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This is Christ the King Sunday. The day we step up and boldly profess that Jesus rules this Universe. I like the title the Eastern Orthodox tradition gives to Jesus with respect to this role – Pantokrator (krator means ruler, panto means all). There’s a movie in that, I’m sure. If Schwarzenegger can be The Terminator who comes back from the future to prevent a very dark world filled with war between humans and the intelligent machines they created; so, Jesus can be The Pantokrator - the Incarnation of God the Son; the One who was, is, and will be; the One who died and was raised and lives; he who is at all times presently working in the power of the Holy Spirit to bring about the glorious future of God’s perfecting of his Creation so that sin, death, and evil are no more; the One who will finally come to raise the dead and make it all so. That would make a great movie, I think, but we would need longer than an hour on Sunday morning to show it. It has the potential of be as long as history itself.
It’s Christ the King Sunday. Jesus reigns. Amen? Well, I guess we should say how he reigns because the obviousness of that fact isn’t that (how shall we say it?) obvious. People do ask, “Well, if Jesus reigns, why is the world so messed up? Why doesn’t he just go ahead and fix it?” That’s a tough one and we can only commiserate with the asker, because we people of faith suffer in this world too and it sure would be nice if God would just go ahead put it to rights. We just can’t answer that “why not yet?” question. God has to answer that himself.
Looking again at the question of how Jesus reigns, a part of the answer to that question, which we can speak to, would be that for now, Jesus manifests his reign in this world most obviously through his people, his body, his brothers and sisters on earth bound to him by the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit, we who know ourselves to be the beloved children of God just as Jesus is the Beloved Son of God the Father. I’ll be careful not to get too theological here. Let’s just say it this way: We sing “Jesus loves me, this I know.” Yes, indeed he does. Yet, if we want to be truly Biblical, it is more correct to sing “God the Father has adopted me and loves me just as much as he does his Only Begotten Son Jesus and I know this because the Holy Spirit has made a home in me.” We should rather be singing that, but I’ve yet to find a catchy melody and the lyrics need tweaking. Knowing yourself to be God’s beloved child is a good portion of the means of how Jesus reigns in this world, because, believe me, knowing that changes everything.
Anyway, back to the topic – Jesus makes his reign visible through his Body, the Church. Well, that’s a bit of a bitter pill for most people to swallow. When we start talking about the Church exhibiting the Reign of Jesus, we run into some credibility issues. In particular, throughout most of its two millennia the Church has tried to reign on Earth instead of Christ Jesus. Popes have sat in the place of emperors. Christian kingdoms have warred against Christian kingdoms. Christian nations have gone to war against other Christian nations. Christians have warred against people of other faiths. In Modern times, in Democracies Christians have tried to govern by enforcing Christian moral values, by getting people elected who will further pseudo-Christian moral values and social agendas even to the extent of jumping into bed with Donald Trump and saying he is the one ordained by God to restore America to greatness in exchange for the hopes of the appointment of a couple of Conservative Supreme Court justices.
The Church truly has a credibility issue when saying Jesus manifests his reign through the Church. The institution of the Church throughout the ages has had a problem with power lust and greed to the extent of often becoming an oppressive force in the world. Where the Church has reigned, it has not looked nor acted like Jesus. We have instead grossly abused power. Well, let’s talk about power.
Looking at our Ephesians passage, power, the power that belongs to Jesus, is a key topic. It is such a key topic that Paul uses about every synonym for power that exists in the Greek language. In translation, we see the words power, rule, authority, dominion, might, greatness, strength all within the span of a couple of verses. The topic of power is important here, but the power that Paul refers to is not an earthly form of power. It’s a power that belongs exclusively to God and it is above all earthly powers. God the Father has placed all earthly powers under Jesus foot so it says. It is so sadly ironic that the Church has historically chosen to exercise and abuse those lesser earthly powers in order to make itself great when all along we have had God’s power at our disposal and could have done great things.
Well, what kind of power are we talking about then? Paul says it is the power that God used to raise Jesus from the dead – Resurrection power. There is no power on earth to which we can compare this power. We know no energy or force that can raise the dead. But, God’s power can be known. Paul indicates that the more we come to know Jesus and his way of life, the more we will know this resurrection power for it will be working in us to change us to be like Jesus as he is alive from the dead. Through knowing Jesus by the presence and work of the Holy Spirit we get a taste of Jesus’ resurrection life right now.
