AfterWords | Christ the King and the World’s Truest Story

Christ the King Sunday, the final Lord’s Day of each liturgical calendar, invites us to remember the story we are invited into over the long stretch of the year. In keeping with our community’s journey through the Sermon on the Mount, may we hear Jesus remind us of God’s big enough story afresh.

In the beginning,
a divine community of overflowing love
spilled over into the creation of the heavens and the earth.

And may you hear Jesus say:

You have heard it said
that the most original thing about you
is your sin,
your fall,
but I say to you, that your origin—your true origin—
is that in the image of God you were made.

You are not fundamentally depraved,
you are fundamentally delighted in.

God looked over all he created and said,
It is good.

And yes, sin’s force shatters the shalom
that God intended for our world,
and we all have participated in that shattering.
At the end of the day, we are all still trying to eat from the wrong tree.

The consequences of this are real and far-reaching—
broken hearts and broken homes,
broken neighbors and broken systems that break the world.

And yes, someone is going to need to absorb the blow,
to take all that pain
and pass only peace.

Fallen one, Jesus says, you have heard it said
that you are naked and guilty
and should live ashamed of what you have done,
but I say to you,
come to me.
Don’t hide.
Bear no weight beyond the weight of my well-fitting yoke.
Fear not, little flock,
it is still my good pleasure to give you the kingdom.
And by the time the Story is done,
I will have made all things new.

See, I’m preparing a promised place for you,
a Canaanland on the other side of all this escalating enslavement.
And I’m preparing you, yourselves, to be that promised place
and you, yourselves, to be my promised people:
chosen that you might choose others, too,
blessed that you might be a belovedness word in the wilderness world.

You have heard it said
that the way into the promised land
is to conquer and subdue your enemies,
but I say love them.
For in my Father’s house, there are many rooms,
and never-shut gates,
and plenty of promised pasture for any who desire to come.

Still, I know that it’s hard to come to me in faith;
you are more inclined to hide from me in fear.

Because you have heard it said
that God can’t keep company with sin,
that God must stay separate to stay holy.
But I say to you:
I am looking for you under your fig leaves,
I am running to you down your dusty roads.
I am being born into your moonlit stables —
because I will not give up on my Story.

So if sin must enter my good world,
then let it come into my own good body.
Here it is, broken, given for you.
And if death is the last enemy,
then I’ll die to defeat it –
a lamb slain,
but on Sunday, standing up again.

My death and resurrection and ascension
will become the world’s truest Story.
It’s how I fulfill the Torah:
I have inseparably connected the good life
to the cruciform way of the cross.

So I ask you to let go of your anger
and offer forgiveness
because that is what I have done.
I ask you to forego vengeance on your enemies
because that is the example I have set for you.
I ask you to scramble the system
until it is surprisingly reconciled
because that’s the way I do it.
I ask you to make peace
because that’s how you imitate your Father in heaven.

And imitating your Father in heaven
was the point
right from the start;
it’s why I crafted you in my image in the first place.

There is a deeper righteousness,
—a doing right by God and others—
I am inviting you into.

It’s not what you’ve been told—
not exterior facades,
but interior formation and interior fulfillment.

I don’t want your holy war dogmatism;
I want your humble dependence.

I don’t want your outward show of piety;
I want your inward heart of purity,
for the pure in heart will see God.

And if you could just see me,
what you’ll see is a perfect picture of the otherwise invisible God.

I will unveil God to you,
and, what you see will transfigure all your smaller stories—
the perfectionism, the materialism,
the fearful control, the neurotic shame,
the contemptuous anger and consuming obsession,
the stubborn pride, the manipulative self-serving,
the desperate clinging to earthly power. 

My Story outshines those other stories,
and you will find yourself learning to pray,
‘your kingdom come, your will be done,
here in this place,
just like it is in the heavens.’

My kingdom of the heavens has already started
filling up this earth, you know.

The day that I ascended, I was not abdicating my reign,
I was inaugurating it.
Ascension wasn’t my departure,
it was my coronation –
as I rise, so, too, let all things rise.  

For you have heard it said,
‘when Jesus was alive,’ or ‘when Jesus walked this earth,’
but I say to you,
I am alive right now in you,
walking this earth with and in and through you.

Yes, my body was lifted up,
but my Spirit was sent down
so you would be empowered to be my body
still present in the world,
and not just as a metaphor—I mean it—
you are my body now,
I’m reigning from within you. *

The kingdom that comes is a kingdom of priests,
and you’re the priests.

So be born into the world like I was,
go forgive sins,
go speak truth,
go spread Communion tables,
and pass peace.

And though it may feel like a really, long ordinary time,
I will advent into your world again
to recreate in overflowing love anew,
and bring my story to its telos—
not the end of all things,
the ends of all things.

So, God’s own Spirit,
invites us, God’s own bride,
to say, maranatha.
Amen, come Lord Jesus.