New Vocabulary: Ubiquitous

Christ the King Sunday

Psalm 100

Ephesians 1:15-23

One of our favorite books to read when our kids were little was The Three Little Pigs.  But it’s not the familiar version of the story.  This version veers in unexpected directions.

At the beginning, you assume you’re just reading the regular old little three pigs story.  But then something peculiar happens.  The pigs in the story don’t like being trapped in the story, getting eaten by the wolf every time someone reads the story. And so they decide to leave.  They just walk right off the pages of the story.

 

They tear out pages of the book in which they were featured as characters, and they fold them into paper airplanes and sail away.  There are a couple of pages in the middle of the book that just pictures the three pigs whooshing through the air on paper airplanes.  And if you’re thinking, “Pigs couldn’t ride on paper airplanes," you’re missing the point!

They discover that there are other books and other stories.  And they come across a story about a fierce dragon who lives atop a mountain guarding a golden rose, a dragon who is to be slain by the King’s son.  And so they climb inside the story and befriend the dragon.

They warn the dragon that his life is in imminent danger.  So the three pigs and the dragon walk out of the pages of that story.  They wander around and have some fun.  And then they decide to go back home with their new friend the fierce dragon.  They walk back into the pages of their original story.  And this time, when the wolf comes huffing and puffing to blow their house down, the dragon is there in waiting and scares the bejesus out of the wolf, who never bothers them again!

On this last Sunday of our year – Christ the King we call it – I’d like to remind you that the character of Jesus Christ has walked off the page and is alive and in our midst.  Everything we do together – our praying, singing, serving, learning – is meant to teach us to look for the presence of the risen Christ in our lives.  And our calendar with its holy seasons is meant to do the same thing.

The whole year finds its completion and fullness on this special day, in Jesus Christ, our King.  This day reminds us that every week is about Christ the King.  That every year is about Christ the King. 

One of the reasons we mark time as a church is that this is one important way we come to know our Lord Jesus Christ “better” (Eph. 1:17).  By living through the holy seasons, we deepen our own baptisms.  This is why we note on the worship bulletins the day of the year.  Last week it said, 23^rd Sunday after Pentecost.  Today it says “Christ the King Sunday.”  Next week it will read, “First Sunday of Advent.”  This is why the liturgical colors change as a visual cue at the front of the sanctuary: green last week for Pentecost Season, white today for Christ the King, and purple beginning next week.

The reason we do all this is the same reason Mr. Miagi teaches Daniel-son to block karate punches by painting a wall and waxing a car.  Do you remember those scenes from the Karate Kid?  Daniel just wants to learn to fight and defend himself.  But he can’t understand why the wise old expert Mr. Miagi assigns him random chores.  He makes him paint a fence, and then wax a car, with very specific instructions about the arm movements.  Then when the official karate instruction begins, Daniel realizes that the arm movements that have become second-nature and instinctive are the essential practices of becoming great at karate.

The same thing is happening to all of us through the church year.  At some point we wake up and realize, “Hey, I’m getting the hang of this thing.  I’m starting to figure out what this is all about!”  One of the reasons we follow the liturgy through the holy seasons of the year is that this ancient practice is training us to become aware of the living Christ in our lives. 

I want to walk us through the seasons of the year, so you get a sense of how it’s all designed to foster awareness of the living Christ at the center of our lives.

We begin our year in Advent – waiting for the arrival of God in our midst.  Advent is full of longing, desiring, waiting, watching.   During Advent we’re doing two things: we’re honoring the first coming of Jesus Christ as a child and we’re anticipating his second coming when all things take their rightful place under his gracious rule.  This season marks time by helping us explore how to live together in the time between the two arrivals, when Christ is King but not yet everything has been ordered under his authority.

