Revelations 1:4-5

Sermon on Revelations 1:4-5, written by Walter W. Harms

Who Is Your King?

Her perfume is intoxicating! The spicy pumpkin pie you will eat this
Thursday is a feast for the taste buds. Christ Jesus is your King! All
three are wonderful statements, unless. … Unless perfume irritates
you and you are allergic to it. Unless your taste buds have been ruined
through one cause or another and pie tastes like mud. Unless you don’t
consider Jesus your King and then you are on your own.

Now it is not a matter of heaven or hell whether you know this is Christ
the King Sunday or not. I am old enough to remember when the last Sunday
of the Church year was called, the Day of Humiliation and Prayer–a time
to reflect on our coming judgment at the hand of God. I shall never forget
the hymn, Dies Irae, Day of wrath, O day of mourning! See fulfilled the
Prophet’s warning, Heav’n and earth in ashes burning. Almost scary enough
to make a person less than forward to the final day of dissolution of
this world. And change your habits? Don’t think I did.

Now the church wants you to hear this greeting. „Grace to you and
peace. . . from Jesus Christ. . .the ruler of kings on earth.“ (Rev.
1:4-5). This is its concluding testimony of who Jesus Christ is for us
and our world. This, the final Sunday of this Church Year ends with Christ
being hailed as king.

Next week we begin the time of Advent, the time we journey to Bethlehem.
By calling this Christ the King Sunday, „the liturgy of the church
underscores the convergence, the intersection, of kingdoms“ (John
B. Rogers, Jr.). Today we see Jesus before Pilate in the Gospel, calling
himself a king. Before he was born a decree from Caesar Augustus brought
a Jewish couple from Nazareth to Bethlehem, a corner of Caesar’s vast
Roman empire. After his birth, according to tradition, kings from the
East came to worship. Who? The newborn „king of the Jews.“ The
same epitaph, by the way, our Pilate put above the cross of Jesus. This
calling of Jesus, the king of the Jews caused another king, Herod the
Great to high suspicion and the killing of the Holy Innocents of Bethlehem,
two years and younger.

It appears that there is a great suspicion among kings when Jesus is
called king. Pilate was afraid his king, Caesar in Rome would be displeased
if this King of the Jews was not silenced. Although they despised and
rejected Caesar as having any real authority over them, when the chips
were down, the leaders of the Jews shouted that they had no king but
Caesar and ushered Jesus swiftly as possible to the cross and extinction,
and they hoped the end of that king and his kingdom.

We? What do we know about kings? We see the pageantry of the royalty
of England as well as hearing about their immoral habits and behavior.
We know they are only for show and moral leadership, as we laugh and
smile (or is it snicker?), over their shenanigans.
We, with those Jews back in Jesus‘ time, day, say what? „We have
no king but . . .! Our country was founded on the principle that we would
not have any autocratic person, as a king to lead us. We reject all imposed
authority on our lives, and live free, democratic lives in this republic
of ours. Our reply is often: we have no king over us! Or perhaps more
realistically our shout is: „I am the king, the captain of my fate
and destiny.“

And so we often are. Tragically, of course.

What does it mean to have a king? There was two kinds of kings. One
like Pilate in the Good News reading for today. And there is Jesus.

Pilate views Jesus as people of power always view goodness, with contempt,
some fear, a little admiration and some uneasiness as to what this person
Jesus really is all about. His question: Are you the king of the Jews?
Was not a moral or religious question. It was political: How much of
a threat are you, Jesus, to Rome, to me? Are you a harmless dreamer?
A threat to what I want and the social order?

Pilate’s question is our question, and it is always one that deals with
control of my life. It is always the power issue. Are you a friend, Jesus,
the enemy?

Are you going to cost me, Jesus? In the pocketbook where it will hurt?
Am I going to have to view people differently? Are you, Jesus, going
to have to be put into the equation when I decide what I want to do?
What difference does it make whether you are consulted or not? Am I going
to have to love my enemies? Will I have to speak of you to others because
you love them as you love me?

For about thirty years, I instructed young people, 15 and 16 year olds
for the Rite of Confirmation in the Lutheran Church. The Sixth Commandment
was always a big deal. Does it make any difference what kind of person
you marry? After all, many of you found out that your judgment was not
so good after all and you ended up in divorce. When I said that I thought
they should see whether the person they were getting involved with was
a worshiping Christian (not a Christian in name only), most of them thought
I was nuts, because beauty and sexual attractions were most important.

Who is king? King of my life? So, we’ve made mistakes. We bowed before
the kings of pleasure, leisure, opulence, sensuality, money, personal
power, control and, who knows how many more? More kings than all of the
territory of Germany had when Luther was alive.

If Jesus is king, what is he going to do about it? Is it going to be
Dies Irae all over again for me? Is God’s judgment what I am experiencing
now and in my world in any or all of the problems, ailments, diseases,
or tragedies? Why not create a world without moral judgment, without
rules, with tolerance for all?

Can we not overthrow this monarchy of Jesus and live as we want? We
have, brothers and sisters, we have. It is that chaos, that lost-ness,
that senseless, ruthless, faithless, heartless that is our society today.
When the King is disregarded and seems to be gone, we are given over
to the tyranny of a depraved mind, which kills in order to bring peace,
which if filled with every kind of evil, greed and depravity.

Am I talking about you and me who are Christians? In so far that Christ
Jesus is not our King, all of this and more is true of us as well. God’s
judgment is to let us go our own way, which is like letting a spaniel
out in my back yard. There are so many scents back there. Scents of deer,
dogs, fox, possums, coyotes, raccoons, and more that the spaniel would
never return, lost, gone and without hope. Not knowing where food, shelter,
and care are.

So it might be good to have Jesus as King? What kind of a king is he?
Here is the shocker: Not like kings of this world, his kingly work for
which he was sent into this world by God and for which he was born is
to testify to the truth!

„Everyone,“ Jesus says, „who belongs to the truth listens
to my voice.“

What is the truth? The truth I need to hear, the truth that will give
me healing, bring me back home, give light to my eyes scarred by the
sights and pleasures of this world, satisfies the longings of mind, heart,
and spirit?

The truth is that Jesus came not to condemn the world, but that the
world, that is, the people of the world should live, really live through
trusting in him. The truth is that God so loved the world that when you
believe in Jesus you will not live a meaningless life but live forever.
The truth is that grace and peace come to us alone through Jesus. The
truth is that the King must die to usher in his kingdom that is not of
this world.

Through the death of the King, all persons can come to Jesus and find
rest for their spirits and a release from burdens. Jesus is the only
Way, the only Truth, and thus the only way to be alive now and forever.
He is Truth!

Jesus is King. Is he your king? I am afraid that all of us, including
myself, try to live in a world, where I can pay him as little attention
as possible. Salute him perhaps on Sundays or high holy days. The rest
of the time, I want to live as I please. A sorry state of disharmony
for me and my world.

So, Jesus, be my king. Let your kingdom come into my life, and if that
means I will be canon fodder or need to be run over to be changed, do
it. Do it because you are my king.

So to him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, and
made us to be a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father, to him be
glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.

Look! He is coming with the clouds; every eye will see him even those
who pierced him and on his account all the tribes of the earth will wail.
So it is to be. Amen

Every knee shall bow before him, every knee, and every tongue will confess
he is King to the glory of God the Father.

So, who is your King? Amen.

Walter W. Harms
waltpast @AOL.com