Daniel 7:9–14 ESV

“As I looked, thrones were placed, and the Ancient of Days took his seat; his clothing was white as snow, and the hair of his head like pure wool; his throne was fiery flames; its wheels were burning fire. A stream of fire issued and came out from before him; a thousand thousands served him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him; the court sat in judgment, and the books were opened. “I looked then because of the sound of the great words that the horn was speaking. And as I looked, the beast was killed, and its body destroyed and given over to be burned with fire. As for the rest of the beasts, their dominion was taken away, but their lives were prolonged for a season and a time. “I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.

Revelation 1:4–8 ESV

John to the seven churches that are in Asia: 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 kings on earth. To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him. Even so. Amen. “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”

New Testament Reading Gospel Reading

Revelation 1:4–8 ESV

John to the seven churches that are in Asia: 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 kings on earth. To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him. Even so. Amen. “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”

John 18:33–37 ESV

So Pilate entered his headquarters again and called Jesus and said to him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” Jesus answered, “Do you say this of your own accord, or did others say it to you about me?” Pilate answered, “Am I a Jew? Your own nation and the chief priests have delivered you over to me. What have you done?” Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.” Then Pilate said to him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.”

Gospel Reading

Christ the King

Oops

Daniel and Revelation and weird, wonderful, and greatly misunderstood books of the Bible. Daniel is often misunderstood in the way many of the prophetic books of the Old Testament are misunderstood. Prophecy is defined in our common cultural usage as being the prediction of the future, but that’s not what it was defined as in ancient Israel. Prophecy was a word from God.

The old testament prophets often spoke in special patterns, using key words to shape the way in which they delivered the word God gave them to deliver to the people. Old Testament prophecy was not just about predicting the future. In fact, very little of their job was the magical future-telling that often gets associated with the word “prophecy.”

Now, they surely did speak of the New Covenant that God would make with the people. They surely did, in many of the passages we will read over Advent, point toward the coming of the Messiah. But they also delivered strong words of warning to those who were living contrary to God’s ways of peace and love and hope and justice. They would point to the sinner, usually the kings of Judah, and by proxy and complacency, the people blindly following them, then say what God promised to do as judgement if they didn’t shape up (or sometimes tell them it was too late to stop the scary consequences).

Revelation is similarly misunderstood. Not just one but several of my commentaries this week brought up the very basic mistake of referring to the book as “Revelations”. It’s just one revelation. As in, “something is being revealed” or “I had a revelation the other day.” It’s one revelation - one vision from God - that came to John. It was common in John’s time for holy people - spiritual leaders - to write such a book to share with others the revelation or vision they were given by God.

This book is a revelation: God is revealing something about Jesus through the book. It is also a letter and we see in our passage this morning John’s greeting at the beginning of the letter. This book is a prophecy, like those in the Hebrew Scriptures like Daniel and others. Unlike the Hebrew prophecies, however, this one is definitely centered on Jesus Christ.

Ugh

Often, Revelation is read as being a guide to predict the end of times. This is not at all what it was intended to be, nor is it how we should read it.

Revelation is about the nature of Christ and his interaction with the broken systems and broken people of the world.

“Revelation itself shows the worst of human arrogance in our attempts to subdue the earth, exploit its glorious resources, and control creation’s interconnected systems. The idea that God is the one who is and who was and who is to come offers a moment of hope at the end of a very difficult season for many in our congregations and communities. God is with us in the day-to-day world, not necessarily as regal king or untouchable emperor, but as one whose very being infuses our collective past, our present, and the future.” - Commentary on by Katherine A. Shaner at http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=3910

Katherine A. Shaner

We are entering into Advent: a time of waiting. We spend the time “waiting” for the baby to be born in a manger. But it’s a weird waiting because we know that in real time, the baby has already been born. That happened 2000 years ago. So we read passages from the Hebrew prophets and say, “Aha! We have already seen the fulfillment of this!” and forget that they have a rich and ongoing meaning even now that the Messiah is here. Our need for Jesus hasn’t diminished since the time the prophets of old first warned the people to get their acts together. Eventually, the prophets become little more in our collective story than just clever psychics who predicted Jesus’ birth. And we see Advent as just part of the Christmas shopping season rather than a time of preparation and focus. After all, if the baby was already born, what do we have to wait for?

We were sitting at Eat n Park on Friday with the kids before going to see a movie and some totally bizarre muzack version of a Christmas hymn came over the sound system. This was not just run of the mill elevator music. It was electronic-y and strange. The hymn was almost unrecognizable. It was very weird. My husband and I just gave each other a look and we both started giggling. I asked, “What in the world?”

He said, “It is technically after Thanksgiving.”

