Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14
Revelation 1:4b-8
A lot of the time these days, I don’t really feel in control of my life. Some of it is just what comes with being a parent – keeping up with soccer schedules, extracurricular activities, and just making sure that family stuff happens. The family Google calendar tells me where to go, what to do, and when to do it, and I just follow along. And, of course, when one of the kids gets sick, even the calendar gets overruled, and we have to drop everything – especially now, since that might mean entering the school’s covid protocols. None of this is bad – when I step back and think about it, I’m thankful for it, honestly, the ability to have kids, and to care for their needs, is something that not everyone gets to do. But, also, sometimes, it’s exhausting.
So, there’s that stuff. And there’s the normal stuff that comes with marriage – when you live with someone, especially when you’ve promised to unite your life with that person – as we say during the wedding service, when two people become one flesh, when their two lives are bound together into one new thing – anyway, when you share your life with someone in that way, that means that neither of you gets what you want all the time. Marriage is supposed to be defined by mutual submission, mutual service – in a healthy marriage, if my goal is to give myself away and to put my spouse’s needs first, and if my spouse is doing the same thing – neither one of us being in charge, both of us prioritizing the needs of our partner – well, that’s a recipe for mutuality and love and a thriving healthy relationship. And, also, it means that I don’t always get my way – and, of course, neither does my wife. And that is beautiful and wonderful – and, if you ask me, it’s Christ-like, it’s a way that God is teaching me to be more like Jesus, more like I was always supposed to be – if Jesus can die out of love for me, I can learn to mop the floor and do things my wife likes for her. Anyway, it is all good and beautiful, but also, it means that I’m not fully in charge of my own life, I’m not the boss of me.
But, it’s more than that stuff these days. These days, I feel out of control for other, less beautiful, more painful reasons. There’s a pandemic that just keeps going – and keeps upending our lives. Every time we think we’ve turned the corner, something else happens, and we discover that we aren’t quite out of the woods yet. It seems like that may change soon – but, for the last 20 months, we’ve all been in this state of – well, it feels like we are constantly on the defensive, having to adjust to yet another change, yet another curveball, yet another disruption. I know that, as a pastor, one of the things I hear constantly from my colleagues – from other pastors – is that they just feel beaten down by it. Whatever they do in their churches, it seems, is wrong. If their mask policy is too restrictive, people get mad. If their mask policy is not restrictive enough, people get mad. Their way of returning to in-person worship is invariably going to upset someone – and, the thing is, what’s really happening is that all of us are just so tired, we are just so worn thin, we are just so frustrated and beaten down by the last 20 months and ready for things to not be this way anymore – and, so, we are taking it out on each other. And that means that some church members are taking it out on their churches, and their pastors. Now, I’ve been pretty blessed, and I haven’t really experienced that here at Haymarket Church – but, at the same time, every plan I make, every idea I have, every initiative the Leadership Team wants to try, we always have to ask, "OK, but how does Covid impact this?" Just figuring out worship times and what to do for Christmas Eve has been like solving an advanced calculus problem – so many variables. So much uncertainty. It feels like there’s a force outside our control that is dictating what we can do and what we can’t do, like there are factors that we really can’t change – and also that we sometimes can’t even know – that will do what they will do, and we can’t really do anything about it.
Because, of course, that is exactly what’s happening. It’s what’s happening to all of us these days. Just figuring out how to do family get-togethers, if you need a mask for the grocery store, how to navigate school and work and all of that – covid has made even routine things, things that used to be easy – it’s turned the little things, the habitual things, into places of stress, has turned easy decisions into hard decisions, and that is exhausting. It is wearing us all down. We are all tired. So, let me just say: we are all tired. I see your exhaustion, and God sees your exhaustion – and your frustration and whatever else you’re feeling – and you are not alone in it, and it’s OK to feel that way. And, more to my point today, right now, there is SO MUCH stuff outside of our control that is radically impacting our lives, and there’s nothing we can do about it. But, here’s the thing – that’s always what’s happening. The pandemic may have accelerated it, or magnified it, but it’s always what’s happening. That’s what being a human being is – to be a human being is to be a limited actor – we have choice, we have control over some things, but we are not gods, we are not all-powerful. Even the most powerful people – whether that’s political leaders or the super-wealthy – even they are limited, have many things that are outside their control. In fact, that’s the great idolatry of the rich, of the powerful – and of those who wish to be rich or powerful. We think that, at a certain point, we will have enough control, enough power, so that we can do whatever we want, so that no one can hurt us. But that’s not how it works. Look at the so-called great empires of history – from Persia to Rome to England and even America – too often, these empires have come to think that they are synonymous with goodness, that they can do nothing wrong, that their interests are somehow holy, that they are somehow God’s chosen instrument on earth – or maybe they don’t even make it about God or the gods, maybe it’s just about themselves and their power – and all of that is idolatry. We think that if we could just control enough – enough of what’s going on in the world, enough of the people, enough of the money – if we could just have enough power, then we would be OK. But, that’s not how it works. As human beings, we are never fully in control. Maybe sometimes we have more control and other times we have less control – and maybe part of what makes this season so hard is that, right now, it feels like we have way less control than we usually do.
