Sermons
Message Delivered at Christ Church
The Weekend of November 24th & 25th, 2007
“Christ the King Sunday”
TEXT: Luke 23:35-43
Delivered by Paul A. Johnson
The message was introduced with a video clip from “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” in which Aslan is resurrected.
It was 1949 when CS Lewis wrote The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe; four years after the end of WWII. I’m sure many of us have read the book; and many of us have read the other books in the Chronicles of Narnia; and that some of us saw this movie version of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, which I thought was pretty good.
There’s Lucy and Susan, and Peter and Edmund; there’s the white witch, representing the powers of evil. And there is Aslan, and it’s hard to miss who he is. Edmund is a traitor, and the Deep Magic declares that a traitor must die. But what Aslan knows is the Deeper Magic from before time, so that even death loses its grip. So in the end, there is resurrection, and redemption, and victory over the powers of evil.
Lewis was born in 1898 and died in 1963. He was born in Ireland, and taught in England. He was a man who lived through the two worst wars in the history of the world. He fought in the first one, and was wounded. His experience of that war stayed with him for most of his life. During basic training he made a deal with a friend of his named Paddy Moore that if one of them should die in battle, the other would take care of the dead man’s family. Moore was killed in 1918, and until her death in 1951 Lewis took care of Moore’s mother.
He didn’t fight in the Second World War. He observed that one, though on some level everyone living in England during WWII was a participant in that war.
Like others of his time, Lewis experienced the worst that humanity can do to itself. The first war claimed 18 million lives; the second claimed 48 million lives. The first one gave us The Somme; the second one gave us Aushwitz. In between, Stalin created a famine that killed 7 million peasants and a great depression left people without jobs and without hope.
If ever the tragedy of human existence was made manifest, it was in the years between 1914 and 1945. All the forces of history—technological discovery; scientific thought; and romantic myth, to name a few—came together to create an unprecedented firestorm of hatred, violence, and destruction. Humanity had done everything we thought was right; we had done our best. But though the march of progress brought many blessings, it also brought disaster and moral failure we did not think possible.
So this man—who from age fourteen to age thirty-three had been an atheist—created an alternative universe. Lewis’ vision was one of hope, and redemption, and resurrection; and so he wrote a Biblically-based fantasy for his god-daughter about four children on an adventure, a wicked witch casting evil spells, and a good king named Aslan who is different from any king, or prime minister, or president there has ever been.
I’ve never done much research into the Chronicles of Narnia and why and how Lewis wrote them. But I wonder whether in some way it wasn’t in response to the tragedy of our existence and the failures of the earthly powers of his time that Lewis decided to write about a king who was just, and merciful--rightly fierce in the face of evil--and who understood power differently than we understand it around here…that maybe he thought the world needed a fable about the real king.
I know that it’s Thanksgiving Weekend, and we’re all a bit plump and weary from so much food. And we all know that for the culture around us the Christmas season has begun. The shopping has started, and the movies are in the theater, and the specials on television, and on Thanksgiving morning Lite 98 began playing all Christmas music all the time.
And it doesn’t quite fit with where we’ve been the last few days to hear a story in worship about Jesus on a cross. It might have been that a few of us were expecting red and green and Christmas carols. But we don’t have that today, so admittedly, we’re a bit out of step with the world around us.
Instead, here’s what we got: a story of a man on a cross—making the greatest sacrifice--offering hope and reconciliation all the way to the end. A lion, who becomes the lamb; a peasant, who is actually our King, offering a greater promise than any earthly king or president. What we got in the cross is a reminder of what the powers of this earth can do; what we got in the thief is a reminder that sometimes, we’re stuck just like him; and what we got in Jesus is a king who always makes it right, no matter what…
This is the last Sunday of the church year. Advent begins next weekend. And it’s a Sunday with a name. It’s called Christ the King Sunday. We mark the end of the church year reminding ourselves that we have one king, who is just and good, and that it’s Jesus.
It was the writers of scripture who first spoke of Christ as a King, and did so at their own risk. The phrases “Christ the King” and “the Kingdom of God” are so commonly used in our worship nowadays that we may miss how dangerous these statements once were. After all, at the time of Jesus there was a king—Caesar—and to claim that there was another was treason. To say publicly that Christ was your king could get you arrested. It wasn’t just a political statement, but it was at least a political statement that could sometimes have political consequences. John the Revelator writes the Book of Revelation on the island of Patmos rather than someplace more comfortable because he is a political exile.
Over the years, common usage has domesticated much of the language we use in the Church. So it’s worth knowing today that even the word “gospel” was originally a political term. It was a technical term for a certain kind of royal communication. A “gospel”—a “euangelion” in Greek--was a news release from Caesar. If Caesar won a great victory, or had a child born, or had declared a holiday, a “gospel” would be sent forth announcing the good news...a written document, maybe delivered by some sort of town crier.
But early on, the first believers took this term that referred to official royal pronouncements, and applied it to the story and message and preaching of Jesus. There were other words they could have used to describe what we now call “the gospel.” But they didn’t. They chose a term laden with political and worldly expectations and that had to do with kingship because things they were a’-changin’; it wasn’t just the “same old same old” anymore. There was a new king to follow, with a new kingdom, and it was bigger than anything Caesar could muster.
Their belief in the kingship of Christ never made them political rebels or revolutionaries. They never sought to overthrow the government. I don’t know every jot and tittle of ancient history, but I know of no occasion when the followers of Jesus took up arms against the Romans.
The kingship of Christ didn’t lead them down that path because that’s not the path Christ took. But it sure did make them different, and make us different. Because our king is different, we are different. Because our king’s power is a power of love, and mercy, and forgiveness, and reconciliation, and healing; these become our virtues. We demonstrate hospitality, and generosity, and love, and mercy because that’s what our king taught. Rejoice, for ours is a new kingdom! In the kingdom of Caesar, people like Edmund get what they deserve, and what they deserve is death. In the world of Christ the King, people like Edmund get a second chance, and thieves on a cross get the gift of paradise.
The first believers had to deal with Caesar. We don’t have that problem. We don’t have kings at all anymore. We have presidents around here. We’ll elect the next one in a little under a year. I’m going to make a prediction here…I’ll go out on a limb and say it’s either going to be a Democrat or a Republican. Those who are Republicans will pin great hopes on their candidate; and the Democrats will pin great hopes on theirs. Some hope that our course will change; some hope that our course will stay the same. Everybody hopes that whoever is our elected leader will help make things better. Lots of people will believe that the future hinges on who wins next November.
Who wins is important, but none of the candidates have the kind of power that really matters. None of them will give meaning to our lives, or love us through our graves. None of them claim us.
One of them will be our President; but none will be our King. We’ve already got one of those…gentle as a lamb, fierce as a lion; giving the gift of life; making us whole if we’ll let him; and calling us to a life that makes all the difference.
We all come from different places today, and we all got our own stuff going on. Somewhere, there may be something too big for us to handle on our own. We hold it in; we keep it private; and that’s okay. But something’s brought us here this morning. In some way, at some time, we all get a little bit stuck, just like this thief on the cross. But the King we worship brings us freedom; and promises life; and gives us the grace to follow him. He is different from every kind of earthly power, and he makes us different.
He doesn’t work like any other king. He simply works like the King of Love. And that’s enough.
The King of love my shepherd is,
Whose goodness faileth never;
I nothing lack if I am his,
And he is mine forever.
Henry Williams Baker
#246 in Sing Joyfully