And I said it wasn’t even the whole playing Christmas music too early thing, it was that it was such a strange arrangement of the hymn. And I’m always a little weirded out by Christmas hymns being played in public places, especially as part of the whole Black Friday liturgy of shopping. It feels like the world outside of church has co-opted one of our most holy things and turned it into Muzack.

As Christians, we are called to model ourselves after a very different sort of king. Not the powerful military king with wealth and armies that the people expected, not the unjust and self-serving kings of Israel, but one who came as a true, peaceful and loving shepherd.

Play Jingle Bells at the mall all you want, but to associate the birth of our savior with 50% off sales is unsettling, to say the least.

But, it’s interesting that this most holy of times - this time where shift from the end of one church year to the beginning of another and celebrate the power of Jesus right next to the vulnerability he subjected himself to for us - that is the one time of year that the outside of church world has noticed and tried to get a piece of. You don’t hear “Christ the Lord is Risen Today!” being blared on the mall speakers during Holy Week, but as of Thursday, every mall in the country is playing “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing!” Even when we have trouble believing or understanding the “how” of the "peace on earth, good will to all” we are given in Jesus, humanity still knows that we need "peace on earth, good will to all”.

There is clearly a piece of the Kingdom of God that humanity knows is still needed. Just watch any Lifetime or Hallmark Christmas movie and look for representation of the Kingdom of Heaven. Most of them never say “God” but the desire for peace and reconciliation is all over them - corny as they are. There is an innate knowledge that we are still in need of the Messiah. We both need and have hope for the future.

This passage from Revelation is a reminder of our identity, as well of our hope for the future. We cannot forget that Jesus is not finished with us yet. Jesus is not finished with the world yet. The King we serve is not like any other. He is outside the boundaries of time and space. The Alpha and Omega! Beginning and the End!

Today we celebrate the power of the one who is both at the beginning and at the end of time. We celebrate a God who always has more in store for us! There is always something new and fresh and exciting to prepare our hearts for in the waiting times.

Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary: Year B, Volume 4 Theological Perspective

On this Christ the King Sunday, the text from Revelation puts the lordship of God and Christ front and center. Its rich, hope-filled message addresses three themes: the power of the “Almighty” God who stands at the beginning and end of history (“the Alpha and the Omega” in v. 8), the significance of the Christ event for the church (Christology and ecclesiology), and the consummation of God’s purposes for creation (eschatology). These theological themes are interwoven; in fact, theologically they cannot be separated.

Taken as a whole, this opening salutation from the seer of Patmos subversively declares to a Christian community under imperial threat that with the Lord God, there is always more: more transformation to come than the earth has yet seen, more power and authority than that claimed by earthly rulers, more dignity for God’s people than earthly rulers recognize.

We are waiting for something new and something very old. We are listening to prophecies that have both been seen to be true and still have truth left to share with the world. And we are the ones who are called to be sharing that truth!

Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary: Year B, Volume 4 Pastoral Perspective

John offers these words not so much as news to anyone. Rather, he reminds us of what we already know but often forget in the trials of living in the world—or what we have allowed to be drowned out by the empire that keeps trying to give us different purpose and focus.

Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary: Year B, Volume 4 Homiletical Perspective

First, John describes who Jesus is; second, he explains what he has done for us; and third, he reveals what our response should be to all that.

We were sitting at Eat n Park on Friday with the kids before going to see a movie and some totally bizarre muzack version of a Christmas hymn came over the sound system. This was not just run of the mill elevator music. It was electronic-y and strange. The hymn was almost unrecognizable. It was very weird. My husband and I just gave each other a look and we both started giggling. I asked, “What in the world?”

He said, “It is technically after Thanksgiving.”

And I said it wasn’t even the whole playing Christmas music too early thing, it was that it was such a strange arrangement of the hymn. And I’m always a little weirded out by Christmas hymns being played in public places, especially as part of the whole Black Friday liturgy of shopping. It feels like the world outside of church has co-opted one of our most holy things and turned it into Muzack.

Play Jingle Bells at the mall all you want, but to associate the birth of our savior with 50% off sales is unsettling, to say the least.

We share the truth of God’s Kingdom in many important ways. We give gifts at Christmas to mirror God’s gift to us of a King who came humbly as a helpless human infant. We participate in extra mission and charitable giving to stand with Jesus alongside the downtrodden and struggling. We focus on love and family and friendships and special times of worship because that is what endures in the Kingdom that isn’t like the worldly Kingdoms.

Today we end another year in the church calendar and next week we start another. Let us start that new year with expectant hearts and the knowledge that God is still speaking and moving today. Jesus our King is still working in the world.