November 25, 2012
Christ
the King/Reign of Christ
John
18:33-37; Revelation 1:4b-8
Where
We’re Going, We Don’t Need: Roads
Has anyone ever done a
Google search for “What would Jesus…” and see what it auto-fills in for
you? What would Jesus do, of course. But there’s also What would Jesus drink? What would Jesus buy? What would Jesus tweet? An interesting one that caught my eye is
“What would Jesus drive?” My answer is…
Jesus would drive a DeLorean. That
flies. Powered by a Mr. Fusion and
garbage. And he would have some
seriously cool 1980’s shades. You see, I was thinking
about that phrase that’s at both the beginning and the end of our passage from
Revelation, the God “who is and who was and who is to come,” and I was thinking
about God being outside time, unlimited by time, “OUTATIME,” you might even
say, like the license plate on the DeLorean, the time machine that Doc Brown
builds. In the “Back to the Future”
movies, Marty McFly and Doc Brown traveled through time and found a way to not
be constricted to their own time in history, yet they still were limited by
time. There were still things they could
and could not do without the risk of erasing themselves from history and
preventing their ever being born. God,
on the other hand, doesn’t travel through time but is at every
moment in time. God is, here and
now; God always was, at the beginning of time; and God is still to
come, at the end of time. If you
want to know how that can be, well, it’s like what we say in the Great Thanksgiving
when we have communion – pay attention next Sunday. Pastor Ken and I invite you to declare with
us “the mystery of faith”: “Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ
will come again.” All at the same
time. Christ has died, Christ is
risen, Christ will come again.
Now, this three-times formula was often used in the Greek-speaking world
to describe the eternity and immutability of the Greek gods. For example, it was said that “Zeus was, Zeus
is, and Zeus will be.”[1] But, the difference for us as Christians
is that we speak not only of God’s being but of his acts. We say not merely that our God is, but that
he comes, that he reigns.
This is God in the present tense. Back in Exodus when Moses asks God for his
name, what does God say? I AM who I
AM. Present tense. I AM. Yet…
that’s actually just how we’ve translated it.
The Hebrew can actually be translated into any verb tense. I SHALL BE who I SHALL BE. Or, I HAVE BEEN who I HAVE BEEN. The great I AM encompasses all verb
tenses. How many of you have studied a
second language? One thing we often find
out in learning another language that we don’t learn when studying English is
the names of all the verb tenses.
Preterit. Past Perfect. Gerund.
Conditional. There are some I
don’t even know how to say in English because I learned them in Spanish class: pluscuamperfecto! I remember in one of my Spanish classes in
high school we had to take four verbs and conjugate them into every verb
tense. I think there were sixteen verb
tenses on our charts! Sixteen
verb tenses.[2] That’s a lot of different states of
time. And yet in the statement “I AM who
I AM”, God puts God’s self in every verb tense; at every moment
in time. God, in Christ Jesus, through
the Holy Spirit, is always with us. God is,
here and now.
The great I AM is, is come and does
reign. Jesus Christ is the one who is,
the one who reigns, here and now. Today
is Christ the King Sunday and we not only look forward to Christ’s kingdom
coming, “thy kingdom come,” we also celebrate his reign today. In the present. In the Great Commission at the end of
Matthew’s Gospel, we find this promise from Jesus: “And remember, I am with you
always, to the end of the age.”[3] Jesus is always with us. Granted, we often question it. Lord, where are you in this midst of this
suffering? Lord, why do you let bad
things happen to me? I don’t know the
detailed answer for every particular situation, but Jesus is there, crying with
you, keeping you safe, guiding you even when you can’t see it. Other times, we forget Jesus is with us. Sometimes we pray, “Lord, be with us,” when he
already is. I’m guilty of that,
too. A better prayer would be, “Lord,
make us aware of your presence,” or “Lord, fill us with your Holy Spirit.” Jesus is already with you. Jesus is already here. We don’t need to ask him to come. He’s here in the good times and in the
bad. In times when we don’t understand
what’s going on and why this is happening and in times when his hand is crystal
clear in our lives. Jesus is
king, and his kingdom is not of this world but it’s breaking into this world,
past, present, and future.
God in three persons is the one whose being
and whose acts embrace all time.
God was there at the beginning of time.
Genesis 1 tells us that “In the beginning God
created the heavens and the earth… and the Spirit of God hovered over the
waters.”[4] And we know Jesus was
there, too, from the Gospel of John: “In the beginning was the Word (that’s
Jesus), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in
the beginning with God.”[5] God, in Christ
Jesus, through the Holy Spirit, is the one who always was. Who was there when Moses
parted the Red Sea? God. Who was there when David brought down
Goliath? God. Who was there when Jesus’ disciples discovered
an empty tomb? God. There is a reason we call God Ancient of Days, eternal, everlasting,
Rock of Ages. Lee and I visited a church
in Raleigh
while I was on maternity leave, and a youth sign we saw put it nicely: God is [pause]
epic. God is so big, he is the one
who exclusively exists at the beginning of time and at the end of
all time. God transcends human history,
he transcends our whole space/time continuum.
He is outside of time, beyond time, unrestricted by time. And because he transcends it, therefore, he
controls it. This is the all-powerful,
almighty God, who always was, who is, and who is still to come.
That paradox, or mystery, is something we touched on
a lot at seminary, and in shorthand we referred to it as the “already/not yet.” Jesus has already come; Jesus has not yet
come. Jesus already came in first
century Palestine; Jesus’ second coming has not yet happened. Already… not yet. Jesus already inaugurated his kingdom, but it
has not yet come to completion. That’s
why Jesus says his kingdom is not of this world, and yet we get glimpses of it
sometimes. At IFC, we get glimpses; in
communion, we get glimpses; in acts of kindness, we get glimpses; in worship,
we get glimpses. Jesus’ kingdom has
already come, Jesus is king, and yet we still pray “thy kingdom come.” And
not only has his kingdom already started, in the passage from Revelation it
said that Jesus “made us to be a kingdom, priests serving his God and
Father.”[6] We are a kingdom; we are
priests. We are to be kings and
priests. As this royal priestly community,
also called the church, we represent and signify the rule of God that is
already present in the world. We
declare that Christ has come. We declare
that Christ is king. And we declare with
faith that Christ will come again. We do
this in faith, with “confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we
do not see.”[7] We do this because we believe Christ isn’t
just any old king, Christ’s sovereignty is the highest one on earth! We believe Christ’s kingship is the one
abiding and universal kingship.
Christ has been king, is king, and will be
king. Christ has died, Christ is risen,
Christ will come again. Christ is the
one who is still to come. Past, present,
and future. This is the God we serve. This is the God we worship. King Jesus.
The One who doesn’t need roads because he was there before there were
roads and he’ll be there after the roads are gone. And where we’re going, we don’t need roads, not
because of any flying car, a half-crazed scientist who hit his head on the
toilet, or even really cool 1980’s shades, but because God is already there and
he will safely lead us there. Our future
is in God’s hands. He is in control of
our history. May we recognize that our
life is in God’s hands and live according to God’s kingdom, catching glimpses
of it and creating glimpses of it, because Jesus is the everlasting king.
[1] Boring, Revelation, 75.
[2] After the 11:00 service a
retired Spanish teacher in the congregation left me a note to let me know that pluscuamperfecto
is the pluperfect tense and she listed eighteen verb tenses, although
she put questions marks next to two of them.
[3] Matthew 28:20
[4] Genesis 1:1-2
[5] John 1:1
[6] Revelation 1:6
[7] Hebrews 11:1
