Community Church Sermons
Year B
November
22, 2009
Christ the King
Revelation 1:4b - 8
Rev. Martin C. Singley, III
Three years ago, Patrick Geryl, then 51, quit his job as a
laboratory worker for a French oil company. He'd saved up just enough money to
last him until December 2012. After that, he thought, he wouldn't need it
anyway.
That's because Geryl believes the
world as we know it will end in 2012. He points to the cyclical calendars of
the ancient Mayan civilization. The longest Mayan calendar started approximately
5,125 years ago and is set to end, supposedly with catastrophic consequences,
in 2012 – on or about December 21st. Geryl speaks of the ancient
Egyptians, who, he claims, saw 2012 as a year of great change too. And he
points to science: NASA predicts a sharp increase in the number of sunspots and
sun flares for 2012, he said, sure to cause electrical failures and satellite
disruptions. All this adds up, Geryl says, to unprecedented catastrophe.
These may sound like the ravings of a madman, but Geryl is not the only
one who believes in the 2012 apocalypse. A simple Google search for
"2012" and "the end of the world" brings up nearly 300,000 web
documents. And now there’s even a movie that shows us in advance what’s going
to happen on or about December 21, 2012.
People are always speculating about the end of the world. And not only
those who find hidden meanings in 5,000 year old Mayan calendars. In our own
Christian tradition, there have been many apocalyptic theories put forth, not
the least of which was the hugely popular “Left Behind” series authored by Tim
LeHaye and Jerry Jenkins. It pulled a text here and a text there from the Old
and New Testaments of the Bible, weaving them together to create a storyline
that sounds a lot like Patrick Geryl’s belief about what will happen on or
around December 21, 2012.
What do YOU think will happen?
Today is a good day to think about such things. Today is called Christ the King Sunday. Like the calendar of the ancient Mayan’s, the calendar of the Christian Church is also cyclical. It has a beginning. And an end. And then it starts up all over again.
In the Christian Faith, the first day of our calendar – our New Year’s Day, if you will – is the first Sunday in Advent. We will celebrate that special day next Sunday, as we light the first candle of the Advent Wreath in anticipation of the coming of the Savior. Advent leads us to Christmas when we celebrate the Savior’s birth! And the season of Christmas leads to Epiphany when we affirm that God’s love is shown in Christ to be for the whole world, and not just some of it. And Epiphany leads to Lent, the darker season of reflecting upon the passion and death of Jesus. And then comes Easter! And our celebration of the resurrection continues to Pentecost when the Holy Spirit comes and the Church is born. And for the rest of the year, we worship God for the new life we have received and that we share together as a community of faith as we await Christ’s return and the establishment of his kingdom on earth. And today, we proclaim Christ’s reign on Christ the King Sunday.
We have come full circle – from waiting for Christ’s coming to celebrating Christ’s rule.
And next week, we start all over again!
You see, the difference between
Christianity and all the apocalyptic groups and religions out there is that we Christians
don’t believe in the end of the world.
Does that surprise you?
If you have your Bible with you
today, take a look with me at a few of the most important verses in the book of
Revelation - Revelation 21:1-5. While you’re looking that up, let me just
remind you that Revelation portrays several series of catastrophes and
disasters leading up to the establishment of Christ’s reign. We Christians do
not live with the unrealistic idea that life is a bed of roses and that bad
things don’t happen even to good people. Most of us have experienced times of
war, and economic depression, and social injustice, and natural disasters, and
catastrophic illnesses. The Christian Faith is very realistic about the extreme
difficulties and problems that come along in life. But we have a different view
about where these things lead to. Listen to Revelation 21:1 describing what
happens in the wake of this series of disasters and catastrophes:
“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the
first heaven and the first earth had passed away…”
Do you see the difference between
the “end of the world-ers” and our faith? They believe in endings. We believe
in new beginnings. Let’s read on:
“I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming
down out of heaven from God…and I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,
‘Now the dwelling of God is with people, and he will live with them. They will
be his people, and God himself will be with them, and be their God. He will
wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more crying or pain, for the
old order of things has passed away.”
Not an ending, but new
beginnings! And then these words in verse 5:
“He who was seated on the throne said, ‘I am making
everything new!’”
So we Christians come to the end
of our calendar and – unlike the purveyors of 2012 – we start all over again.
We will light the Advent candles that say we believe that God will come into
our world, into our families, and into our lives.
We are not a doomsday people.
We are people of HOPE!
And why is this important? Well,
let me tell you a story you all know almost by heart…
There was once a group of
Christian people who, in their day, were called “Separatists.” We call them
“Pilgrims.” On August 15, 1620 these Pilgrims set sail from Southampton,
England aboard two ships, the Speedwell and the Mayflower. Their destination
was America where they hoped to establish a community where they could practice
their faith freely, and without the domination of a king.
Unfortunately, the good ship
Speedwell leaked so badly both ships had to turn back, eventually ending up in
port at Plymouth, England. There, the Speedwell’s passengers crowded onto the
100-foot long Mayflower. On September 16, 1620, the ship with 102 passengers
aboard set sail – for Virginia.
Bad winds and storms blew the
Mayflower far north of her intended destination. Everything that could go wrong
did go wrong. At one point, a main beam cracked, threatening the seaworthiness
of the ship. Many people were sick. They were running out of food – and beer.
