Sunday before Thanksgiving (USA) Christ the King Sunday
St. Paul composes these words for a specific purpose and to address a specific problem. Writing to a church in place called Colossi, a mere three decades after the death and resurrection of Jesus, Paul directly tackles some false teaching about Jesus infesting the Colossian community of faith;—false teaching that has repeated itself in the church more than once in the 2,000 years since.
From Colossians 1, “For in Jesus Christ all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of His cross.” Here ends the text.
What in life is more satisfying and gratifying than when all the pieces come together? When the jigsaw puzzle begins to actually look like the photo on the box. When students who have agonized, pulling all-nighters, finally turn in their term papers. When, after hours of painful conversation and streams of tears a ruptured relationship shows signs of healing. When, after decades of losing, your favorite football team begins to win;—Go Buffalo Bills!;—or when the table is set and the feast is spread and the family is gathered, and the hatchets of hatred are buried, and dinner is served.
Finally, a sigh of relief, a cry of joy, even, a shout of thanksgiving, God is on the throne. Life makes sense. These all-too-short but deeply cherished moments in life, what Rich Bimler calls “shalom zones,” they represent the sort of wholeness, amidst life’s woundedness, that God, in His lovingkindness, desires to give to you, to me, and to all people.
But the young church at Colossi didn’t possess this peace. The pieces were not coming together for them. They were on the brink of a break-up because contrary to popular opinion what you believe about Jesus does make a difference.
Nobody likes to call people names or to call out people by name, but, sad to say, and I’ve still gotta say it, there were some false teachers whom we know by name who had weaseled their way into this church. As a group they were called Gnostics, and their descendants, unfortunately, still lurk around churches today, still stir up dissension, still believe they’ve swallowed the red pill of secret knowledge; they still divide the family of faith.
What’s worse, these Gnostics, these distributors of distorted doctrine, they ran off the rails when they falsely taught that this physical world, the real world you and I live in, was essentially evil; They taught that there was a higher spiritual world and a lower material world. And as is often the case, one false teaching leads to another, distorted doctrine has a domino effect. And as a result, these Gnostics denied that Jesus, the Jesus who walked on this earth, the Jesus who died on a cross;—they denied that He was fully divine, fully God.
“No, No, No!” cried out St. Paul, “This won’t do,” putting his pen to work, he took a positive tack with what theologians call a “cosmic Christology” in order to knock the Gnostics out of the picture at Colossi, as well as any Gnostics who might show up at our churches in November 2022.
So, where does that leave us? First, we must resist the untruth that the true Gospel of Jesus Christ is just for an elite few. The truth of the Gospel of Jesus is for all people! And second, the Gospel of Jesus Christ to be a Good News that saves, to be a Good News that heals, a Good News that reconciles, to be the Good News that gives us peace, it must be the Gospel of a Savior, a Healer, a Reconciler, and a Peace-Giver in whom the fullness of God does, in fact, dwell. It is not good news if Jesus is a half-god, or a sorta-god, or a demigod, or an avatar of god, or just a really religious rabbi or just a holy role model, or merely a figment of some deluded, prophetic imagination.
Yes, the Jesus you see in the Bible is human, totally human. But He is not only a Man. He is also totally God, the fullness of God. So that when we look upon Jesus, it is the image of God our eyes behold. When we listen to the words of Jesus, it is the voice of God our ears hear. When we give thanks to Jesus, it is the goodness of God we are praising. When we obey Jesus, it is the will of God we are doing. How do we say it in that bonus-length Creed called the Athanasian, Jesus is God “begotten from the substance of the Father before all ages.” And if I were with you live, I’d say “everybody say “and …” permit me to repeat “Jesus is God, begotten from the substance of the Father before all ages. And Jesus is Man, born from the substance of His mother the virgin Mary in this age”
As my college students might say, “Yes, it takes all that.” Nothing less can get us to a shalom zone, to a place of peace, to an experience of reconciliation, to that sense that all the pieces are coming together. A half-god available to only a select few just won’t do. Yes, it takes all the fullness of God to dwell in Jesus. And yes, that takes work: blood, sweat, tears. But to be clear, my dear sister and brother, it is not your work or your good works I’m referring to. It is what the Father, Son, and Spirit have done, are doing, and will do to draw you and hold you in the divine design meant for you. It takes what Paul calls a few verses earlier in Colossians, it takes the One “in whom all things hold together.” It took a King on a cross!
