Readings John 1 43-51 and Revelation 5, 1-10
Who’s in charge?
Who rules the world?
Is it the governments?
Is it the armies?
Is it the financiers and the markets?
No, it is the Risen Christ.
Who’s in charge?
Who rules over your life?
Is it your parents?
Is it your spouse?
Is it your children, your boss, your workforce, your colleagues?
Is it your teachers, your neighbours, your bank?
No, it is the Risen Christ.
He reigns; he is the Lion and the Lamb (at the same time apparently, a careful reading of Revelation 5 will show us). He is the lamb that was slain in the Exodus and on the cross, and the Lion of Judah, the King of God’s people, the head of the Church, his bride.
Now, all of that is what the Bible teaches us; if when he walked the earth Jesus could see into the heart of humble and faithful (yet apparently prejudiced) men like Philip and Nathaniel, he can quite easily see into our hearts, and in most of us he will see I suspect a tendency to doubt. A tendency to watch the news and read the papers about Gaza, about Zimbabwe, about children neglected dying in this country let alone in Palestine through lack of care, knife wounds and gunshots, to think about divorce rates, financial rates and heart rates, and conclude that God doesn’t care, that he isn’t here (or these) and that we – you and I – don’t matter.
Now we might not consciously be thinking that. Of course we are here because we are Christians, and it is not my intention to disparage your faith; quite the opposite, I wish to build it up, and to do so by reminding us all that in spite of everything, in spite of how we feel, or how our circumstances or the circumstances of the world are changing, Jesus reigns. I can say that as someone whose wife has been off work for nearly six months with a mystery illness. I’m not saying it’s easy, or even that it’s meant to be easy.
I’m just saying, he reigns.
He reigns because “all authority in heaven and on earth” has been given to him.
He reigns because he was enthroned – upon the cross he was lifted high, and declared a King. When he rose from the dead and ascended he brought the physical to the spiritual realm, as the first fruits of the new creation his is a physical body in a heavenly realm.
His triumph over death enables him to open the scroll in the right hand of God, and in the act of taking it from God’s hand, he attracts the worship of heavenly and earthly creatures. Those are the actions and status of a King.
He reigns because his death and resurrection brought in his Kingdom, peopled from every nation tribe and language.
And that includes you and me.
In his commentary on Revelation, Robert wall says,
“The community of faith represents God’s rule on earth as an alternative to the world order and its evil powers and principalities. “
That’s what it means when Revelation tells us that “they” – that is the kingdom of priests to serve our God – “will reign on the earth”.
Does that mean that one day the world will be run by a bunch of vicars?
I hope not!
Of course these are the priesthood of all believers, and before we all go power crazy at the thought of reigning over the world, lets just remember that for St John the Divine, who experienced these visions of heaven, the priests of the kingdom have a primary function – to serve God – and a secondary status as part of the kingdom community that reigns, yes, but only with the authority that Christ has, nothing of our own.
And the Kingdom’s essential purpose this side of the new creation is to provide, as we’ve just read, an alternative to the world order and its evil powers.
An alternative way of reigning, by serving and an alternative way of winning, by dying.
By the way, reference to “the world order and it’s evil powers” does not mean that this sermon is going to turn into one of those political rants that I have been a little bit prone to recently, although I do defy anyone to tell me that evil principalities and powers are not involved in what’s going on between Israel and the Palestinians right now – no matter whose side you’re on, its evil.
Now Nathanial didn’t know very much about Jesus, if anything, but somehow he was able to discern that Jesus is the Son of God, the King of Israel. The “greater things than that”, which Jesus promised that day, are for the time of the church, the time we live in today. That’s exciting, isn’t it?
It is, and even though often we are working on the basis that our default setting as Christians should be “we are not worthy”, the worthiness of Jesus, the Lamb who was slain, means that we have a worthiness, a worth, in God’s sight; we will reign with him.
That means we are important in his sight, we have a value for God, and so also for each other.
If the discussions of Psalm 139 at your homegroup this week were anything like ours you will have had some pretty honest sharing, but you will have also perhaps dwelt on the importance of the church family, on the joy of fellowship and the blessing of receiving support and encouragement form each other.
Because sometimes it is a tough thing to think God goes everywhere with us – as Erasmus once said (except he said it in German, and Carl Jung had it on his wall in German) “Bidden or unbidden, God is present”.
This is not always a pleasant thought, because we don’t always like where we are or who we are inside.
But God’s plan for us is that we will reign with him; he wouldn’t have planned that if there was a means test for the kingdom based on how sorted we can get ourselves.
Because that’s the best of it, he is with us all the time because he wants to be, because he longs to transform us and make us the people we were meant to be.
There could be a thousand different things in your life that you love, and a thousand that you wish would just go away or shrivel up; God loves you because of and in spite of all of these, and he wants by his Spirit to free us form the burdens we carry.
The Holy Spirit reigns; we don’t talk about that much, we mostly think of Jesus and the Father reigning but if the Spirit didn’t reign I wouldn’t be here today, nor would I ever conduct a wedding of non-Christians or baptise a child.
The lamb upon the throne of God is a heavenly scene; the Spirit’s reign is among the kingdom of priests upon the earth; the church invisible that transcends the human institutions.
It is this reign that we submit ourselves to by assenting to God’s will, because the Spirit will not invade your borders uninvited, or blast you with rockets you don’t want, but if you want to be a citizen of heaven, a priest of the Kingdom, the Spirit of God is there for you to work God’s transformation so that you and I can daily be renewed and become ever more Christ like, in growing to be the people God wants us to be.
So let’s just remind ourselves,
Who’s in charge?
Who rules the world?
Is it the governments?
Is it the armies?
Is it the financiers and the markets?
No, it is the Risen Christ.
Who’s in charge?
Who rules over your life?
Is it your parents?
Is it your spouse?
Is it your children, your boss, your workforce, your colleagues?
Is it your teachers, your neighbours, your bank?
No, it is the Risen Christ.
