Jesus in Charge Of our days and our nights
Jesus in Charge Of our wrongs and our rights
And I sing, I want, I want Jesus in Charge of me.
Because things, that’s why.
John 18:33-37; Revelation 1:4b-8; Psalm 93; Daniel 7:9-10,13-14
Today is Christ the King Sunday, the last Sunday in the church year and, if I had to pick, one of my favorite Sundays. It’s a time to look forward to the redemption of everything from sin, and to celebrate the perfect reign of Christ. But it’s also a time to look back at all the ways God reigns – past, present, and future – and the way we’re going to do that is through a story.
In fact, we always look at God’s history through story. The Bible is, at least for the majority of it, a collection of stories about God interacting with humans. While the genealogies don’t always make it look that way, nor some of the lists or letters, but we always have an account of the actions God takes toward humanity. But what is this story? And how does it fit into Christ the King Sunday? Well, let me tell you.
Once upon a time, God. There was nothing else around, until one day God said, “Let there be everything,” and everything is. From light to people, God made it all. God said to the people, “All of this is yours, but take care not to do this one thing, because if you do, you’ll die.” People, who even then were still people, didn’t want to listen to God, so they did the one thing that was forbidden them, but instead of immediate death, God delayed punishment, so that humanity could still survive, even telling the people that, eventually, everything will be made right again.
So humans lived and died, and people grew to be more and more evil – so evil that God regretted making everything. So he decided to start over, but instead of destroying everything, he saved a handful of people, and pairs of all the animals, that creation could make a new start. But the people gathered together afterward continued not listening to God, so God caused them to spread out over the whole world.
One day, God said to one man, named Abraham, “Come and follow me, and I will bless you and your descendants,” and the man followed God. His son, Isaac, did the same, as did his son Jacob, and Jacob’s sons. This family grew into a nation, one that found itself forced into slavery to the Kingdom of Egypt.
But God had not forgotten about his people, even though they were slaves. He called a man named Moses to lead his people – the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob – to freedom and a nation of their own. But even when God was leading them, they still didn’t want to listen, and a trip that should have taken about 4 weeks ended up taking 40 years. During that time God revealed to his people how they were to follow him, and gave little reminders of how he was eventually going to make everything right again. Eventually, after the 40 years, God’s people finally came into the home they were promised.
Unfortunately, once they got there, the people didn’t want to follow God, and so countless cycles of the people following God and not following God started. Over and over God’s people couldn’t decide who they wanted to follow – God or not-God – even though God kept sending messengers to them to remind them of who he is, and how much better their life would be if they’d only follow him. After a while, when God’s people continued to not follow him, God scattered his people to the lands of the Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, and Greeks, only to bring a few back to their promised home – Israel.
Then, after a long time, a child was born to the wife of a poor carpenter. This child grew up, and there was something special about him. He taught new things, again calling people to follow God. He healed the sick, gave sight to the blind and hearing to the deaf; he made the lame walk and calmed stormy weather. He told people to love – God first, and then other people.
He taught for a few years, until he was arrested, convicted of treason against the occupying Roman government, and died a traitor’s death – curiously enough on the day celebrating the people of Israel being freed from slavery in Egypt. But then something even stranger happened. After three days, this man rose from the dead, and then forty days after that ascended into heaven.
This man turned out to be no ordinary man at all, and instead was God in the flesh – whose death and resurrection paved the way for all people to follow God. He was the one who would make everything right again, just as God said way back at the beginning. Because of Jesus, the world changed. His teachings, spread by his disciples, eventually led to an empire learning about God, with the message of love and the command to follow God spreading throughout the whole world.
But God wasn’t going to stop there; he left a hint of the next step – when everything that God made in the beginning would be restored, even better than it was at first. This will be a time when God is in charge, along with all of those who follow him. It will be a time when all of the troubles of the current world – all of the pain, death, and sin – will be destroyed, and we’re left with love, life forever, and a right relationship with God and each other.
This is what Christ the King Sunday is about. It’s not just a look into the future, but a remembrance of all the ways God is in charge. Yes, we look forward to the time when this world is perfected under his reign, but from the very beginning, we already knew the end of the story – that God will be victorious, and all will be, and are even now, set free under God’s just and loving rule.