Dear Emanuel Members and
Friends –
Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is
to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, and from Jesus
Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the
kings of the earth. 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. Revelation 1:4b-8
Jesus answered, "My kingdom is not from this world. If
my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from
being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from
here." Pilate asked him, "So
you are a king?" Jesus answered, "You say that I am a king. For this
I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth.
Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice." John 18:36-37
The verses above come from
our Scripture readings on November 22, the last Sunday of the liturgical
calendar, which is called Reign of Christ Sunday or Christ the King
Sunday. On Reign of Christ Sunday, the
church lifts up the reality that the Risen Christ reigns over all things, a
cosmic reality that is hidden by the brokenness of daily life and the rebellion
of those who claim to be in charge without acknowledging that ultimately God rules,
and that any authority given to earthly rulers is authority only to serve and
not to dominate.
On this Sunday, the reading
from John’s gospel shows Christ as a king who doesn’t look much like a
king. Jesus has been arrested and
brought before Pilate. Formally, on
paper, Pilate is in charge of the proceedings.
But in reality, even in chains, Jesus is fully in control of all that happens,
while Pilate and others merely perform the roles that have been assigned to
them, like actors in a high school play.
“Why do the nations conspire, and the peoples plot in vain?
The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together,
against the LORD and his anointed, saying, ‘Let us burst their bonds asunder,
and cast their cords from us. He who
sits in the heavens laughs; the LORD has them in derision.” (Psalm 2:1-4)
We live in truly alarming
times, with environmental devastation and military conflict on an apocalyptic
scale – devastation and conflict in which our corporate leaders and political
leaders have played a significant and detrimental role. In their pursuit of profits from fossil
fuels, the loud voices of a few, amplified in the media by their billions of
dollars, call for further environmental
destruction, while the voices opposing them, including American Indian and
other indigenous peoples along with millions of people of faith from Christian
and other traditions, seemingly cannot get a hearing. Similarly, those who profit from the “permanent
war economy” envisioned in 1944 by former General Electric president Charles E.
Wilson continue to lobby our coin-operated political leaders of both major
parties to continue and enlarge conflicts around the globe. We see the four horsemen of the apocalypse in
Revelations 6 - conquest, war, famine, and pestilence - unleashed in our midst.
To some, these are signs of
the end-times. In fact, the E-Bible
Fellowship, a Delaware County-based remnant of the followers of the late Harold
Camping’s Family Radio program, had forecast that the world would end on
October 7, 2015 – and that date has come and gone with little notice, as have Camping’s
predicted “end of days” dates of May 21 and October 21 2011, and so many, many
dates from other “prophets” before that.
So many groups – followers of Hal Lindsay, of Tim LaHaye and John Hagee
and others, believe they have the “secret sauce” that, if sprinkled on selected
(and out of context) Scripture verses, will enable them to pinpoint the time of
the Lord’s return, ignoring the fact that Jesus himself said that he did not
know the day or the hour (Mark 13:32) and ignoring the fact that Jesus’ very last
words before his ascension were “It is not for you to know the times or periods
that the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when
the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem,
in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” (Acts 1:7-8)
So how are we to
respond? Remember Jesus’ words in Acts,
“You will receive power….and you will be my witnesses.” Far from retreating into end-times fantasies,
we must allow ourselves to be empowered by the Spirit to redouble our efforts in
the public square to proclaim the countercultural message of the Gospel. When our corporate leaders say that their
bankrolled millions entitle them to seize and despoil ever more land, even
public land, we must proclaim that “The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness
thereof.” (Psalm 24:1) When our political leaders, aided and
abetted by the media, seek to spread fear in order to mobilize support for
military adventurism abroad, we must proclaim that, “Some trust in chariots and
some in horses” (and some in fighter jets and some in drones) “but we trust in
the name of the LORD our God.” (Psalm 20:7)
When we are told that we do not have resources to care for the poor, the
ill, and the aged, we must recommit ourselves to Jesus’ mission statement as
stated in Luke 4:18-19: “To bring good
news to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to
the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s
favor.” When we feel overwhelmed by the
magnitude of our personal struggles, and of the large-scale problems of our
world, we must follow Paul’s exhortation not to “be children, tossed to and fro
and blown about by every wind of doctrine” (Ephesians 4:14), but rather to “be
strong in the Lord and in the strength of his power. Put on the whole armor of
God, so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For our struggle is not against enemies of
flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the
cosmic powers of this present darkness”. (Ephesians 6:10-12) As I John 4:4
states, “Little children, you are from God, and have conquered them; for greater
is the One that is in you than the one who is in the world.”
To quote an old hymn (Once
to Every Man and Nation, #399 E&R))
“Though the
cause of evil prosper, Yet ‘tis truth alone is strong.
Truth forever on
the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne.
Yet that
scafford sways the future, and behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God
within the shadow Keeping watch above his own.”
May we be among those
“faithful and wise servants, whom the master has put in charge of his
household…Blessed is that slave whom his master shall find at work when he
arrives.” (Matthew 24:45-46) May we be
like those addressed in God’s message to the church at Smyrna (Revelation
2:10), “Be faithful unto death, and I will give you a crown of life.”
See you in church –
Pastor
Dave
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