines, and where there is darkness and hurt. We celebrate today because those dark things have been lifted away and we are able to glorify, praise, honor, shout, dance, jump for joy. We have hope…and peace. A myriad of songs come to mind when I think about praising God…and we are singing many of them today.

But don’t forget to pass this on…we are to share this amazing message with others. We are to be like Jesus – working for peace, justice, hope, love. We are mandated to take the good news to those still rebuilding from hurricanes, cyclones, and wildfires. We are to find the hopeless, the poor, the disenfranchised and work with them to bring equality, freedom and hope. It would be easy to forget that Jesus came to serve – and sets us to serve as well. This is not any easy thing to do when things look bleak…but we have that message of hope waiting for us…

I’d like to leave you with a poem from Madeleine L’Engle. You may recognize her name as she wrote “A Wrinkle in Time”. Her literature and poetry combine fiction and faith. I came across this book of poetry at a previous job and I think poem embodies this day…it is titled First Born. While it is about Christmas, it also embodies what this day of Christ the King is all about.

He did not wait till the world was ready,
Till men and women were at peace.
He came when the Heavens were unsteady,
And prisoners cried for release.

He did not wait for the perfect time.
He came when the need was deep and great.
He dined with sinners with all their grime.
He turned water into wine. He did not wait

Till their hearts were pure. In joy he came
into a tarnished world of sin and doubt.
To a world like ours of anguished shame
He came, and is Light would not go out.
He came to a world that did not mesh,
To heal its tangles, shield its scorn.
In the mystery of the Word made Flesh
The maker of the stars was born.

We cannot wait till the world is sane
To raise our songs with joyful voice
For to share our grief, to touch our pain,
He came with love: Rejoice! Rejoice!

Amen