The Lutheran Service Book notes that November 19 is the commemoration of St. Elizabeth of Hungary, a remarkably wealthy woman born in a castle to a royal family, Her husband died when she was yet a young woman. Upon hearing the news of her husband’s death, Elizabeth cried out, “The world with all its joys is now dead to me.” Some of us have been visited by that sort of grief. Rather than the pieces of life coming together, the plans do not materialize, they vaporize into the abyss, dreams shatter, hopes fracture. Many of us are tasting that disappointment, that loneliness, that emptiness, that sadness, that staggering unfairness of life, which is especially bitter as we approach the holiday season.
Elizabeth never remarried, but invested her time, her wealth, and her inheritance to help people in poverty and sickness. “How can I wear a crown of gold” she said, “when the Lord Jesus wears a crown of thorns? And wears it for me!” You see, my friends, the One in whom the fullness of God dwells wears that crown for you, gives His body for you, pours out His blood for you, dies to bring back together the fragments of your fractured life. If you peel back the English word “reconcile,” as it is found in our text from Colossians, and you dig into the biblical Greek beneath it, you find the word “katallage.” It literally means to take a thing and to make that thing into something else, something other than what it is, to take an old condition and recondition it into something new, to take a wrecked relationship and reconcile it, to take a person who feels degraded by their own sin and to encourage them with the baptismal reminder that the image of God imprinted on them from eternity has been restored by the Holy Spirit.
The Kingship of this King on a cross is not just meant for the afterlife. It is a real, down-to-earth, in-the-flesh gift for us in the here and now, in the same way that all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell here on earth in order to reconcile all things, not only in heaven, but on earth.
One of my most encouraging mentors died several month ago. His name was Jack Preus. He was a pastor, a professor, and a college president. But his family, that was the calling which gave him the most pride in life, the place where the pieces came together for him. Being Sherry’s husband, father of Jack IV, Emily, and Rebecca, and a grandfather of eight. In his book called Just Words Preus undertook a comparison of two of the concepts that show up in our text;— “to reconcile” and “to make peace.” First notice that they are both verbs, action words, words which do something: God was in Christ doing something, reconciling the world to Himself. God was in Christ doing something, making peace by the blood of the cross. Preus writes, and I quote: “Reconciliation signals the solution to the separation between people. Peace calls attention to the resolution to the friction between and within people.” (Just Words, CPH: 2000, p 146.)
And how desperately we need both: reconciliation and peace. When you think about our culture how ideologically divided we are, how politically angry we are, how socially segregated we are, how civically uncivil we are towards one another, how morally bankrupt we’ve become, how painfully polarized families are when they have so much to be thankful for. When you think about the extent to which the pieces are not coming together for so many of us, the friction that afflicts us needs more than just a mere man to fix. It took the fullness of God dwelling in the Person of Jesus to do the work of saving us. It took the One who fully took on our human nature, yet was “without sin.”
Jesus wasn’t born in a prestigious power center like Rome or Athens or Alexandria, the fullness of God was born in the little, unsuspecting town of Bethlehem. And yet, He is the undisputed King of creation who enters the ring to battle everything that batters us. He comes as the Prince of Peace to beat down sin, death, and the devil. It took the Lord of lords to sacrifice His life in order that our lives might now find creative ways to bring life, to bring reconciliation and peace to a broken and fallen world. And now from the right hand of His resurrection glory, Jesus continues to link Himself with the lives of all kinds of people irrespective of skin color, regardless of political persuasion or educational achievement or marital status or gender.
Jesus, who is all Man and all God, becomes one of us in order that all of us might become one with Him. Finally, a sigh of relief, a cry of joy, even, a shout of thanksgiving! God is on the throne. Amen.
Reflections for November 20, 2022
Title: Where It All Comes Together
Mark Eischer: You’re listening to The Lutheran Hour. For FREE online resources, archived audio, our mobile app, and more, go to lutheranhour.org. And joining us now, here’s Lutheran Hour Speaker, Dr. Michael Zeigler.
MikeZeigler: Thank you, Mark. It’s good to be here.
