Children of the King

November 25, 1995

Christ the King Sunday, 1995
Colossians 1, Luke 23

One thing I love about the stories of C.S. Lewis is that he can challenge old clichés with fresh ways to look at familiar words and concepts. He helps me, when I come to 'Christ the King Sunday,' to realize that I cannot 'predict' or 'define' the word "king" as it is applied to the Lord Jesus Christ, God's Son.

In the first Chronicle of Narnia, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the battle between good and evil is underway. Already Mr. Tumnus, a friendly faun, has been captured and is in imminent danger of being turned into stone. Peter and Edmund and Susan and Lucy are desperate to get him back. We break into the dialogue right there:

      (Peter is speaking)"We can't just leave him to be to be to have that done to him."
          "It's no good, Son of Adam, " said Mr.Beaver, "no good your trying, of all people. But now that Aslan is on the move "

"Oh, yes! Tell us about Aslan!" said several voices at once; for once again that strange feeling like the first signs of spring, like good news, had come over them.

"Who is Aslan?" asked Susan.

"Aslan?" said Mr. Beaver, "Why don't you know? He's the King. He's the Lord of the whole wood, not often here, you understand. Never in my time or my father's time. But the word has reached us that he has come back. He is in Narnia at this moment. He'll settle the White Queen all right. It is he, not you, that will save Mr. Tumnus."

"She won't turn him into stone, too?" said Edmund.

"Lord love you, Son of Adam, what a simple thing to say!" answered Mr. Beaver with a great laugh. "Turn him into stone? If she can stand on her two feet and look him in the face it'll be the most she can do and more than I expect of her. No, no. He'll put all to rights as it says in an old rhyme in these parts:

Wrong will be right, when Aslan comes in sight,
At the sound of his roar, sorrows will be no more,
When he bares his teeth, winter meets its death,
And when he shakes his mane, we shall have spring again.

You'll understand when you see him."

"But shall we see him?" asked Lucy.

"Why Daughter of Eve, that's what I brought you here for. I'm to lead you where you shall meet him," said Mr. Beaver.

"Is is he a man?" asked Lucy.

"Aslan a man!" said Mr. Beaver sternly. "Certainly not. I tell you he is the King of the wood and the son of the great Emperor Beyond the Sea. Don't you know who is the King of the Beasts? Aslan is a lion the Lion, the great Lion."

"Ooh!" said Susan, "I'd thought he was a man. Is he quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion."

"That you will, dearie, and no mistake," said Mrs. Beaver, "if there's anyone can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they're either braver than most or just silly."

"Then he isn't safe?" said Lucy.

"Safe?" said Mr. Beaver. "Don't you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you."

"I'm longing to meet him," said Peter, "even if I do feel frightened when it comes to the point."

EXPECTATIONS OF A KING

One reason we love to read C.S. Lewis is the way he makes us look in fresh ways at familiar ideas. To make the King of Narnia a Lion, to invent Aslan, reminds us that we don't begin to understand all the glory and power and sheer wonder of our Christ. Of course it isn't that Lewis is saying Jesus is like Aslan, although the Bible calls him The Lion of the Tribe of Judah. But in Aslan we see a little glimpse of the King we can never control, but who loves his own with a fierce loyal love even to the death. We have to lay aside our own limitations of what kind of king Jesus might be.

In Jesus' time there were those who expected a king to be decked out in all the trappings, a wealthy monarch like Herod or Caesar. There were others who had a political agenda and expected a zealot leader to strike for justice. Still others were ready to take up arms and fight, while maybe others saw the loaves and fishes and wanted a magic wand to take them out of hard times.

Instead, Jesus came saying, " Love your neighbors— and love your enemies! Forgive your enemies! He walked away from every attempt to use Him. Most people simply rejected any notion that this King could ever rule over them. He finally was lifted up above the earth— but his throne was a cross!

THE TRIUMPH OF A KING

It is hard for us to put the two thoughts together— "king" and "cross." We sing that song, "He could have called ten thousand angels!" and we really sing it like "He SHOULD have called ten thousand angels!" or "I wish he HAD called ten thousand angels!" Or, we say, well, when he comes again He will really kill everyone in sight that disagrees with US! How, really, do we follow such a KING?

[Returning briefly to C S Lewis's story, Aslan is so great and powerful that nothing or no one can defeat him. But then there comes that spell binding scene where Aslan goes to die in Edmund's place; there is a celebration of the evil forces of the cold, white winter only to have the Stone Altar split in two evil put to flight— because LOVE has triumphed over everything else because Aslan was absolutely pure!]

