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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. (Amen.)
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. (Amen.)
One hundred years ago, Pope Pius XI instituted what he called a “Feast of Christ the King”; he did so ostensibly to combat the destructive forces of the times: the Bolsheviks in Russia, Fascism in Italy, and materialism, such as the “roaring twenties”, in the United States. Although the Feast originally was observed on the last Sunday of October, when Lutherans and Protestants were celebrating the Reformation, the Second Vatican Council in 19‑69 moved the Feast to the last Sunday of the Church Year. (Pfatteicher, Commentary, 312, and Journey 296‑297.) We do not call today “Christ the King Sunday”, or even “The Sunday of the Fulfullment”, but we call today the “Last Sunday of the Church Year”, and, though today’s Readings and such have some of the “Christ the King” and “Sunday of the Fulfillment” emphases, they also continue what is a three Sunday focus on the Last Things. If the Gospel Reading two Sundays ago was about the Last Things of the Intermediate State and the Bodily Resurrection of the Dead, and if the Gospel Reading last Sunday was about the Last Thing of the Final Judgment, then we might say that the Gospel Reading today is about the last Last Thing of the Consummation of the Gospel in the Heavenly Life of the Blessed (confer Stephenson, CLD XIII:124). Jesus told the penitent criminal, who asked Jesus to remember him when Jesus came in His Kingdom, that, in some sense better than that, that day he would be with Jesus in Paradise (Plummer, ad loc Luke 23:42-43, pp.534-535). Of course, we who are ultimately blessed with the fullness of heavenly life are so blessed only because, we might say, “Jesus is the King of Kings” (confer Revelation 17:14; 19:16).
Still somewhat fresh from the October 18 nationwide “No Kings” protests, we might think of the American citizens and others who especially on that day objected to the duly-elected President of the United States, and we might also think of the British subjects and others in the Thirteen Colonies who on July 4, 17‑76, objected to their ruler who governed ostensibly by Divine right. Certainly, As St. Paul writes in Romans, all governing authorities have been instituted by God (Romans 13:1). To be sure, we should also think about the prophet Samuel’s reluctance to give the people of Israel a king like all the nations when they asked for one, God’s directive to do it anyway, and God’s statement that they had not rejected Samuel as their prophet but had rejected God Himself as their king (1 Samuel 8:1-9; confer Deuteronomy 17:14-20). On God’s behalf, Samuel warned the people that the kings would take their children, the best of their fields and vineyards, their servants and animals, and essentially enslave them, but the people wanted a king anyway (1 Samuel 8:10-22). We should also think about how later, when the Jewish leaders turned‑over Jesus to the Roman governor Pilate and Pilate asked if he should crucify their king, they said they had no king but Caesar (John 19:15). And so the events of today’s Gospel Reading happened!
We might not be “No Kings” protesters, rebellious colonists, rejecting people of Israel, or jealous Jewish leaders, but the sometimes‑misunderstood language of Psalm 23 is too‑often true of us, that the Lord is our Shepherd Whom we do not want. We do not want Him as our Shepherd or King, for example, when the absolute demands of God’s law show us the right things to think, say, and do, and we do not want to think, say, or do them. Because of our sinful nature, we would rather be our own authorities: we would rather think, say, and do whatever we want to think, say, and do. As in the days of the Judges, each one might do what is right in his own eyes (Judges 17:6; 21:25). God does not want any to perish, as our sinful nature and all our actual sins make us deserve, and so He delays judgment in order to give people time to repent (1 Peter 3:9; confer Romans 2:4). But, as we heard in today’s Old Testament Reading (Malachi 3:13-18), the day will come when all will see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve Him.