But, there’s a catch. Jesus taught that we must die to ourselves to know this life, this power. This dying to self runs contrary to the self-seeking we are accustomed too and do by nature. God has called us to live the Jesus Way, the Way of the Cross, the way of dying to all that the world calls success by means of living according to the teachings of Jesus. The blessing we get in life is to know Christ Jesus and the power of his resurrection, not success and material comfort. The way of the Christian is not simply to believe in God and be a good person and God will bless what you do with success and comfort. It is to follow Jesus at great personal cost and reap the blessing of knowing him and coming to know ourselves as beloved by God.
Paul notes this way of life among the Ephesians. Paul tells the Ephesians that he has heard of their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and of their love toward all the saints. Wouldn’t it be nice that the only thing people hear about us is about our faithful following of and trust in Jesus Christ shown in our overwhelming love for others? You know, what people hear about you is your legacy, the reputation you leave behind. One way to think about our legacy is think about what people would write as an epithet on our tombstone. Wouldn’t it be nice if the epithet on our tombstone read: “Worked hard all his life, but never got rich because Jesus taught him to share it with others.” We’ve heard the phrase, “Never met a stranger” about those people who can just talk to anybody. Well, how about, “She never met a stranger she didn’t help”? Would our tombstones reflect faithfulness to Christ in any kind of way or would it just be dates that say nothing?
Paul then goes to say that hearing of their faithfulness and love, he prays for them. Paul prays that God would give the Ephesians (and us) a Spirit of wisdom and revelation as we come to know him. Wisdom isn’t the ability to whip out catchy phrases about life that find their way onto coffee mugs. Wisdom concerns the way we live our lives. In Paul’s teaching, wisdom is living according to the Way of the Cross; and, when we live according to the Way of the Cross revelation happens meaning what God is up to in the world becomes evident. Paul indicates that this wisdom and revelation will become ours the more we get to know Jesus, which means building that relationship with him.
Paul also prays for the enlightening of the eyes of our hearts. That is a rich phrase. It means to see life, the world, others through sight that is forged in devotion to Christ. It means always looking about for the opportunity of living according to our devotion to Christ Jesus. We know of people whose motivation in life is “What’s in it for me?” Our motivation should rather be asking “How can I serve the Lord who reigns in love in this situation?” To do that it is necessary we fell devotion to Jesus. That’s what faith is. Faith isn’t just believing stuff. Faith is felt devotion, loyal friendship with Jesus, which we express in the way we live our lives.
Paul prays this prayer for us so that we may come to know the hope – know the hope – to which we have been called. Hope! Who do you know that doesn’t need hope? The way of life in Christ makes evident the hope of salvation. By it we help God powerfully bring healing to his diseased creation. People living the Way of the Cross, putting self aside to act in unconditional love, is the path to the healing of nations.
Paul prays this prayer for us so that we may come to know and share in the abundant overflowing wealth of the inheritance that belongs to Jesus…the wealth he means isn’t money or material wealth. It is the wealth of knowing ourselves to be God’s beloved children; the wealth of knowing we will live the resurrection life in a creation that God has healed and made new because we taste of it now because the presence of the Holy Spirit moves in us. We feel the presence of God with us.
Finally, Paul prays this prayer for us so that we may come to know the immeasurable greatness of God’s exercising his universe creating/life-changing/resurrection power on our behalf. I don’t know if you have had moments where the only way to explain them is to say God stepped in and fixed what was unfixable, healed what was unhealable, loved me when I thought myself unlovable, stopped me when I was out of control. I could go on, but I think you get the picture.
That universe creating, life changing, new creation making, resurrection power is how Jesus reigns until he comes again. It is not of this world. It comes from God’s very self and we find it by living according to faith, hope, and love. That’s how Jesus reigns now. Oh, for a world where Christians quit trying to control nations by earthly powers of coercion and rather devoted ourselves to Jesus, seeking to know him above all else. The credibility problem would be solved. Amen.
