Sermon Prepared for Messiah Lutheran Church
Christ the King Sunday – 11/26/00
By Gregory S. Kaurin
Associate Pastor for Spiritual Care and Development
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Texts: John 18:33-38 and Revelation 1:4-8
The Sermon:
I grew up in what some people call the “Midwest.” Those of you who have been there, or have been in the Dakotas or Minnesota know about the thunderstorms. After I saw a flash of lightening I was taught to count, “One, two, three, four…” and each second counted suggested how far away that bolt of lightening had struck. There was a mile for every second between the flash of lightening and the boom of thunder. (Someone corrected me after the first service: sound doesn’t travel a mile per second. It’s quite a bit slower, so those lightening strikes were actually a lot closer than I thought!)
I heard this image recently that we live between the flash and the boom of God’s Kingdom! In many ways that is true. We live between the flash of God’s creation, and the boom that will reveal his eternal kingdom. We live between the flash of Christ’s death and resurrection, and the boom of revealed salvation. We live between the flash of our baptism, and the boom of eternal life.
…Excuse me. I need to leave for a bit. I’ll be right back.
[I left the pulpit, and exited the side door of sanctuary. I walked around the building, and after about two minutes, entered from the rear of the sanctuary.]
Why are you all still here? [You told us to wait.] What made you think I’d come back? [You said you’d come back.] Right. In a very similar way, Jesus ascended, but he told us to expect his return. We live between the flash and the boom. And so we wait.
I remember sometimes being fooled by the lightening and thunder. There would be a big flash. I’d wait and wait, then decide it was taking way too long. “Must have been less impressive than I thought; all flash, no power. Or, maybe it was just one of those lightening clouds, way up, that flash or flicker without much sound.” It only took seconds to be fooled into relaxed complacency. And just when I was about to lose interest: “BOOM!” “Oh it was real, after all!”
In the lesson we had from John’s Revelation, Jesus said, “I am the Alpha and Omega.” The Beginning and the End. The Flash and the Boom. But in this long time between, we lose track, we get complacent, we lose interest in that higher Kingdom that he talked about. And God can seem like that lightening cloud. It lights up from time to time and gives a reminder and hope, but it is brief and passing. It lacks the boom of real authority, because it’s way up there, and we’re down here. Between the times, what we see and hear now seems like the real power. Earthly rulers, kings, presidents, and celebrities seem to have power.
Jesus said to Pilate: “My kingdom is not from this world. If it were, my followers would be fighting for me. They’d be demanding a recount right now. But they aren’t. Instead, my kingdom is not from here. Mine is the kingdom of Truth. Only those of the Truth will hear and follow me.”
So, Pilate asks, “What is Truth?” “What is Truth? You speak of your otherworldly Kingdom and Truth? Here is Truth: my throne. I can see and touch it. Here is a Truth, Jesus: I can take away, or let you keep your life.”
I think what Pilate was basically suggesting was, “Jesus, you’re not dealing with reality! The charge is that you call yourself king, but look, I stand up here and you stand bound in front of me! What kind of king? Where is your Truth? Where’s your power?” Jesus was not the kind of king anyone was expecting. Israel looked for a conqueror. And Pilate felt no conquering threat from this man.
Let’s be honest, though. Israel was not and are not the only people hungering for a powerful, take-charge kind of Messiah. We, too, fall to trying to create God into our own image or genie. What kind of Messiah, what kind of God do we want?
There were three young women speaking about the man they’d each marry. One of them said, “The man I will marry is going to be big, strong, and handsome. He’ll be a competent, no-nonsense, take-charge kind of man …who’ll do exactly what I tell him.”
It’s what we want out of leaders, in all realms. “Do what we want, predict what we need, take away our worries, and responsibilities. Smooth out our roads, but don’t ask us to help pay for it, especially don’t ask us to compensate you for it.”
At one of the recent debates, someone asked the candidates, “You’ve said you’ll do this and that. But politicians promise everything. Do you really mean what you say? Will you really do everything that you have promised?”
Both answered, without a twitch or hesitation, “Yes.”
We may long for that impossible leader. On the other hand, I don’t think we really expect it, or believe it. I said that we live in an age where the earthly leaders, kings, presidents and celebrities seem to have power. I’m going to backtrack on that claim, because I think we are more cynical than that.
Where is Rome, after all? Nations have come and gone. World powers like Persia, Egypt, Rome, Spain, Portugal, England, the USSR, where is their throne? Gone or diminished.
William Shakespeare’s plays often remind us of how the greatest of kings join the lowliest of beggars and fishermen: in the earth. Where is Alexander the Great? He rises no higher than the bones of Yorick.
Now, I think we understand Pilate’s question and his pessimistic “What is Truth?” In this world, kings and kingdoms and nations are not Truth. They make promises that cannot be kept. Power dwindles into history books. The greatest of kings lie mummified in museums, or not at all. Earth moves, stars explode, and meteors fall. What is Truth?
But finally, in that cynical question, I hear a longing, a wish and desire. No matter how cynical it is, that question longs for an answer, longs for something out there called “Truth.” It is a longing for that first lightening strike, and for all of those occasional flashes that re-ignite a touch of hope in us. Is it still possible? Is there something we haven’t heard or seen?
Last week in the high-school Bible class, we talked about the paranormal (UFOs, ghosts, near-death and out-of-body experiences, ESP, and conversations with the spirit world). On the one hand, I think there is something to some of that. On the other, I do find most of it to be terribly misleading.
But I will offer this: other people’s experiences of the paranormal, at best, may suggest that there is more than what we see, hear, taste, touch and see. I do not think we need to search these out. It ends up being the same problem Jesus had with miracles. People began treating him like magic man. In their eyes his purpose was to be a miracle worker. They were looking for connection with power and the magic realm. They came to see the excitement, thrill. And some began forming their faith in power instead of faith in the source of that power. They began to have faith in what Jesus did, instead of faith in who the signs suggested Jesus was.
For us, even with miracles, experiences, rituals, liturgy, even the with the Bible and the greatest of prophets and preachers, there is a leap of faith beyond your experiences that must happen. It is a leap of faith that realizes that Pilate asked the wrong question. Pilate asked, “What is Truth?” But all along, Jesus was answering: “Who.” “Who is Truth?”
Look at the last few lines of the gospel lesson. Jesus said, “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.” The Truth is not what, but who.
Jesus says elsewhere: “I AM the Truth.” “I AM” – that is one of God’s most powerful names: “I AM!”
The second lesson from John’s Revelation describes, not only a day to come, but also the Truth we grab hold of in this long wait. Between the flash and the boom we grab hold of Jesus Christ.
Jesus promised in the eighth verse of that lesson: “I am.” “I am throughout all of time, and across the entire universe! I AM Alpha and Omega, Alpha through Omega,” says the Lord God, who is and who was and is to come the Almighty I AM! From Flash to Boom.
Next Sunday is the first Sunday of Advent. It is also the first Sunday of the Church year. Obviously, that means that today is the last Sunday of Church year. Sometime in the middle ages, the Church decided that the goal of the last Sunday should be to provide the summary, the final word of what we preach, teach and worship.
…Or rather, …Who we preach, teach and worship: Christ the King.
He is the Truth. Alleluia.
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