The Last Day Of The Year?

John 18:33-37                                                                                                                                       

You may have heard people say that the church is out of touch with society or that the church isn’t in synch with our modern culture. Hopefully none of you have said that recently, because Pastor Miner, our associate-in-ministry, Jane, and myself are always trying to be as hip as we can possibly be (ha-ha!). We do work hard, though, through our preaching, teaching, counseling, and programming, to address the issues with which all of us today struggle. But sometimes the catholic church, with a small "c", like in our Apostle’s Creed, or universal church, does something that is blatantly out of touch with our modern society.

You see, today is the last day of the year, according to the “catholic” church. The last day of the year in Christendom is not December 31^st, as most of our calendars say. The church decided to be different and use its own calendar. The church also didn't go by the cycle of say the school year, in which case the last day of the year would be around June 1^st. No, today is the last day of the year according to the Christian liturgical calendar.

However ridiculous that may sound at first, I don’t think we should apologize or be defensive about being out of synch with the rest of the world on this issue. There are times when the tradition of the church does need to change to face a changing culture. But the meaning we draw from the structure of the church calendar can be helpful in understanding our priorities. You see the church year is centered on the life of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the center of our lives, and the calendar helps to emphasize that fact. The church calendar revolves around the two most important events in Christ’s life, the two events that have henceforth changed the world. They are, of course, the birth of Christ, celebrated at Christmas, and the death and resurrection of Christ celebrated during Holy Week and culminating in Easter.

Next Sunday we begin our preparation for celebrating the birth of Jesus as we enter the season called Advent, which leads into Christmas. The colors of the banners on the altar and pulpit will change from white to blue, a color that symbolizes hope, as we begin to wait with hope for the birth of Christ.

So, as the beginning of the church year focuses us on Jesus Christ, so the last Sunday of the church year also focuses us on Christ. You have probably already noticed that today, the last Sunday, is called Christ the King Sunday. We celebrate the fact that Jesus Christ is king and lord over our lives, from beginning to end.

Each of the four lessons read this morning express the kingship of Christ in one way or another, whether it is Daniel’s vision of a great throne room, or the reading in Revelation stating that Jesus is ruler over kings, or Pilate’s question to Jesus, “Are you the king of the Jews?” Even the psalm proclaims, “The Lord is king.”

Of all the people who read this psalm, we who live in southern California can understand what the writer means as the psalm proclaims, “The waters have lifted up their voice; the waters have lifted up their pounding waves. Mightier than the sound of many waters, mightier than the breakers of the sea, mightier is the Lord who dwells on high.” With this so called “El Nino” winter upon us, we may have more demonstrations of just how powerful the ocean waves can be than we would like. And yet, Jesus is even more powerful than the waves crashing in, even more powerful than the waves at a place like the wedge near Newport Beach.

It is good that we have all these different images of how powerful Jesus is, like the ocean waves. It is good that “king” is not our only way of picturing Christ’s power. Frankly the title king is one traditional title that the church might think about changing in order to be in synch with our society. No one in the 1990’s in the United States can relate very well to the authority of a king. Kings today are mostly figureheads, who hold little authority and power. In Jesus’ day, the crowned heads of state controlled the fate of their people. Today kings have been drastically eliminated or overthrown, so that only a handful are left, and their power is extremely diminished.

We do still have a fascination with royalty but it is for different reasons than our ancestors did. We are more interested in the affairs they’re having than the affairs of state. We especially follow the lives of British royalty. And there are people like Princess Diana who used her fame to powerfully lend support and aid to many important issues of justice, such as the plight of children in developing nations and the indiscriminate, destructive horror of land mines. But all in all, our American image of kings and royalty is rather lukewarm.

So what does it mean to say Christ is king on this the last Sunday of the church year? It is to say that Christ is in control of our lives and of all that matters in this world, and it is to say that Christ has always been, and will always be in control, from the beginning to the end. To use words from Revelation, Christ is “the Alpha and the Omega, who is and was and is to come, the Almighty.”" Jesus is the “a” and the “z.”

What this means for us is that Jesus, who was present in the word spoken by God which created the world in Genesis, and who will be present when the world comes to an end as foretold in Revelation, is present with us as well, for our entire lives, from beginning to end, from the miracle of our birth to the tragedy of our death.

There are powers in this world that claim to be, even seem to be, more powerful than the kingship of Jesus, or should I say the “wave” ship of Jesus to use the psalmist’s metaphor. Death and disease pervade the world. But Jesus’ spirit is more pervasive. The power of sin is strong, but the forgiveness of Christ is stronger. Human beings see themselves as mighty, but Jesus is even mightier. Death, sickness, sin, pride all seem to have the power to keep Christ and his rule at bay.

But Jesus proved his power to the world on the cross. Christ was king on earth, but not the kind of king we understand. Even Pilate, who could talk face-to-face with Jesus, didn’t understand the power and authority that Jesus held. Jesus was not a king, as this world understands kings. Jesus was a king of truth, a king of love, a king who serves his followers. Jesus’ power came through what we might see as weakness. It came through service and love and even suffering and death. But it is in this kind of power that the truth can be found.

Jesus contrasts the power of the world, the power of unbelievers, with his power and the power of those who believe in him. Jesus says that if his kingdom were of the world, his followers would be taking up their swords in order to fight to free Jesus. But Jesus isn’t seeking to control a piece of land for a certain period of time. Pilate, like worldly kings, was the governor over an area of land, a section of the Roman Empire, for a period of years. Jesus is seeking a victory over all of creation for all of time. Jesus is going to win the battle not by being a great warrior, but by sacrificing himself for the world.

This is the truth that Pilate does not understand. Jesus is fighting for truth. Fighting to let the world know how much it is loved by God. Fighting the forces of death and evil so that just as Jesus was there at the beginning of creation, so also Jesus will be there at the end of time, welcoming us home with open arms.

That is the promise of the gospel and that is the source of our hope. If we trust in the president, or the dollar sign, or our being bigger than our brother and sister, or whatever other rulers or powers we have, if we see these things as being the key to our success in life, we will be disappointed. But if we recognize that Christ is the ruler of the entire world, we are filled with hope.

You probably won’t go out and have a New Year’s party tonight with champagne, and Dick Clark probably won’t be seen counting down to the New Year as a ball drops into New York’s Time’s Square. But through Christ we are filled with the same hopes and dreams that a new year gives us, only in Christ these hopes and dreams last a lifetime, and beyond.

In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God and the word was God. In the end, God is there, and in the present God is here. Just as the waves incessantly crash against the beach, so God incessantly seeks to love us and to know us. “Mightier than the sound of many waters, mightier than the breakers of the sea, mightier is the Lord who dwells on high.” AMEN.

Blake E. Rohrer

Midvale Community Lutheran Church

Madison, WI