Thanksgiving for Christ our King

Thanksgiving for Christ our King

What type of king is Christ?  What's the meaning of our thanksgiving?  What should be said, or left unsaid, as we gather around tables with family and loved ones this week? 

It’s that time of year.  Christmas lights out on shelves right after Halloween, even before we’ve begun building our shopping list for Thanksgiving.   The colors are changing around us along with the time and the temperature – it’s darker sooner and we seek warmth.  There’s a mix of rush and anxiety in the air, along with anticipation and expectation.  Seems like Halloween launches us into two months of concerning ourselves with others, but not always in a way that’s healthy for them or us.  Perhaps we worry about the politics of family gatherings.  Perhaps we fear what will happen when everyone gets together again, particularly if the food, décor, and gifts are not just right.  What will we talk about?  What will be said this year?  What will go unsaid this year?  And what about the people who are separated from their families and loved ones during these holidays?  What are they to do?  What are we to do? Our marketing friends at the stores, online, and on television are quick to stoke our concerns – pointing out what our holidays can’t be without and assuring us that things will be better if we buy the right stuff at the right price at the right time.  The newspapers and news shows tend to exploit our fear of scarcity and inadequacy – we don’t have enough money or time.  We’re barraged with dismal economic indicators while also almost sadistically reminded of the impending shopping deadlines, the final countdown to the holidays, the pressure to make sure everything is done and prepared on time.  We don’t want to be last, to miss out, to disappoint.  We must, at all costs, be prepared.  But prepared for what?!

In contrast, the Holy Spirit is also leading us into a special time of year.  Our church tradition is also encouraging us to prepare - to prepare for something profound that happens in the stillness of a dark, cold night.  Something divine that takes place by the dim light of embers glowing in the hearth and stars twinkling amid an otherwise dark sky.   Today is the last Sunday after Pentecost; the final feast of ordinary/proper time; a Sunday when we proclaim with joy that the resurrected Christ is King as we look ahead toward the beginning of Advent (next Sunday), a season of divine expectation as we start our church year again, anticipating the arrival of our newborn king. 

In the 1920’s, this special feast day for Christ the King was established as antidote to the rising primacy of secularism.  It is to remind faithful Christians, amid prevailing commercial and secular culture, that Christ is to reign in our hearts, minds, wills, and bodies.  And, the origin of our national holiday this week – Thanksgiving – is also rooted in faithful tradition… not only the faith and perseverance of our pilgrim predecessors who originally gave thanks to God and their native American neighbors for bringing them through early hardships, but also the faith of one of our great presidents, Abraham Lincoln, as he turned to God amid a time of great civil unrest.   Hear these words delivered by President Lincoln nearly 150 years ago (October 1863), the same year as his Gettysburg Address, as part of his “Thanksgiving Proclamation” that served as another precedent for the national holiday of thanks we’re preparing to observe. 

Listen for what the Spirit invites us to hear in Lincoln’s words… listen for what we should be thankful for:

… No human counsel hath devised, nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the most high God, who while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice, by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility, and union. (http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/source/sb2/sb2w.htm)

And what are we to hear in our scriptural lessons today?  On the heels of All Hallows, All Saints, and All Souls – a triduum through which we’re reminded of our relationship with the communion of saints of the promise of resurrection in the face of death… On the heels of last week’s lesson – through which we’re foretold of eventual judgment and destruction while also encouraged to endure in our Christian faith… This week, our lessons reinforce the message that although we might be lead astray by false prophets, scattered as a flock, or even find ourselves being nailed to a cross in our guilt, Jesus reaches us with mercy in our suffering and, as the risen Christ - our good shepherd, our king, and head of our church - he remembers us and has prepared places for us in his kingdom of grace, where there’s no need to be rushed or anxious in any season.  The Spirit is telling us that we can expect redemption and anticipate salvation through the greatest Christmas gift of all.  This is good news for which we can be truly thankful this week.

In his letter to the disciples at Colossae, Paul insists that they worship no other lords than the one Christ, our true lord and king.  To be clear, just as it did back then, the nature of Christ’s rule as king is surprising to us because it’s not a rule of violent domination, military might, worldly possessions, or victory through oppression. 

In today’s Gospel lesson – a part of our Lord’s story told in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John - we find Jesus hung on a cross alongside other convicted criminals.  We’re told that above him was a sarcastic sign naming his as ‘King of the Jews’ and that people mocked his title – here’s the savior king, showing the power of his reign as he hangs dying upon the cross.  Surely, this is not the long-awaited political, warrior messiah in the family line of King David who was supposed reclaim Israel from those who has dominated and oppressed her people?  What kind of king is this?  What does he rule? Where is his power? 

