This sermon was originally shared with a specific congregation on 21st November 2021, so the recording reflects this by speaking to specific situations within that context. I have tried to edit this text so that it is more widely applicable.
Today, we proclaim that Christ is King. What kind of King is He, what does that mean for us, and what difference does that make for how we live our lives as Christians and as the Church?
What kind of King is Jesus?
Immediately before our gospel passage, Jesus is handed over to Pilate by the Jewish leaders. We don’t get to hear their accusation, but we can make a reasonable guess from the question Pilate asks, “Are you the King of the Jews?”.
The Jewish leaders’ real complaint is that Jesus is claiming to be the Messiah, God’s anointed, indeed, claiming to be God. “The King of the Jews” would be a reasonable translation of this for a non-Jewish politician, with the benefit of alerting Pilate to the possibility of political rebellion.
Jesus sees through Pilate’s question, and, returning with a question of his own, puts Pilate on the back foot, before explaining what his kingdom or kingship is not:
– It is not from, or of, this world – it has different origins
– This means that it works differently – the example Jesus gives is that, in contrast to the kings ‘of this world’, his followers were not fighting to prevent his arrest, trial or execution by the Jewish leaders.
– Jesus is a different kind of King. Jesus has power and authority which does not depend on recognition from human leaders, rulers or followers.
So if Jesus’ kingship is NOT like other kingdoms or kingships, what IS it like?
As the exchange with Pilate continues, Jesus presents Pilate with a challenge and an opportunity to recognise His kingship. Jesus defines His kingship by His testimony to the truth, and those who belong to the truth listen to His voice – they are the ones who recognise His kingship. In our so called, ‘post-truth’ age, where seemingly everything is subjective, Pilate’s question (which immediately follows the reading we heard), has almost become the question of our age “what is truth?”. Earlier in John’s gospel, Jesus said “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life”, truth is a person, and that person is Jesus Christ, the king of Truth.
Just as Pilate was, we too are invited to know the King of Truth.
If the King of Truth stood before you today, how would you respond?
Now for our reading from Revelation. A lot of us find the Book of Revelation confusing and intimidating, and that’s quite understandable. There are so many genres – types of writing – within the letter of Revelation, that it can be hard to work out what’s going on when. Our passage today is a good example – within these 4 verses, there are 3 different types of writing – letter writing; prophetic writing and writing in a style called doxological, which means that it is written to give praise, worship and glory.
The author, John, starts this section with the standard letter-writing greetings of the time, but like Paul, adapts them to give them a particularly Christian flavour – instead of “greetings from the gods” he shares “grace and peace” from the Trinitarian God – Father, Spirit, Son. The ‘seven spirits’ mentioned in the middle of verse 4 is a way of describing the fullness of divine power – the Holy Spirit. Jesus Christ is identified with three key descriptors – faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead and the ruler of the kings of the earth, and then John switches to praising and worshipping Jesus. Jesus is the One who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood.
Now, as confusing as Revelation can be, it is often one of my favourite parts of the Bible, because it draws together so many of the themes from elsewhere in the Bible
Have a moment to think about what themes you notice in this passage.
– Faithful witness – reminds us again of Jesus being the one who testifies to the truth, who is the Truth.
– Firstborn of the dead – has echoes of the powerful passage in Colossians 1, and 1 Corinthians 15, where Paul focuses on the importance of the physical resurrection
– Ruler of the kings of the earth – King of Kings – a title given to Jesus in 1 Timothy 6, later on in Revelation, as well as promises to David in the Old Testament, particularly psalm 89.
– “freed us from our sins by his blood” – In John 8, as he is in discussion with a group of aspiring disciples, “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free”, and goes on to explain that the freedom that He brings is freedom from sin.
Jesus’ kingship is defined by his witness to the truth, his sacrifice and his resurrection, and so he has power and authority over all the kings, rulers and governments of the earth – he is the King of Kings.
What does this mean for us?
The power of the King of Truth dying for our sins cannot be diminished and must not be under-stated.
Each one of us, until we turn to Jesus, is imprisoned by our sins, and we cannot free ourselves. Jesus’ kingship is about his ability as the king who bring salvation, by becoming the One who bore our curse for us, to set us free.
I will repeat that again. Each one of us, each one of you, is freed by Jesus’ blood when we turn to Him and follow Him and continue in His word.
So what does this mean for how we live as Christians, and as Church?
Having been freed from our sins by his blood, Jesus has made us to be a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father. No, I don’t mean we all need to get ordained! It’s a reference to Exodus 19:6, where God calls His people to be a ‘priestly kingdom and a holy nation’. The key point that John is making with this reference is that Jesus’ death achieves what God had always intended for his people in the beginning. Followers of Jesus have been redeemed (freedom bought at a cost) from slavery to sin, and we are on a journey to the promised land. Our role is to live under the reign of God as people who make God known and intercede for the world. That sounds great, but you might be wondering what that might look like practically!
As well as being the feast of Christ the King, today is also Ability Sunday, a day to recognise, celebrate and include the diversity of abilities within our congregation, and this year the theme is ‘connection’.
During the pandemic many people who struggled to attend church in person, perhaps due to physical disabilities, mental health difficulties, sensory processing difficulties or ill health and many more, were able to participate much more in services because services went online, and so could be accessed from home. We know, of course, that others felt excluded and unable to participate because they didn’t have internet access, or the confidence to use it.
Here at St Denys we tried to provide every possible way for everyone to access church and stay connected – online and with landline access, recordings that could be accessed by landline telephone as well as online, digital bulletins and paper copies.
We’re now back in church. But those who couldn’t get to church before the pandemic, still struggle to get to church, and sadly as a result of Covid there are others who are less able to attend church, too. We still want to connect with them and enable them to participate in our worship as much as they are able, and that’s the reason why we are still trying to use Zoom to stream our services. Other churches use other software, but we have stayed with Zoom because it enables people at home to read the Bible, lead intercessions, or even to preach or perhaps lead services from home, and we know and have heard how valuable that is to those who cannot come to church in person, and you have seen that today too, with our readings.
This work of building connection, which is an important making God known through the way we love one another, is a job for all of us, in a variety of forms.
One of the ways that we really need help to do this is to continue to enable people to join in the service from home via Zoom.
We’re planning some more training soon, and we will take you through it step-by-step. Once the equipment is set up (which a number of us are able to help with), it is simply a case of tabbing the PowerPoint on to the next slide – you can do that by pressing just one button! So please do prayerfully consider whether you could do this, with support and encouragement from us, because the reality is that the current situation is unsustainable.
If you don’t feel able to be involved with the PowerPoint and tech, there are lots of other ways you can make God known through connection:
– Meet members of your wider community, building connection and friendships
– Pick up the phone to someone you haven’t seen in a while and ask how they are, if you are aware of a pastoral need, please pass this on to your church pastoral team.
– If your church has a drop-in or open church, be available for people from the community to feel welcome
In your personal lives:
– Helping friends and neighbours with practical tasks like shopping, collecting prescriptions etc
– Cooking meals for friends and neighbours when you know they are struggling
– Being a listening ear
… and much more!
We will all find ourselves in different places during the week – work, school, visiting cafés, spending time with friends, being at home.
Where will you be this week? How could you make God known and build connections in those places this week? I encourage you to spend some time chatting with the person next to you about these questions – but if you would rather keep your distance today, please just reflect quietly where you are.
repairerofwalls 