The Last Word

Ephesians 1.15-23

November 22, 2020 (Reign of Christ Sunday)

Today is Christ the King Sunday, also known as the Reign of Christ. It is a time of reflection on the whole Christian year. This is the day when we remember and celebrate who Christ is and what He has done. It is also a time when we begin to look forward to the “new” year in the church. Understand that the church year is not in what we call linear time where time is thought of as a straight line, but is rather in cyclical time. The year begins with Advent (which begins next week), goes through Christmas, into Ordinary Time, then Lent, Easter and Pentecost, back to Ordinary Time and finally to this Sunday on which we end the year with a celebration of the reign of Christ in the world and in all things.

But just how did this day come to the calendar? For many years the protestant churches (with the exception of a few denominations) did not follow the lectionary and the church year. It is only within the last 100 years or so that the following of the lectionary has been adopted in these churches. And it is within the last 100 years that the celebration of Christ the King has been added to the church year.

This celebration began with Pope Pius the XI. Jill Duffield writes about this particular Sunday:

Christ the King Sunday is not an ancient high and holy day. It began being observed in the mid-1920s (1925), a practice instituted by Pope Pius XI out of a concern for the growing secularism and the rise of fascism in Europe. Pope Pius XI's encyclical instituting the feast states, "When once men recognize, both in private and in public life, that Christ is King, society will at last receive the great blessings of real liberty, well-ordered discipline, peace and harmony."

Think about what was going on at the time that the pope wrote this encyclical. The Great War (WWI) was still fresh in the minds of the people of Europe. They had seen what human beings could and would do to one another after years of hearing just how good humans were becoming without the help of God. Communism was on the rise and was feared throughout the continent. In Italy, Mussolini had risen to power in 1922 and was beginning to flex his muscles and call the people to follow him. Pius IX was saw all this and called for the church and Christians to remember that they had a king and a ruler, Jesus Christ, the only one to whom they were to pledge allegiance. There was to be nothing else before him: not family, not country, not self.

"When once men recognize, both in private and in public life, that Christ is King…” Those words speak to us today as they did almost 100 years ago. Today we find ourselves in the midst of turbulent times with the rise again of nationalist movements, the current state of secularism and the rise of the “nones” in the church. These times call for a reminder that Jesus is lord of all and that he will have the last word in all things. Paul knew this. His letter to the Ephesians opens with this premise.

Verses 1-14 are known as a eulogy on salvation. Here Paul give his reasoning for why he is sending this letter to the Ephesians. He has been gone for some time and the church has grown in his absence. It has grown in spite of the nature of the surrounding culture where everything tells the church that the Romans are in charge, that the gods of the pantheon are supreme and that they are insignificant. Paul wrote encouragement that they were adopted by God and that they were to be encouraged by the grace and blessings that were given to them by God.

Which brings us to the text for today. It is a prayer Paul delivers for the church, not just the church in Ephesus, but the entire Church, all the churches that he ministered to in his career.

It opens with a thanksgiving for all the members of the church for their faith in Jesus. Paul, as I mentioned, has been away for quite some time and has not been to this church in person. During this time there would have been new converts and the older ones would have had the responsibility of teaching them the faith and everything that went with it. Therefore, Paul is telling them that he is impressed by the faith in Jesus that these new members have. This leads to his thanks that they remember all the saints in their prayers and in offerings that they have taken part of in the giving to the church in Jerusalem. It is also good that they give encouragement to churches that are in the same area as Ephesus.

The next part of the prayer is an intercession. Paul prays that God will give them a spirit of wisdom and revelation that they may have knowledge of God. This is a play on words that the Ephesians would have understood all too well.

Wisdom and revelation were both things promised by the mystery religions that were prevalent in the area at that time. These religions promised to give the seeker an insight that the worship of the regular gods was unable to do. These gods were not interested in the human plight and so these new religions, with their mysteries, promised to fulfill that searching.

Knowledge was something that the Gnostics promised. They believed that they had special knowledge from God that only they had. They would give that knowledge to new initiates only if they were able to give the “password” to gain this hidden knowledge. So, Paul is taking them on with the fact that he calls on God to give all the believers wisdom, revelation and knowledge of who God is and what God can and will accomplish.

He is also calling them to know the hope that is accomplished in them, a hope into which God has called them. God will sustain this hope as the riches of the inheritance that they will gain as children of God. It is for this that Paul prays that the eyes of their heart will be opened. It is an intercessory prayer that is for the entire Church and not just a few individuals or for an individual church.

Finally, we come to the part of the prayer that makes this Christ the King Sunday. Paul is speaking of the power of God and the greatness of that power for the believers.

This power that was at work is the power of God in raising Jesus from the dead. Understand that Jesus had a human body and that human body was dead, no question about it. So, when God raised Jesus from the dead it was not an act that Jesus had a part in, that he helped raise himself from the dead. This was strictly the power of God and when God raised Jesus, he was placed at the right hand of God. When one is placed at the right hand of someone, that means that that person is a trusted one who will carry out the wishes of the one who put that person in that place. The right hand will do the will of the one who raised them there. The right hand is the voice and presence. That is what Jesus is. He is not a subordinate, but the very voice and presence of God. In the resurrection of Jesus, God had the last word over death and all things.

In fact, as Paul says, Jesus was and is: far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come.[1] He is the one who all powers will be under. This includes those powers that are good as God made them (angels, governments, humans, etc.) and those that were created as good by God but are corrupted by sin (demons, governments, humans, etc.) All things are to be under his feet and he is the head of all of them for the Church. Jesus is over all these powers not just in the time that Paul was writing, but in all ages that were to come. This means that the entire Church, both then and now, need not worry about the powers having dominion over them because they are under the power of Christ who has and will have the last word over them all.

Does this mean that we will have an easy life and that we can claim victory over all obstacles in our lives? No, of course not. We will still have problems and be put under the oppression of the powers that bring us down. The resurrection might not have quashed all the powers that hold us under their power, but the outcome is certain: in the end, they will all be under the power of Jesus, risen King.

We face a lot of issues in our lives today. We are in the midst of a global pandemic that gives us fear and trepidation. There are scary movements at work in the political world. There are groups who threaten the safety of others. There is much hatred for one group toward another because of a different affiliation. There is still sickness and death that surround us. And through it all we have the assurance that Jesus will have the last word in it all.

On this Christ the King Sunday we are reminded that this is the last word of the Christian year. We are reminded that the reign of Christ is to transform everything that we do: our allegiances, our relationships and our understanding of life and death. On this day we make the statement that Christ is the king of our lives. Brian Erickson in particular states this about Christ as king:

He is our king as we sit in the waiting room, as the test results come back, as we weep over the grave, as we watch the wars escalate and the darkness deepen. He is our king when hope seems lost, that voice we will listen to when promises seem shattered, when our lives have no direction, and when we can’t imagine anything tomorrow could bring that might fill this hole within us. (Erickson, Brian. A Preacher’s Guide to Lectionary Sermon Series. 2016, 80)

It can be easy to remember that Christ is king in the bad times when we have no other place to turn. But we need to remember that Christ is king in the good times as well. When things are good and we believe that we can do anything and that we have done it on our own, that is when we need to remember that we are still under the reign of Christ.

In this time of the now and not yet, as we approach the time of Advent where we await the coming babe and the coming king, when things look their darkest and we don’t know what to do, may we ever remember who has the last word. That is Jesus the Christ our king now and forever. Amen.

[1] The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989. Print.