In the Gospel according to Luke, we catch a glimpse of a new kind of kingdom in the humble confession of one of the criminals hanging up there with Jesus and in our Lord’s response.  One of the men being crucified alongside Jesus taunts him, “Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!”  In contrast to this arrogant and angry thief, the person being crucified on the other side of Jesus confesses his guilt and recognizes that Jesus is a lord of mercy, praying in faithful humility, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” (a statement of faith that has become a popular Taize chant).  Amid what must have been excruciating pain and agony, Jesus hears the confession of this man’s heart and comforts him with the assurance, “today, you will be with me in Paradise.” 

Paradise.  We encounter this concept initially in Genesis in the form of the Garden of Eden – a place of divine perfection. Over time, some Jewish notions of paradise held that it was a timeless place – a parallel, yet sublime and ‘hidden’ state of blessedness into which one is invited to dwell in bliss near life giving trees cultivated by God.  Paul alludes to this in his second letter to the Corinthians (2 Cor 12:3) when he spoke of a man being taken into paradise with Christ, where another reality was revealed to him.  We hear of it one other time in the book of Revelation (Rev 2:7) when it’s written that those who endure victoriously in their faith will be invited to eat of from the tree of life in God’s garden paradise.  Even while enduring a painful earthly death himself, Jesus gracefully reassures a repentant sinner that they will enjoy paradise together that very day.  Staring out over a barren, desert landscape while agonizing in pain up on a cross, this invitation into bliss in a lush garden with Christ must have been refreshing – worthy of thanksgiving.  In our sometimes barren emotional landscape, when we feel otherwise hung out to dry, vulnerable in the cold, this image of paradise as Christ’s kingdom is refreshing to us as well.  Our King invites us to dwell among trees that offer life, rivers that flow with refreshment, and light that shines away all darkness. 

Is this only something we’re able to enjoy with Jesus in another world after our bodily death?  Amid the noise and haste of a sin-filled marketplace around us where material things tempt and taunt us, promising to pleasantly distract us from the pangs of our deeper yearnings and longings, what if we dare to surrender to sweet silence, even if only for few brief moments when we gather with friends. What if, in our momentary, prayerful death to the distractions of this world, it’s possible to taste paradise with Christ and the saints?  What if we surrender the game of political gain and embrace the reign of sacrificial love?  How might this even brief experience of Christ’s kingdom come, change our wills for what must be done in our world here and now?

As we enter this holiday season, is it not real life with each other that we’re really longing for?  The beauty of the twinkling lights at night; the smell of crackling wood burning warm inside; the table prepared for us with loving care… are these not merely signs that invite us to the feast that we’re really hungry for – more perfect communion with God and our loved ones.  How can we make our gatherings this week more of a foretaste of the heavenly banquet that has been prepared for us by Christ our King? 

As we leave church this morning, we’ll again be among the busy secular world preparing for the stressful holidays and the cunning commercial demands for our time and attention.  When you feel yourself getting caught up following other lords, worshipping idols, and eating of the bread of anxiety, step back, close your eyes, breath deeply, and remember our Lord’s supper and the paradise kingdom he calls us to.  If you hear people saying harmful/hurtful things to each other in the coming weeks, recall that we’ve been called by our Lord into a place of peace, a time of thanksgiving, and into a reign of reconciliation.  Our King has given us an example of offering merciful love and forgiveness, even from the cross.  The power of Christ’s rule is over hearts and minds.  And his reign that he calls us into is a kingdom of justice and love.  This something worth being thankful for this week as we gather in his name around our tables.

Let us pray. 

Oh God, we’re thankful that you’re calling us into a counter-cultural time of true thanks-giving, Spirit-filled stillness, pregnant waiting, and joyful expectancy.  Holy Spirit, we pray that you be with us and our loved ones this week and during the special weeks to come.  Help us to know more deeply how through pain, humiliation, vulnerability, and ultimate sacrifice we can participate with you in redeeming justice and a principality of peace and perpetual love.  Christ, our king, we are thankful for the mercy and love you have freely given us.  Remember us as you come into your kingdom. Quicken us as we express our gratitude by surrendering to your rule of justice and charity in our hearts.  Strengthen us as we boldly seek to help build your kingdom paradise by being unexpectedly generous in our forgiveness and love toward others. 

AMEN.