November 21, 2004
By Jack Price

Are you ready for Christmas?  It’s only thirty-four more days?  If you’re not ready, at least do you know what you need to be ready?  And if you’re thinking that what you need, the most important thing, to get ready to celebrate Christmas includes decorations and stuff you buy at the store, let me suggest you think again.  In fact, now is exactly the time to think about Christmas so that, when we get there, we’ll be able to celebrate richly.

            In its not always infinite wisdom, the Christian church has established this last Sunday before beginning of Advent (the season leading to Christmas) as Christ the King Sunday.  It may seem strange to emphasize the “king” image for Jesus in this day and age.  King is so old fashioned. 

There are not many kings around today, but kings were really important in the time of the Bible.  The “king” image was rich with meaning then, especially as it was  reinterpreted and applied to God and then to Jesus.  This image might actually have meaning for us today, maybe even more than you think.  In the spirit of that possibility, I invite you to be aware of the language of kingship in today’s scripture reading from the Epistle to the Colossians.

An epistle is simply a sermon in the form of a letter.  Paul tended to write actual letters to particular congregations, usually in response to an expressed need or concern.  It’s not clear who wrote this epistle to the Christians in Colossae.  Chances are it was not Paul, though his influence is clearly seen on the author.

There are a lot of “king” images in this passage that apply to Jesus.  The writer speaks of his “glorious power” and of “the kingdom of [God’s] beloved Son”.  This Son “is the image of the invisible God” and “the firstborn of all creation”.  In the Son “all things in heaven and on earth were created.”  The Son “is before all things and the head of the body, the church”.  The Son holds “first place in everything,” and in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.”

The author of Colossians uses the familiar and powerful image of king to emphasize the importance and uniqueness of the risen Christ.  He uses it to convey a  divine aspect to the risen Christ who has become not quite God, but extremely powerful and Godlike.  In that day, the image of king always involved the power of military might.  A king consolidated and unified territory by force of arms.  King represented the highest in human power.  More important, kings in that day were cloaked in a mythology of divinity.  The language of kingship imputes to Jesus the status of divinity.

So, as we prepare for Christmas, we had better get ready to hear lots of king language.  Maybe we can have some fun with it.  First question, how many carols, hymns, or songs can you think of containing the word “king”?  Next, how many words can you think of that rhyme with king?  (sing, ring, bring, thing, cling, and ding-a-ling?). 

“King” language is important this time of year partly because there are so many beloved Christmas carols with “king” in them and partly because lots of really good words rhyme with “king”.  It’s also a really familiar word in church, and so it’s become part of the tradition.  The most important reason the use of king language, however, is that it speak a transcendent image for Jesus.

The New Testament outside the gospels pays virtually no attention to the humanity of Jesus beyond an occasion mention in Acts of Jesus’ brothers.  The focus is all on the post-Easter Jesus whom we call the “risen Christ,” the abiding presence, and the Holy Spirit. 

Paul sets this tone at the very beginning of Romans when, in Romans 1:4 he says that Jesus is declared to be the “Son of God according to the spirit of holiness by resurrection from the dead.  Before the Gospels were ever written, Christians worshipped the risen Christ.  They had experienced the Spirit’s presence in their own lives.  For them, the risen Christ was divine.  They did not consider him to be the same as God, though later Christian doctrine failed to make this distinction.  The New Testament church worshipped Jesus as the image of a God who could not be seen and as the Son of God (not genetically but relationally).  They worshipped him as the door to God and the pathway to God -- not God, but one in relationship with God. 

This image of Jesus was and is vital to Christian faith.  We live in a long line of Christians whose faith commitment involves more than following a compelling and charismatic teacher or philosopher.  We are worshipers of God whose nature is revealed in the teaching of Jesus and in the living of Jesus.  We follow after those who experienced his actual presence and believe that we, too, still experience that living presence.  The crux of our faith is the Christ Spirit linking eternity with this dimension of time and space in which we live.

            God connects with people most clearly through the post-Easter Jesus – Jesus who lives today in oneness with God and who lives within the hearts and minds of all people.  This is the New Testament Jesus.  This is also the Jesus of Advent and Christmas, of prophecies and birth narratives.  This is the Messiah who is King of kings and Lord of lords, who reigns forever and ever.

But that’s not all we need to get ready for Christmas – to get ready for life.  The early church recognized the need for Gospels.  These are not biographies, and their purpose is to proclaim Jesus as the Son of God, but they are grounded in his historical life.  They emphasize that Jesus of Nazareth was a real flesh and blood person, fully human in every way.  Jesus, the man, was not in any way, shape, or form a king.  His birth was often considered scandalous.  His itinerant career can be characterized as a failure.  His death by crucifixion was one of shame. 

Christian theology often describes the paradox of Jesus’ nature this way:  as much man as if he were not God at all and as much God as if he were not human at all.   The balance of human and divine in Jesus, with which we are familiar in Christian doctrine, in truth, often out of balance.  We follow Jesus not because of his human life, but because after his death his tangible presence lived in his followers.  Today, in some mysterious way, he lives in us.  This is the grounding of Christian faith.  At the same time, writer Scott Peck reminds us (A Different Drum) of the vital importance of embracing Jesus’ humanity:

The majority of American Christians have had enough catechism or confirmation classes to know the paradoxical Christian doctrine that Jesus is both human and divine….  They then put 99.5% of their money on his divinity and 0.5% on his humanity.  It is a most comfortable disproportion.  It puts Jesus way up there in the clouds, seated at the right hand of the Father, in all his glory, 99.5% divine, and it leaves us way down here on earth scratching out a very ordinary existence according to worldly rules, 99.5% human.  Because that gulf is so great, American Christians are not seriously encouraged to attempt to bridge it.  When Jesus said all those things about being the way and that we are to take up our cross and follow him, and that we were to be like him and might even do greater things than he did, he couldn’t possibly have been serious, could he?  I mean, he was divine, and we’re just human.  So it is, through the large-scale ignoring of Jesus’ very real humanity, that we are allowed to worship him in name without the obligation of following in his footsteps.

So, are you ready for Christmas?  To be ready does not mean understanding fully the mystery of divinity and humanity in Jesus.  No theologian has ever been able to claim that understanding.  Being ready means recognizing that Christmas points to the Jesus of Easter and beyond, to the glorified Christ whom we worship with carols and homage at Bethlehem’s manger.  This King of kings salvation brings, and angels sing, while loving hearts enthrone him.

The Jesus of history, however, points at us and says, “follow me”.  Brothers and sister, come, let us follow.  Through the trial and toil of our own experience, we shall discover who he is. 

Jesus, our humble brother and our king eternal, guide us to be the image of the invisible God in the lives of our sisters and brothers.  Lead us to discover that image deep within ourselves.  Help us to find the courage to follow you and be that image for another person.  Help us to cultivate the faith to follow you and become be peacemakers, reconciling earth to heaven by bringing people together.  Help us to choose to love so that we will follow you and bring peace to the world by finding peace in our own lives.  Amen.