Then following the four Sundays of Advent come the holy days of Christmas and Epiphany.  Now we’re no longer anticipating the arrival.  We’re celebrating it.  Christ has entered the world and filled it with light.  And because Christ has come to visit us, our ordinary lives are no longer places of exile.  Our sleep, work, meals, obligations and friendships have become places where we meet God.  We rejoice that our world has been invaded by the merciful presence of God.  We live in wonder that this light shines in a way available to all peoples everywhere.

Several weeks of Epiphany season lead us to the holiest of time on our calendar – the Season of Lent.  Fat Tuesday is the festive revelry when we’re called to love God by eating pancakes.  That celebration precedes the more austere time of fasting and repentance of Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent.  On Ash Wednesday we receive ashes on our foreheads as a sign of repentance.  During this season we walk with Jesus towards his suffering and his cross on Good Friday.  We don’t simply remember that Jesus once suffered and died.  We willingly receive the suffering and death that is part of our lives now as people called to follow our Lord Jesus in everything.  We too willingly enter the pain of a world estranged from God – our pain, the pain of our neighbors, the pain of the world.

Only by living through the somber days of Lent can we truly come to Easter, the celebration of God’s raising of Jesus from the dead.  During the weeks of Easter, we celebrate together with hope.  We turn from our sadness and disappointments and cynicism to recognize that all is not lost.  By blessing the Crucified One, God comes in blessing to all the crucified places of the world, and all the crucified people, and all the crucified and painful places in our own lives.  We look back to that profound event called resurrection.  But we don’t simply look back.  We look around us at a world decisively changed, saturated and permeated by the power of the risen Christ.

After Easter comes Pentecost, the holy day marking the pouring out of God’s Spirit from heaven on all God’s people.  Christ ascends to a place of honor at God’s right hand.  That’s what our Ephesians reading addresses today.  This isn’t literal language about “where Christ went.”  It’s poetic language about the power and status of the risen Christ.  This risen, exalted, powerful Christ pours out the Spirit upon us.  And during this season of Pentecost we become who we are.  We deepen our baptisms.  We settle down into our identities as Christ’s followers.  We try on these “Pentecostal clothes,” these new Spirit-powered identities, all through summer and fall until a new season of Advent comes around again.

Our church building is a vast space with many closets and corners rarely entered.  We experience our own lives in a similar way, with some territory familiar, but other spaces rarely visited.  And yet the living Christ fills all the spaces of our lives.  Christ gladly indwells those places too tender with grief, or too scary and overwhelming even for us. There is no part of the universe where the risen Christ does not dwell as King.  All the places in the world, and all the different places of your life, have been filled with light.

There are no people you meet who are not filled with the risen Christ.  The parable of the sheep and the goats in Matthew 25 teaches us that Christ visits us in every face we meet.  Every child who needs affection.  Every addict who needs support.  Every prisoner whose way seems lost.  Every person living with a disability.  Everyone who feels left out or lonely, hurt or grieving.  In the face of every person who has become your “enemy.”  There, in all those faces, the risen Christ appears to us.

When I was in college, my brother and I snorkeled in John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park six miles East of Key Largo.  In the gift shop we noticed t-shirts with a statue of Jesus with arms outstretched, and it read “Christ of the Abyss.”  When we entered the water I was distracted by all the jellyfish.  And by not choking to death when the waves crested over my snorkel.   But we swam past a coral ridge and the ocean floor dropped away to about 25 feet in depth.  And there on the bottom is a bronze statue of Christ with his arms raised in blessing.  “Christ of the Abyss.”  The statue is actually from a mould of the original that is in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of the Italian Riviera.

That’s always the first image that comes to mind when I read Psalm 139:  O Lord, “Where can I go from your Spirit?  Where can I flee from your presence?  If I go up to the heavens, you are there.  If I make my bed in the depths, you are there.” 

Wait, I almost forgot our vocabulary.  The word ubiquitous means “everywhere” or “in all places.”

The risen Christ is king, above and below you, behind and in front of you, everywhere and always the one who loves you and blesses you.  Amen.