Yes, that’s right – beer!
So when Cape Cod was sighted, the
crew of the Mayflower decided enough was enough. The ship landed, and the
Pilgrims were off-loaded. It was December 21, 1620 when they went ashore at a
place they named Plymouth to begin their new life in the New World.
But by Springtime, half of them
were dead. There was not a family that had been spared the loss of a spouse, or
parent, or child. They worked diligently to build shelters, and to plant
fields. By the autumn of 1621, the 53 surviving Pilgrims brought in their first
harvest. It was meager by most standards. Perhaps not enough to last through
another winter of hardship and illness.
But in the face of all these
catastrophes, disasters and a fear-ridden future, these Pilgrim people set
aside several days to give thanks to God. Edward Winslow, one of the Pilgrims,
wrote to his family back in England:
"our harvest being
gotten in, our
governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might after a special manner
rejoice together, after we had gathered the fruits of our labors; they four in
one day killed as much fowl, as with a little help beside, served the Company
almost a week, at which time amongst other Recreations, we exercised our Arms,
many of the Indians coming amongst us, and amongst the rest their greatest king
Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted,
and they went out and killed five Deer, which they brought to the Plantation
and bestowed on our Governor, and upon the Captain and others. And
although it be not always so plentiful, as it was at this time with us, yet by
the goodness of God, we are so far from want, that we often wish you
partakers of our plenty."
Today – as our Thanksgiving Day
approaches - we are a nation and a people blessed beyond measure by God’s good
and loving hand! And we are who we are, and our lives are blessed as they are, because
53 people – 4 women, 22 men, and 27 children – trusted in the God of new
beginnings.
And we would do well to follow
their example in these ways:
First of all, anchor your life in
God’s values, and live toward them.
One of the things that makes me happiest
about our church is that we call ourselves a “love your neighbor congregation.”
When people come to join us, they should have no doubt about our focus as a
church. We exist to fulfill Jesus’ command to “love your neighbor as yourself.”
And we take it very seriously.
This past Friday, another Habitat
For Humanity home was dedicated. It was not our church’s project, but many of our
church members had their hands all over it! Are there some of you here today?
I want you to know that you did
something much more than build a home for a family. You gave them a new
beginning! Or, more accurately, God gave them a new beginning through YOU!
When you anchor your life in
God’s values, and then live toward them, miracles follow! Friday’s dedication
was a living example of God making all things new.
A second thing we can learn from
those Pilgrim people is that we must live for today, but build for tomorrow.
Now I will confess something to
you: the older I get, the more difficult this is to do. There is something about
aging that pulls us toward the past. We love to remember when, don’t we? And a
quick observation about those of us who are getting older is that we are much
more likely to talk with each other about the pills we are taking today than
the future we are building tomorrow!
And sometimes, we don’t even
care! And when that happens, we die – not physically, but spiritually. Some of
us die way in advance of the day we stop breathing.
But the good news is that you can
reverse this process. Find a kid and invest your life in them. Find a project
that will outlive you. Find a cause that will bring life to others long after
you’re gone!
One of the most important things
about a church is that it does not allow us to isolate ourselves in today. This
church connects us to a long procession of faithful people all the way back to
the beginning of time. And it connects us to all those who will come after us.
So we are called to live today
with the faith of our fathers and mothers. And we are called to build the
foundations upon which the future will emerge. That’s what it means to be a
people of hope – a people of new beginnings.
So anchor your life in God’s
values and live toward them. Live for today, but build for the future.
And finally – in the words of
Jimmy V – “Don’t give up! Don’t EVER give up!”
When Jim Valvano, the head men’s basketball
coach at North Carolina State University, spoke those words, he was dying of
cancer. It was March 4, 1993 and he was receiving the inaugural Arthur Ashe
humanitarian award. This is part of what Jimmy V said:
“Time is very precious to me. I don't know how much I have
left and I have some things that I would like to say. Hopefully, at the end, I
will have said something that will be important to other people too.
…Now I'm fighting cancer, everybody knows that. People ask me all the time
about how you go through your life and how's your day, and nothing is
changed for me. As Dick said, I'm a very emotional and passionate man. I can't
help it. That's being the son of Rocco and Angelina Valvano. It comes with the
territory. We hug, we kiss, we love. When people say to me how do you get
through life or each day, it's the same thing. To me, there are three things we
all should do every day. We should do this every day of our lives. Number one
is laugh. You should laugh every day. Number two is think. You should spend
some time in thought. Number three is, you should have your emotions moved to
tears, could be happiness or joy. But think about it. If you laugh, you think,
and you cry, that's a full day. That's a heck of a day. You do that seven days
a week, you're going to have something special….
…I know, I gotta go, I gotta go, and I got one last thing and I said it before, and I want to say it again. Cancer can take away all my physical abilities. It cannot touch my mind, it cannot touch my heart and it cannot touch my soul. And those three things are going to carry on forever.”
Some people spend the rest of their days dying. Others spend the rest of their days living.
Which kind of person do you want to be?
Anchor yourself in God’s values and live toward them.
Live for today, but build for tomorrow.
Don’t give up. Don’t EVER give up!
Our God is the God of new beginnings.
2012 will come.
And God will still be on the throne.
Thanks be to God!