Our lives, you see, are always in service to something. Maybe it’s our calendar. Maybe it’s a political party or a charismatic leader. Maybe it’s our own selfishness, greed, desire for power. Maybe it’s money. Or prestige. Maybe it’s our liquor cabinet, or some other addiction. Maybe it’s fear. Maybe it’s security. Maybe it’s hatred of those who are different. Maybe it’s the need to look like we are succeeding, to look like we have it all together. Maybe it’s trying to make our kids successful. Some of those things are good – in moderation, when put in their proper place – and some of them really are not OK at all. But all of them are out there, trying to control us. There are many aspiring lords, many powers angling for control, many would-be kings, queens, monarchs of our life.
Today is Christ the King Sunday. Today, the last Sunday before we begin the season of Advent – that season when we prepare ourselves for the entrance of Jesus into our world, when we get ready to celebrate the birth of Jesus– this last Sunday before Advent each year, we pause to celebrate, to remember, that the baby who was born on Christmas did not stay a baby, that what we’re about to celebrate isn’t all about cute hallmark card nativity scenes and adorable shepherds and that “holy infant so tender and mild.” The baby born in the manger is also the man who was crucified on the cross – crucified because he challenged the powers-that-be. The child praised by angel choirs is also the man denounced by the crowd, a crowd that cried out for him to be crucified. The child worshiped by shepherds is also the man who the religious and political elite had put to death. And, most of all, today we remember that the humble infant – and the humble carpenter from Nazareth – that man of humility, the one who identified with the sick, and the lowly, and the outcast, and the left out – that man is also the King of the Universe, the one who reigns at God the Father’s right hand, the ultimate power and authority.
Today is a reminder that all of the things that control our lives – whether because we pursue them, because we let them control our lives, or simply because we have no choice in the matter – all those things that control our lives will eventually fade away. Power and money and success will eventually fade away. Family will eventually leave us. Our calendars will eventually fail us. Our addictions cannot sustain us. Empires and nations – even America – will all eventually be tossed into the dustbin of history. Even this interminable covid pandemic will eventually – and, in the grand scheme of things, it will be pretty soon, even though it certainly doesn’t seem that way now – even the covid pandemic will, eventually, not be a major factor in shaping our day-to-day lives, how our institutions work, the decisions we make. All these things will fade away.
There is only one Lord who will never fade. There is only one force that is truly moving the universe, and that force, that person, will never give up on us. Many of those other forces – political parties, nations, empires, money, success, power, security – many of those things lie to us, tell us that they can save us, but they can’t. Only the God of Jesus Christ – the God who liberated Israel from Egypt and raised Jesus Christ from the dead – only that God, only our God, only Jesus is truly in control, is truly Lord. The kingdom, the power, of Jesus Christ, is the truth, and everything else is a pretender to the throne.
And, here’s the thing – God’s power, Christ’s power – it doesn’t look like many of the things that control our lives – it’s more like how I described a healthy marriage earlier than anything else that I’ve talked about so far. Because, Jesus Christ is not a king who sits on a golden throne bossing us around from on high. God is not some old white man sitting on top of a mountain throwing lightning bolts. That’s Zeus – not the God of Israel, not the God of Jesus Christ – and we don’t believe in Zeus. Our God became one of us, became poor, was born to frightened teenagers, born into poverty, lived among the outcast and rejected, had no place to lay his head, ate with sinners and those who were despised. Our God was rejected in order that we might be accepted. Our God was put to death in order that we might receive life. Our King does not rule the universe from a golden throne – our king rules the universe from a wooden cross. The one who made the wind and the waves, the one who brings stars and galaxies into being, the one who moves the heavens, the one who is existence itself – our God does not wield power like a bully – which means that we, as God’s people, are called to deny abusive power, to deny bullying, to reject any leader who would aspire to or practice abusive, manipulative control; we are called to practice a leadership that looks like the cross, that looks like love, that looks like serving rather than being served, caring for others rather than getting our own way – because, God, in Jesus Christ, shows us what a true King, what a true Lord, what true power is. True power takes the form of weakness. True power is willing to sacrifice itself for the good of the other – even for the good of our enemies.
Here’s the truth: we aren’t in control. We were never in control. We can control some things, we can have little spaces of control within our lives – but, ultimately, there are forces beyond us – forces that deeply impact us, that shape the world. And all of those powers – the ones we choose to serve, the ones we allow to shape our lives, and the ones that impact our lives whether we like it or not – all of them are pretenders to the throne, all of them are fleeting, none of them are the ultimate power in the universe. In the end, there is only one King. There is only one Lord. The true King chose gave away everything for the sake of her children. The true Lord is the man who was crucified so that we might live. Real power looks like sacrifice. Real leadership looks like love. The one who’s truly in control is the baby born in the manger.
God is in control. Jesus Christ is Lord. Love – love that looks like a cross – is the law of the universe, is the power that moves our lives. Even when it doesn’t seem like it. Even when we can’t see it. Even when we can’t feel it. Jesus Christ is Lord. And that means no one else gets to be. Thanks be to God.
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