Mark Eischer: Dr. Nunes says, “Christ’s sacrifice enables us in response to find creative ways to bring life, reconciliation, and peace to a broken and fallen world.” But I recall Jesus said He came not to bring peace but division. How do we reconcile those thoughts?
Mike Zeigler: Well, whenever I’m faced with a difficult question like that, I think the first and most important thing to do is remember, I’m not Jesus.
Mark Eischer: And neither am I.
Mike Zeigler: Yeah. He’s got things that he does that we can never do. We Christians clearly have the call, as it’s stated in Romans 12:18, to live peaceably with all people, he says, so far as it depends on us and so far as possible. So that’s our calling, live peaceably. But Jesus does things that are unique to His calling, things that we cannot do. What you said there was a quote from Luke 12:51. Jesus says, “I have not come to bring peace but division.” And that’s something unique to His mission. It’s unique because what’s at stake there is the identity of Jesus.
We’re not talking about divisions like between the Buffalo Bill fans and Dr. Nunes and the Miami Dolphins or even divisions between red states and blue states. We’re talking about the division that’s caused by Jesus Himself. When He puts the question to all of us, “Who do you say that I am?” That’s the question that got Jesus crucified, and if Christians ever find themselves in real conflict, it should be over that question and not over anything less, like our preferences or opinions.
Mark Eischer: All right. So you would say the only source of legitimate division is that question: “Who is Jesus?”
Mike Zeigler: Exactly. It’s the question that matters most for us as Christians. We either say that Jesus is the eternal Son of God who has become a Man to save us and to be our King forever, or we say something less about Him. We say that He is something less. That’s the division that Jesus came to bring and He brings that division so that He can bring us peace. It’s like having to separate a drug addict from the substance that’s killing him. Jesus, by bringing this division, leads us through a withdrawal from those false gods so that we could trust in Him as the perfect and true image of God who can give us peace.
Mark Eischer: Speaking of division, though, this message today comes right after the midterm elections in the U.S. It’s a time when divisions and differences have been highlighted and exploited. Emotions are supercharged. Hatred is always a potent political tool. It’s a handy but very evil way to motivate others to do your dirty work. I’ve even heard one commentator say, “If you can’t have dinner with them, how are you going to have a country with them?” Thinking about our listeners in the U.S. who will be gathering for Thanksgiving in the week ahead, what aspects of Dr. Nunes’ message might help us to bridge those divisions, starting with our own families? For example, I might have strong opinions about certain political issues, but I don’t want that to get in the way of my Christian witness to my family and friends.
Mike Zeigler: All right. I thought you were going to ask me an easy question. Wow! No, it’s a difficult situation. I think one thing you can find some comfort in is that you’re not the only one who feels this friction. There was actually a study that went out recently that showed 93 percent of people, in America I’m assuming, are grieved by how divided we’ve become, but don’t know what to do about it. So it’s a real thing that we’re all feeling at this time, and it’s complicated. There’s no one-size-fits-all approach and so the first counsel I would give is that you know your people better than anybody else. You know how to be a Christ-like witness to them and so you have to rely on God’s Word for guidance and also pray for the Holy Spirit to give you wisdom in the moment. We can disagree with people, but we can do it in a godly way.
Mark Eischer: With that in mind, let’s conclude this discussion and our program with prayers for the nation and for peace. Almighty God, You have given us this good land as our heritage. Grant that we remember your generosity and constantly do Your will. Bless our land with honest industry, truthful education, and an honorable way of life. Save us from violence, discord, and confusion, from pride and arrogance, and from every evil course of action. Grant that we, who came from many nations with many different languages, may become a united people. Support us in defending our liberties, and give those to whom we have entrusted the authority of government the spirit of wisdom, that there may be justice and peace in our land. When times are prosperous, may our hearts be thankful, and in troubled times do not let our trust in You fail; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
O God, from whom come all holy desires, all good counsels, and all just works, give to us, Your servants, that peace which the world cannot give, that our hearts may be set to obey Your commandments and also that we, being defended from the fear of our enemies, may live in peace and quietness; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen. (prayers taken from Lutheran Service Book)
Music Selections for this program:
“A Mighty Fortress” arranged by Chris Bergmann. Used by permission.
“Wake, Awake” setting by Henry Gerike. Sung by the Concordia Seminary Chorus. Used by permission.
“For All the Saints” From The Concordia Organist (© 2009 Concordia Publishing House)