It was from the cross that the greatest power of this great King began to be displayed. Luke 23 is a strange scripture to use to glorify a King. Naked, beaten, bruise, bleeding, dying— mocked with cries of "If you are the King save yourself!"— Jesus calmly turned to the criminal who said, "Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom" and said, "Today you will be with Me in paradise!" For Jesus is king— eternally. He was never MORE king than he was that day on the cross.

It is because of the cross that Paul could exult (Colossians 1:)

"He has rescued us from the power of darkness ... in him we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins ... in Him all the fullness of the Godhead is pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile all things to himself on heaven and earth by making peace through the blood of his cross."

And what is even more amazing in the next chapter (Colossians 2:9) this assertion is repeated and we are brought into the picture: "In Christ all the fullness of      the Godhead dwells in bodily form and ye (you, plural) are complete in HIM!"
Because Jesus is King sin and death and hell are defeated, and the church has everything it needs to carry on the work of Jesus here on earth.

THE GIFTS TO US OF OUR KING

The people of Jesus' day— at least most of them— missed the point of why Jesus came, and what it meant that Jesus is King. But what about us? We know better, don't we?
We know that Christ the King can and does forgive sin, and give Gifts of the Spirit. We know that Christ the King has opened the way to heaven and eternity with God. But I am afraid that all too often we are not too different from religious people in Jesus day that wanted to use Him to help them get important things done for them. (We know so much better now that we have 2,000 years of perspective— don't we? )

We want a King who knows the way to heaven, and who promises to forgive our sins past, present and future and who won't interfere with OUR agenda! We want a King who validates OUR ideas of what is right and wrong. We get emotional when we think of our King who was willing to die for us— we don't mind putting crosses in our church and wearing them around our neck.

But what if Jesus asked us to change our life-style, to give up something dear to us? What if Jesus asked us to do something downright distasteful?

(I talked yesterday to Janine Tartaglia Metcalf, who is now living in San Diego. When she first was saved she was an anchor for a major TV outlet in L.A. and she gave it up to follow a call to preach. When she went to her pastor for an assignment he said, "I have some old people that need a hand's on touch!" Janine was thinking of something a bit more glamorous. As she changed bedpans and scrubbed kitchen floors she was wondering? How does this make sense? Then old Mrs. Krutcher told her she needed to "Die out!" Janine began to get a glimpse of the Servant King. It changed her entire spirit. ]

When we are serious about calling Jesus "Lord," making him KING— the cross becomes our way of life! Our KING loves enough to give himself for those he loves, and he dares to ask us to take up his way of love as our own. We enter into Christ's very spirit, that validates what we celebrate this Christ the King Sunday a faith that believes God IS and that God is GOOD as seen in Jesus Christ

(In closing)

As children of the King we have all that we need to follow him and be like him. We are royalty and all the fullness of our King is manifested in his body, the church (Colossians 2:9.) The kingdom is manifested when Christ's people follow their king in spirit, and dare to show the love of God as Jesus did Himself on the cross.

In the 1950's our nation was involved in a war in Korea. Thousands of Americans were killed and wounded in what was supposed to be a United Nations police action. During the height of that conflict the great evangelist Billy Graham went to Korea to minister and preach to the American troops (as well as anyone else he could reach.) We've all seen Billy Graham preach, and have watched the hundreds step forward as God blesses his ministry.

But on this trip Billy Graham went through a military hospital that had been set up there in Korea. He came to one young man who had been wounded in the spine, and who was lying face down on a canvas sling, looking through a hole in the canvas at the floor. Without fanfare, Billy Graham lay down on his back on the floor and slid under that bed so that the two men could look each other in the face.

I happen to believe in Billy Graham. I thank God for his integrity, and his faithfulness to the "Thus says the Lord!" and "The Bible says...!" I believe that Billy Graham has been highly honored as a man of the throngs, a Prince of the Pulpit. But on that cold day in Korea, on his back in that make shift hospital, looking one wounded soldier in the face, Billy Graham showed that he had caught the spirit of our great King.

As the poet has written:

His were the planets and stars in the sky
His were the valleys and mountains so high
His all earth's kingdoms from pole unto pole,
But he became poor, to ransom my soul.

In Christ our King is all God's fullness. You and I are called to that kind of fullness of love!

Prayer

124 All Hail the Power of Jesus' Name (Coronation)