Christ
the King – 22 November 2015 – Year B
Grace
to you and peace from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen
The
text for this meditation on the Last Sunday of the Church Year B – Christ the
King – is written in the 1st Chapter of the Revelation to John:
Verses 4b–8:
Grace
to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the
seven spirits who are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ,
the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of
the earth. 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.
“I am the Alpha and the
Omega,” says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.
In the movie “The Two Towers”, second in the “Lord
of the Rings” series, there is a moving scene just before the battle of Helm’s
Deep. A boy with fear in his eyes is getting
ready for battle. He says to Aragorn, “I
hear that our situation is hopeless and that we will all be dead by
morning.” Aragorn replies in barely a whisper, “There is always hope” Those who are good are vastly outnumbered
and overwhelmed by the forces of evil. But the heroes are faithful as they
struggle against evil for what is right and true, even though such struggle
is painful, difficult, and costs them dearly.
In a much
greater sense this is true in our text. The Book of Revelation, in fact the
entire Bible, pictures an overwhelmingly powerful
army of evil whose goal is to wipe out every good thing that God has created. That evil is
the devil, the world, and our sinful flesh.
These evil enemies
are so powerful and pervasive, with so many on their side, that we
outnumbered Christians are seriously tempted to lose hope or to compromise with
evil. In spite of our best intentions, how often, in times of adversity, we
fail, we struggle with the faith to believe and trust Jesus to guide us through
adversity, as He promised, and are left in despair not knowing where to turn.
Our text
presents to us to our revelation, our ever-present hope in the face of
overwhelming adversity, Jesus Christ, “the
faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the
earth”. Christ Jesus, in the face of
overwhelming evil, faithfully witnessed to the truth, both in word and deed,
unto death. He refused to give up and went to the cross and offered Himself up
as the ultimate and eternal sacrifice for our sins, the sins of the world. Then
he rose from the dead, was exalted, and now reigns with great power. His faithful witness restores our faith
daily in the forgiveness of our sins, and through our Baptism sanctifies us
through the Holy Spirit and inspires us to be more faithful
witnesses to His Saving Grace in our daily lives in the world.
Friends in Christ, I try to be
more specific here. In my experience the very mention of the ‘Book of Revelation’ brings looks of
confusion. This is the book that seems to lack clarity, attracts controversial
statements and doctrine, and in itself predicts events that seem somewhat paranormal.
I ask, is creation from nothing, miracles of great proportion, the raising from
death to life, and many other such things ‘normal?’ Is forgiveness of sins and
eternal life ‘normal?’ No! our relationship with our Great Triune God is far
from normal and in the text of the ‘Revelation
to John’ is the depiction and disclosure of the very nature and purpose of
the Holy Trinity and for us an insight of the eternal joy that is ours.
“Jesus
Christ, the faithful witness”. The witness in word: In his trial before Pilate, our Lord summarised his life’s
mission when he said, “For this reason I was born, and for this
I came into the world, to testify (witness)
to the truth” (Jn 18:37). To witness
means to faithfully declare the truth, even
in the face of evil, no matter what the opposition. This truth was indeed the
Gospel, the Good News that He, the Son of God, became incarnate (True God and True man) so as to be the
Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world (Jn 1:14, 29). The good news
is that God gives such forgiveness freely to everyone who repents and believes
the Gospel. Jesus always faithfully witnessed to this truth, even before
Pilate, even on the cross.
The witness in deed; Our Lord
showed himself to be a faithful witness. He refused to give up or give in to
evil. He refused to back down in the face of mass rejection (Jn 6:66; Mk 15:11-15)
or the horrors of hell at Gethsemane (Mt 26:38-39), or at the cross (Mt 27:46).
He was a faithful witness to the truth by being willing to suffer and die for
the truth rather than compromise with evil.
Yet our Lord Jesus, the faithful
witness, did not merely suffer and die for the truth; he suffered and died for
us and for all mankind. As written in the 6th verse, Jesus is the
one “who loves us and has freed us from
our sins by his blood.” Our unforgiven sins were the chains by which our
evil enemies had bound us. However Christ, by his shed blood on the cross, and
by becoming the firstborn from the dead, shattered those chains of sin and
freed us by forgiving us. As a result, for those who believe this Gospel and have
been baptised, God no longer counts their sins against them and considers them
to be righteous (2 Cor 5:19-21).
I all this we are richly blessed, but this blessing can only grow if it
is shared, and therefore Jesus Christ was a faithful witness so that each of us would be a faithful
witness. By his death and resurrection Jesus has given us a new
identity: “[Jesus] has made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve His God and
Father” (v 6). He has made us a kingdom of holy priests whose task is to serve
God. Every Christian is part of the priesthood of all believers. We should note
that Jesus “made us” a kingdom
and priests. We contributed nothing to our new identity before
God; it was totally by grace, an unmerited gift. We did
nothing. Jesus did it all. Our new identity is received only by faith, and can never
be achieved.
What is the ‘Call’ of the
‘priesthood of all believers’? In 1 Peter
2:9 we are told that God has made us a royal priesthood, so that we “may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful
light”. In other words, at the
heart of being a priest before God is to worship God, specifically by testifying to the truth of how God saved us. By testifying
to the truth of the Gospel, we are
faithful witnesses, even in the face of evil.
In reading this, many of us are
challenged; “To publicly witness is
risky. I don’t think I can do that”. Friends in Christ, Jesus gives us the
encouragement we need to be faithful
witnesses. The original recipients of Revelation were the seven churches of Asia. In the
late first century they were facing a growing pressure and persecution from the
world. The seven letters in Revelation 2-3 stress
the importance of faithfulness in the face of persecution, false teaching, and
worldliness. Some were succumbing to the temptation to give in to the pervasive evil all around them, to compromise. In
so doing, they would lose everything. Only those who are faithful unto death will
receive the crown of life (Rev 2:10).
So it is with us. Surrounded by evil, overwhelmed by disappointment and hardship, and threatened with
hostility toward our faith, we also are greatly
tempted to give up or to give in to evil. We are tempted to stop witnessing, to stop testifying about Jesus in word and deed.
In such a setting of persistent worldliness, we are tempted to ask, “Why should I bother? What good has come out of all my efforts to be a faithful witness? Where are the results? The more I strive to
be a faithful witness,
the more I suffer”.
Friends,
Jesus, the faithful witness, comes to help
us. He gave the Revelation about “the things to come” to the seven churches to challenge their
complacency and to strengthen those who had grown weary of trying. You see, the
ultimate message is this: in the end the
victory belongs to God and the Lamb. Though evil will prevail for a time,
and though evil will at times overwhelm and outnumber those who embrace the
good, Jesus Christ by his faithful witness has overcome evil. And one day Jesus
will come again. The victory will be
His and evil will be no more. Then how happy will be those who remained
faithful witnesses. Therefore we must not give up or give in to evil. Cling to our
Baptism and remain a faithful witness that we may
share in the everlasting
victory. “Look, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him,
even those who pierced him; and all the peoples of the earth will mourn because
of him. So shall it be! Amen”
(v7). ’He who testifies to these things
says, ‘Yes I am coming soon.’ Amen.
Come,
Lord Jesus. Amen
The
grace, love and peace of our Great Triune God that is beyond all human
understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen
Merv James
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