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Today is one of those very special Sundays in the Church Year that usually receive little or no attention. The calendars call it “Reign of Christ Sunday” or “Christ The King Sunday.” It is the very last Sunday in the liturgical year.

The “Christian Year” began twelve months ago, on the first Sunday in Advent. With Christians all over the world, we lifted up the Good News that Jesus is coming! With Christmas carols, and our Poinsettia trees, and beautiful Nativity set, and the lighting of the Advent candles of Hope, Peace, Joy and Love, each Sunday in Advent we proclaimed that promise – Jesus is coming! Do you remember how it was last year in Advent?

And then Christmas arrived! Oh, how we celebrated the birth of the Savior, not just as an historical event, but even more importantly as our own experience. At Christmas, we remember how Jesus was born into our own lives – some of us when we were little children – others of us as we faced difficult challenges – and still others in one of those moments of quietness and prayer when a door seemed to swing open and Jesus came into our hearts. Some of us found Jesus in the very experience of last Christmas!

Oh, what a season it was!

And so the Church year rolled on – through the season of Epiphany when we discovered that Jesus came with God’s love not just for us, but for the whole world. And then came Lent and Easter with its message that Jesus’ death and resurrection bring us forgiveness and new life, and that Jesus is our leader who will show us how to build the beautiful Kingdom of God on earth. Then came Pentecost, with a promise of power from on high to those who serve the Lord, and that was followed by a whole season of Sundays right up to this very day today. We have walked with Christ, learned from Christ, been helped by Christ, and have loved our neighbors in the name of Christ.

And now, on this last day of the Christian year that started last Advent, we open our Bibles to Revelation 1:4-8. But instead of giving us a recap of all that has happened over the past twelve months, instead of pointing us backward and singing “Auld Lang Syne” our text for Christ the King Sunday simply says all over again, “He is coming!”

We are full circle back to where we were at the beginning of this Church year!

In a sense, the Christian Year is a bit like the movie “Groundhog Day” where Bill Murray plays a frustrated weatherman who is reluctantly sent to cover a story about a weather forecasting “rat” (as he calls Punxsutawney Phil). This is Bill’s fourth year covering the story, and he makes no effort to hide his boredom and disdain for the assignment. But on awaking the ‘following’ day he discovers that it’s Groundhog Day all over again, and again, and again! At first he uses this to his advantage, but then comes the realization that he is doomed to spend the rest of eternity in the same place, seeing the same people do the same thing EVERY day there in Punxsutawney, Pennsylavania! He is locked in a time-loop that never seems to end. It’s a great movie!

And every year at this time, we Christians awaken to discover that we, too, have looped all the way back to where we started.

“He is coming!”

And there’s a reason for that!

In the opening verse of our text today, we are given a wonderful message from God. Here’s what God says: “Grace and peace to you from him who is, and was…and is to come…” Our Christian Faith is rooted in the present, cherishes the past…but understands that its life is aimed toward the future. We are always brought back to TOMORROW!

Life – if it is to be meaningful – must be lived out toward the future.

I learned the power of this message a number of years ago from an old Jewish man. He was one of several holocaust survivors who shared with a group of clergy about their experiences during that awful time. His story began on Kristallnacht – the night of broken glass – November 9th and 10th, 1938 – when a wave of terror was launched against Jewish families, businesses and communities throughout Germany. Many homes and synagogues were destroyed, and many people were injured or killed. And that was just the beginning of the horror.

This man told us about his parents who tried to shelter him from the violence by teaching him to play the violin. His father was a wonderful musician and had given the boy the very student violin he had used when he learned to play. Up until then, the boy had been limited to learning notes and scales, but in the days following Kristallnacht, his father started teaching him a song. It was a beautiful song – a happy and hopeful song that drowned out the sounds of despair that were mounting all around. His father would play and he would follow and his mother would dance to the tune. He wasn’t very good yet, but his parents told him to practice every day. And he did.

Well, things were getting worse for the Jewish people all around. Many were being taken off to concentration camps. The persecution was getting closer and closer. Finally, his mother and father took him to the home of some non-Jewish friends. He carried just a little suitcase and the old leather violin case containing his student violin. They told him he would be safe there with the friends. And that they would come back to get him. The last thing his father said to him was, “But you must practice – every day – so that when we come you can play the whole song for us.”

That was the last he ever saw of his parents.

He told those of us there that day that people often ask how he survived the times, and how he managed to go on and build a life of his own. “This is what I tell them,” he said.

And then, without a word, he reached down and picked up a battered old violin case. He lifted its cover and took out the bow, and then a badly scuffed student violin. Placing it under his chin, he began to play.

When he was finished, he returned the instrument to the case and said,

“I practice every day for the day my mother and father come through the door.”

“Grace to you, and peace, from he who is, and was…and is to come.”

“He is coming…”

Neither the past nor the present have any real meaning until you dare step out toward the future. Life without a future is no life at all. And the Christian Faith always brings us back to…tomorrow..

A college student, home for the holidays, sat and talked with his dad. His father asked, “What are you planning to do after you graduate?” “Oh, get a job, I suppose.” “What about after that?” “Well, I’d like to get married.” “And after that?” “Oh, I’ve been thinking I’d like to have kids. Being a dad would be cool.” “And after that?” “Well, rise to the top of the corporate ladder and be rich!” “And after that?” “Oh, dad, would you cut it out? I suppose after that, I’ll die.”

“And after that?”

Many of us are stuck in the world of yesterday and today. There’s nothing wrong with that world, of course, except it doesn’t take you anywhere! It leads only to death! But the Christian Faith understands that people – and the world – need tomorrow.

I think the reason the Christian Faith always circles back to the promise that Jesus is coming is because it understands what life is truly like. Life goes on. It never stands still. It changes all the time.

And we can’t hold on to yesterday!

We MUST step out into TOMORROW!

So our faith always leads us to TOMORROW!

And this is crucial not only for us as individuals facing the amazing complexities of life today, but also for us as a community of Christians engaged with the world.

A mother used to take her small daughter to help in a ministry that fed hungry homeless people. Alongside her mom, the little girl spooned out big portions of American Chop Suey to what seemed like endless lines of scruffy-looking people. Finally, tired out by the endless work, the little girl said, “There’s no end to these hungry people!”

Her mother gently smiled and said, “No, not today. But maybe tomorrow!”

Why do Christians feed hungry people? Why do we help the poor? Why do we work for peace?

There are hungry people and poor people today, just as there were yesterday! Violence in our world is just as real in the present as it has been in the past.

So why bother to feed the hungry and help the poor and work for peace?

Because “tomorrow is coming!”

There is always TOMORROW!

So our Christian calendar never really ends, but only circles back to the hopeful Good News we’ve heard from the beginning.

“Christ is coming!”

There is hope for this world! There is hope for the poor and the hungry! There is hope for the day when terrorism is overcome and peace wins out! And there is hope…for YOU!

I imagine there are some of us here today who find ourselves in those places of life that leave us empty. A relationship is broken. A hurt was experienced. An illness changed everything. Your world fell apart.

Where has your life brought you from yesterday to today?

Well, you can’t go back and live life over. Much as we’d sometimes like to, we can’t go and undo what’s done, or un-live what’s been lived. Yesterday – and today – are what they are.

Only tomorrow can be different.

And the message of Jesus’ Gospel for you and me is simply this:

“There’s always tomorrow.”

So press on!

Christ is coming…there is a future on its way!

Pick up the old violin…and play like you’ve never played before!

Play for tomorrow!!