November 24, 2024 – Twenty-Seventh Sunday After Pentecost
Kahu Gary Percesepe
If these past few weeks have left you feeling overwhelmed, if you’re in need of encouragement, or if the music of the church makes your spirit soar, Christ the King Sunday was made for you.
Protestants may be surprised to learn that Christ the King Sunday was established in 1925 by a Roman Catholic pope to counter what he regarded as the destructive forces of the modern world: secularism, the rise of communism in Russia, and fascism in Italy and Spain. By the summer of 1933, Hitler and Nazism had seized Germany. By September of that year, by order of the Führer, non-Aryans could not be employed in the service of the German church. By 1934, the Protestant theologian Karl Barth wrote the Barmen Declaration, affirming the Lordship of Christ over all creation and insisted Christ’s cross was the focal point of all human history, expressly rejecting the false teaching that any human leader or political regime was Lord of the Church.
The church in every age must face this test: will it contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints, or will it collapse under the weight of history and political pressure, surrender its birthright, and capitulate to the spirit of the age?
We have two great allies in this struggle: the Book of Revelation, and the majestic hymnody of the church through the centuries. The poet James Russell Lowell penned these words:
Once to every man and nation
Comes the moment to decide,
In the strife of truth with falsehood,
For the good or evil side;
By the light of burning martyrs,
Christ, Thy bleeding feet we track,
Toiling up new Calvaries ever
With the cross that turns not back;
New occasions teach new duties,
Time makes ancient good uncouth;
They must upward still and onward,
Who would keep abreast of truth.
Revelation affirms Jesus Christ as Lord of all. The reign of Christ, begun from the cross, will be brought to fruition. Prospects may seem dim, as we look at our world, caught in the chaos of stress, distress, and lawlessness, but the pretended rulers of this world do not have the final word. It is they who will be overwhelmed with love and grace. And at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord of all. Crown him with many crowns, the Lamb upon the Throne.
Every human empire is destined to fall, but
Jesus Shall Reign where’er the sun
Does its successive journeys run
His kingdom stretch from shore to shore
Till moons shall wax and wane no more
Today’s scripture passage is poetic and hymnic in quality. This hymn of praise is a great shout of victory. Here, at the end of the church year, we end with focus on the reign of Christ and joyous acclamation of God’s ultimate victory
Look! He is coming with the clouds;
every eye shall see him,
even those who pierced him;
and on his account all the tribes of the earth will wail.
When church gathers, we may feel overwhelmed by all the ways we fail at being real good church. When we read the headlines in the news, or doomscroll on our phones, we may ask, “Where is God?” It may seem more logical today for the church to be speaking about defeat rather than victory, but today we are reminded that the church operates by a different logic and measures time by a different calculus. Today we get the long view of history; we see the moral arc of the universe bent at last toward justice. God has defeated the seemingly overwhelming forces of evil not with weapons of mass destruction, not by a ballot box, but with the overwhelming force of God’s grace and love poured out not only for us, but for the whole world, at Calvary.
At the cross at the cross where I first saw the light,
And the burden of my heart rolled away,
It was there by faith I received my sight,
And now I am happy all the day!
What better time to gather once again with our ‘ohana and celebrate with feast and song. It is the season of Thanksgiving, America. So come to the table:
Even so, Lord, quickly come,
Bring Thy final harvest home;
Gather Thou Thy people in,
Free from sorrow, free from sin,
There, forever purified,
In Thy garner to abide;
Come, with all Thine angels come,
Raise the glorious harvest home.
The Revelation of John on the isle of Patmos was given as a gift to a troubled church. The Emperor Nero was out of control, wreaking havoc and vengeance on our ancestors in the faith. Here was a church that was clinging for its life on the fringes of the Roman Empire. You can see them there, huddled in fear amidst the rising tide of blood, surrounded on every side, so small, so overwhelmed. And yet the vision opens with a song of praise, in majestic cadences that scholars believe was derived from the hymns of the early Christian church. Amidst the rising tide of the blood of all the martyrs in Revelation we see Jesus, the firstborn of the dead, the Alpha and the Omega, beginning and end, the one who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty. And we are invited to join in the benediction:
To him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us to be a
kingdom, priests serving his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. ‘Amene.