“Jesus is the King of Kings.” He is a King Whom we did not crown and Whom we cannot throw off (confer Pfatteicher, Journey, 297, with reference to Muggeridge, End of Christendom, [no page given]). Or, maybe in our American context, we might say that Jesus is a President Whom we did not elect and Whom we cannot impeach. Jesus was born King of the Jews (Matthew 2:2), and, as we heard in today’s Gospel Reading, He was crucified mockingly but truly as King of the Jews. Yet, Jesus is King not only of the Jews but also of the nations (Revelation 15:3). As we heard in today’s Epistle Reading (Colossians 1:13-20), in Him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, making peace by the blood of His cross. By not saving Himself at that point, Jesus saves others! Out of His great love, God the Father delivers from the domain of darkness and transfers to the Kingdom of His Son us who by the power of His Holy Spirit turn in sorrow from our sin and trust God to forgive our sin for Jesus’s sake. In Him, we who repent have redemption, the forgiveness of our sins.
The repentant criminal in today’s Gospel Reading seemingly comes to repentance by both hearing Jesus speak about forgiveness and watching Him die (confer Plummer, ad loc Luke 23:42, p.535). In other words, he came to understand that forgiveness of sins was given in connection with Jesus’s death. That repentant criminal made a public confession of his sin and essentially received a public absolution. He likely was not baptized, and he certainly did not commune, but, under normal circumstances, Holy Baptism and the Holy Supper are necessary for salvation, as Jesus Himself says both that unless you are born from above by water and the Spirit you cannot enter the Kingdom of God and that unless you eat His flesh and drink His blood you have no life in you (John 3:3,5; John 6:53). So, we, whom the Holy Spring brings to repent by Word and Sacrament, seek out Holy Baptism and afterwards continuously receive both Holy Absolution and the Holy Supper, in order for us to receive the forgiveness of sins and so also life and salvation. As we sang in the Hymn of the Day, the lowliest forms of bread and wine now veil Jesus here but we still join here with angels in worshipping Him (Lutheran Service Book 534:2).
Althought today’s Collect refers to Jesus’s reigning among us by the preaching of His cross, in explaining today’s Gospel Reading’s use on what some people do observe as “Christ the King Sunday”, some authors refer to Jesus’s “reigning from the cross” (Pfatteicher, Journey, 300; confer Stuckwisch, LSB:CttS, 262; Fickenscher, 733). Certainly we can admit that, for the time that Jesus hung on the cross, He did in some sense “reign” from the cross. And, both Jesus’s prayer for others’ forgiveness and His absolution of the repentant criminal do arguably show that Jesus’s Kingdom is about the forgiveness of sins (Stuckwisch, LSB:CttS, 262). But, Jesus did not stay on the cross! Rather, as we also sang in the Hymn of the Day, Jesus is risen, ascended, and glorified (LSB 534:4). We normally think of His Ascension as His enthronement at the right hand of God the Father Almighty—far above all rule and authority and power and dominion—from where, as it were, He rules over all things and rules over all things for the benefit of His Church (Ephesians 1:20-22). And, those of us who participated in our Midweek Bible Study of Revelation may remember St. John’s vision of what is called the enthronement of the Lamb (Revelation 5:1-14). And, we should all remember that we, too, will one day be risen and glorified!
In the language of Revelation, “Jesus is the King of Kings”. As Pope Pius XI apparently intended, we do well to remember that even in the destructive forces of our time, Christ the King is still in control (Pfatteicher, Journey, 296-297). We might say, “We have no King but Jesus!” (confer Cavanaugh). We hail Jesus as our King today, the Last Sunday of the Church Year, and, unless He first comes in His Kingdom, to judge the living and the dead, we will hear others hail Him essentially as their King in the Gospel Reading for next Sunday, the First Sunday of Advent (Matthew 21:1-11). The Church Year ends but then repeats, and, even when Christ comes in His Kingdom, that is not the end but the beginning of eternity with Him in resurrected and glorified bodies. By repentance, we are already now in some sense in His Kingdom, and, whether at His final coming or at our death, whichever comes first, one day we, too, will be with Him in paradise.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. (Amen.)
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +