Preaching on Christ the King
This Sunday, the last of the liturgical year, is Christ the king, and comes immediately before Appearance. It is a slightly odd festival, since one of the cardinal themes of Advent is non the anticipation of Christmas, merely the anticipation of Jesus' render equally king; the Latin adventus is a translation of the Greek parousia (1 Thess 2.19, 3.thirteen, four.fifteen, 5.23 and through the NT) which means the coming of the king or emperor to be nowadays in the midst of his people. I recollect the name and timing originates from the fact that the 4 weeks before Advent were previously chosen 'kingdom', but this was changed to 'Weeks before Advent' at some point—but leaving this feast in place.
The readings set up in the lectionary are Daniel 7.ix-10, xiii, 14, Psalm 93, Revelation i.4b-8 and John 18.33-37. The psalm is a relatively straightforward exaltation of God as king in creation, and connects with God'southward sovereignty in creation which is delegated to humanity, male and female, made in his image, created and called to exercise dominion as God'due south vice-regents. The just striking thing about this is that it is Yahweh, Israel's ain god, who is sovereign over the world, and to this extent Israel is making an exclusivist claim in relation to the gods of the nations.
The reading for Daniel is more complex—merely hugely significant for our understanding of Jesus and our reading of the New Testament. Daniel is very much a book of two halves, and later the narrative first half (albeit including visionary dreams within the narrative), it feels in affiliate vii as though nosotros have entered a strange new world. In fact, the ii halves correlate pretty well; the vision of the statue in affiliate 2 is a symbolic representation of 4 human empires, ending with the Romans, all of which are destroyed past the rock 'not cut by human easily (Dan 2.34)' which is the kingdom of the God of heaven (Dan two.44). These four kingdoms (Babylonian, Western farsi, Greek, and Roman) stand for to the iv beasts of Dan 7. (Run across John Goldingay's How to Read the Bible p 113 for a handy nautical chart illustrating this—added here on the correct; click on it to enlarge.) Only as the four-fold statue has been destroyed by the rock, so the iv beasts are stripped of their authority, and ultimately slain, to make mode for the kingdom that is given to the 'one like a son of man' (Dan seven.xiv). (An advisable song to sing this Dominicus might the chorus 'Oh Ancient of Days', whose chorus consists of words taken straight from this passage.)
The dream of Dan 2, miraculously known and interpreted past Daniel, and his vision in the dark of Dan 7 share a fundamental theme. The kingdom of God that is to come is like the kingdoms of this world—information technology has an bear upon on them—simply is besides not similar the kingdoms is this globe, in that its origin is not in the volition of human beings and their animalism for ability, but an expression of the but and righteous rule of God which volition never end. This is rather important for interpreting the reading from John 18. John is distinctive in including this detailed dialogue between Jesus and Pilate. There is no demand to think it was made up past John, since we know that there were followers of Jesus in the various royal households in Jerusalem, and there would certainly have been attendants in the room with Pilate and Jesus who would have heard their chat. And, like other passages in John, it is full of 'reality furnishings'—so much so that is was used verbatim as the script for this scene in Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ.
Just the phrase of Jesus 'My kingdom is not of this world' (John 18.36) is frequently taken to mean that his kingdom is other-worldly, in the sense of being ethereal, or spiritual, and somehow detached from the realities of culture and politics and the nitty-gritty of everyday life. This cannot in fact exist the case; even if John is the 'spiritual gospel', it is also the one most earthed in reality, depicting as it does a Jesus who is hungry and thirsty, lonely and tearful, and broken and bleeding on the cantankerous. And it cannot be the case in the calorie-free of Daniel 2 and 7; 'non of this earth' in John corresponds theologically to 'not made past human hands' in Daniel 2. As Jesus makes clear in the second half of the verse, the 'other-wordly' distinctive about his kingdom is its origin—from the will of his Father in sky. It does have a very existent touch on the human world—equally Pilate is about to discover. In fact, the Greek that Jesus speaks ἡ βασιλεία ἡ ἐμή οὐκ ἔστιν ἐκ τοῦ κόσμου τούτου should exist properly translated 'My kingdom is not from this globe' (TNIV); the mistaken 'of this earth' is some other example where the tradition of the AV is 1 that modernistic translators detect it difficult to overturn, merely it is quite misleading.
(It is too worth noting the interesting pun in the Latin Bible, Jerome's Vulgate, which was the main translation in use until the Reformation. 'What is truth?' in John xviii.38 becomes 'Quid est veritas?' which is an anagram in Latin of 'Est vir qui adept'—'The homo who stands earlier you'.)
Information technology is a shame that the lectionary omits verses 11 and 12 from the Dan 7 reading, since these are the verses which articulate the interaction betwixt the earthly, human kingdoms and the kingdom that has come from God. The reason for the omission is, I suppose, to avoid all the awkward language of beasts and what they mean—only the issue is a sense that the kingdom of God doesn't make contact with globe, and that is quite a high price to pay.
At that place is a second feature of the reading from Daniel is the term 'son of man'. The phrase is used extensively in Ezekiel, where it is God's customary address (93 times) of the prophet, and emphasises his frail bloodshed—hence the mutual English translation 'mortal man'. The phrase also comes in Ps 8.4, traditionally rendered:
What is man that you are mindful of him,
the son of man that you should consider him?
Mod translations turn this into the generalised 'humankind', which retains the significant here, but loses the connexion with other occurrences of the phrase.
The phrase is Jesus' favourite mode of referring to himself, coming as it does 78 times in the gospels (Matthew 28, Marking 14, Luke 25 and John 11 times). At that place has been much scholarly ink spilled in debating the meaning and significance of this term, but Jesus appears to use it with a number of dissimilar senses:
- But as circumlocution for 'I' (Matt 11.19)
- As a reference to his humanity and humility (Matt 8.20)
- Specifically with reference to his being handed over and his crucifixion (Mark viii.31, Matt 20.18)) and his resurrection (Matt 12.forty)
- By contrast, it is also a title related to Jesus' authorisation (Matt 9.half dozen, 12.eight)
This last point is crucial, and has two OT ideas behind information technology. The first comes from the theme of creation and humanity as God's vice-regents which is alluded to in Ps viii. In that sense, Jesus is the Ideal Human, an idea re-expressed by Paul in his linguistic communication of Jesus every bit 'second Adam' (Romans 5.12–17 and 1 Cor xv.45).
But the 2d idea is from our Daniel seven reading—the 1 like a 'son of human' comes to the Ancient of Days on his throne and receives from him an everlasting kingdom and authorization. It is clear from Dan 7.27 that this human effigy stands for the 'holy people of God', that is, Israel ready free from oppression by her enemies (compare Luke ane.71–75!). And yet Jesus takes over this term to claim that he himself has fulfilled the destiny of God's people—Jesus himself is 'recapitulating' the story of State of israel, and where they failed in defiance, he remained obedient. It is the same idea behind some of Matthew's 'fulfilment' verses, such as his apply of Hos 11.i in Matt 2.fifteen, and Jesus' re-employ of Isaiah'south vineyard parable (Is 5.ane–7) in Marking 12.one–nine.
Understanding this is crucial to making sense of the 'little apocalypses' in Matt 24 (which we read in Advent in Yr A) and Mark 13 (which we read last Advent and last calendar week). The 'coming of the Son of Man' (Matt 24.30, Mark 13.26) is not his parousia to world from i Thess 4–5, only his coming (Gk erchomenos) to the Ancient of Days from Dan 7.thirteen. Information technology represents not Jesus' return to world, simply his vindication in the resurrection, exaltation in the ascension, and power of the kingdom shared past the outpouring of the Spirit on his people at Pentecost. And, of course, all this will happen 'before this generation passes abroad' (Matt 24.34, Mark 13.30). (For more detail, including on Stephen's vision of exactly this in Acts 7.56, come across my other posts on Matthew 24 and Mark 13.) It is also worth noting how Matthew in particular ties the thought of 'Son of Man' with Jesus royal, kingly ability; in Matt 25.31 the Son of Man takes his throne, and without further proclamation in Matt 25.34 becomes 'the Rex'.
The reading from Rev 1 picks upwards all these ideas, and (as is typical of Revelation) makes what is largely implicit in the gospels explicit and plainly to see. Unlike God's people, Jesus has remained a faithful witness through trial and temptation. He is the firstborn from the dead—the first of a new kind of humanity. As male monarch he is the ruler of the kings of the earth, so 'rex of kings' (Rev 17.14 and xix.sixteen). He is sovereign over the power of sin, and then is the one able to set the states complimentary from slavery to sin and offer us freedom in the promised land of his grace, by his death. And he has fulfilled God's original intention for his people to exist a kingdom of priests (Ex 19.6). It is shame this reading does non continue on to the end of the affiliate, since the vision of Jesus here combines features of the vision of the Ancient of Days in Dan vii with features of the vision of the angel in Daniel 10. Jesus (John tells us) is both the messenger from God but also the presence of God himself, a paradox that can only be solved past locating it in something like the understanding of God equally Trinity.
All this still leaves u.s.a. with i rather large unanswered question: if the thought of Jesus equally rex is and then important in the NT, how come it rarely surfaces in Paul's writings? When first writing almost this, I was waiting at the airport with an eminent group of NT scholars, so I asked them. Afterwards a brief discussion, the consensus was: 'That's a very good question!' Here are some possible answers.
- For Jews, the idea of expecting a coming male monarch is very specific—it is the hope of a king like David, sitting on his throne and restoring his kingdom. For the gentiles in Paul's audience, this significant wouldn't be present in the aforementioned manner, and so the question does not accept quite the aforementioned significance.
- In the New Testament, the word for 'rex' and 'emperor' are the same word. It is non clear that Paul would have wanted to propose that Jesus was an alternative emperor for the Roman Empire, not least because of the theological relationship between the kingdoms highlighted above.
- Ane of import idea about Jesus equally king is that he brings peace. For a Jewish audience, this involved deliverance from their enemies, just (once more) this idea does not translate in the aforementioned fashion to a Gentile audience.
- The ideas of a male monarch with a kingdom is a political metaphor that doesn't have a particularly potent communal dimension. In Paul, we find the unifying and communal metaphor of God'due south people as the body of Christ.
Having said that, the language of 'kingdom' is non entirely absent from Paul'due south writings; Paul does in fact talk of Jesus 'reigning'. In English, our give-and-take king comes from German 'König' whilst our verb 'reign' comes from the Latin regnum and ultimately from king, rex. In Greek and Hebrew, nevertheless, the noun and verb are 'cognate'—they come up from the aforementioned root. So a male monarch kings, or a reigner reigns, depending on which manner y'all choose to go. For Paul, that Jesus is Lord (rather than Caesar) is the basic Christian confession (Romans 10.9, ane Cor 12.iii), and although his reign is presently subconscious and confined, one day 'every articulatio genus volition bow' (Phil 2.ten, using Isaiah 45.23'southward language of the sole kingship of God) and 'he must reign until all his enemies are put under his feet' (i Cor 14.25). In example yous didn't recall this was of import, the verb 'to reign' comes 7 times in the Book of Revelation!
I hope that gives you enough to preach—mayhap more than than one sermon—on the idea of Christ the King this Sunday. For some other resources:
- Malcolm Guite has written a moving poem on Jesus' crowns of thorns and glory, arising from the language of kingship in Psalm 21 here.
- You might also similar this well-known meditation on Jesus as king edited from a sermon by the Pentecostal Dr Due south Grand Lockridge.
How tin nosotros make sense of what the Bible says about the end of the world? What are we to make of things like end times prophecies, the 'rapture', 'tribulation' and 'millennium'? Are these things of import? Come up and find out at my Zoom education morning on Sabbatum December 4th!
If y'all enjoyed this, do share information technology on social media (Facebook or Twitter) using the buttons on the left. Follow me on Twitter @psephizo. Similar my page on Facebook.
Much of my work is washed on a freelance ground. If you accept valued this postal service, y'all tin can make a unmarried or repeat donation through PayPal:
Comments policy: Expert comments that engage with the content of the post, and share in respectful argue, tin can add existent value. Seek first to sympathize, and then to be understood. Brand the about charitable construal of the views of others and seek to learn from their perspectives. Don't view debate every bit a conflict to win; accost the argument rather than tackling the person.
priesttwoultaidne.blogspot.com
Source: https://www.psephizo.com/biblical-studies/preaching-on-christ-the-king/
Post a Comment for "Preaching on Christ the King"