Oak Chapel United Methodist Church

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    We say it every Sunday: that, after Christ rose from the dead on the third day, "he ascended into heaven and sitteth at the right hand of God…."  But it doesn't always register.  The enormous implications of that claim escape us as we rattle off the creed -- too much to take in, I know.  So, once each year, we have Christ the King Sunday (last Sunday before Advent), and that helps us focus on Christ at God's right hand, the post-resurrection, post-ascension Christ.  Christ the King in heaven.

    And here modern men and women, rooted as we are in science, become spiritually squeamish.  I mean we have not much trouble believing stories about the baby Jesus, or stories about that humble carpenter from Nazareth who went about teaching and healing.  We might even fancy that, by some miracle, this misguided, unfortunate man rose from the grave and appeared to his followers.  But when we start talking about his ascending into heaven, in full view of his disciples, and ruling the world from there, our faith bridles.  But, without that understanding, what would the story of Jesus be?  A story of failure.  A story of high hopes dashed and dreams shattered.  Even with Jesus risen from the dead.  So what!  That was a long time ago.  How does it affect me?  Only if Christ is still alive can I find hope in his story.

    St. Paul is sometimes criticized for not focusing enough on the life and teachings of Jesus, but becoming, instead, "entangled in theology."  But to say that misses the point.  For Paul, Christ was not past history; he was present power.  Paul knew the stories of Jesus, for heaven's sake.  Even as he wrote, these stories were being passed on in the church as precious traditions, and would soon be written down in what we call Gospels.
 But Paul wants to talk about Christ the King., the exalted Christ, the Christ who is head of the church, the Alpha and Omega Christ.  He writes to the Ephesians, in our morning's lesson, that God "raised Christ from the dead and seated him in the place of honor at God's right hand in heaven, far, far above any other king or ruler or dictator or leader…and God has put all things under his feet."

    When Abraham Lincoln died, Secretary of War Stanton, who had been kneeling by the bed, rose , lowered the window shade to block the bright morning sun, and said, "Now he belongs to the ages."  Paul might have said that same thing about the earthly Jesus: he belongs to the ages.  The curtain had fallen on the first act, which included the whole history of Israel, and God's sending Jesus, his life, and tragic death.  Act II was also over.  That included Jesus' resurrection, his appearances, and his ascension into heaven.  Now the curtain had risen on Act III: Christ's heavenly rule.  And the power of that magnificent kingship was already manifesting itself in miracles all over the earth.  That act (Act III)  was taking place even as Paul played his part in it, and would continue until Act IV when Christ the Heavenly King would return in glory to judge "the quick and the dead."  Act I was powerful but, in the end, disturbing.  Will all God's work with the people of Israel end with a good man crucified?  We cannot stop there.  Act II, the resurrection, was full of hope and wonder, shattering our preconceived ideas about what's alive and what's dead.  But the story of God's desire to save us, and his power to do so, still wasn't over.  It continues right down to the present.  We are living in Act III, the age of the Holy Spirit.  We could learn a lesson here from our Pentecostal friends, and we would be richer for it: that the amazing power of God did not cease yesterday.  That the Holy Spirit is available to us, as much today as in the days of old.  We can only spend so much time talking about what God has done before we have to ask, "What is he doing now?"  If we don't understand that Christ rules today, and will rule forever, won't we be lost in despair?   Where will hope come from?
 Listen to what Paul writes to Ephesus, "I hope that your hearts will be flooded with light so that you can see something of the future he has called you to share."  That's hope, isn't it?  The opposite of depression.  Believing in a good future.  Looking ahead not back.  That's what we're doing with this building program, isn't it?  Expressing our hope in the future.  Not an empty hope, but one rooted in our faith.  Because Christ our King is in charge!
        Because He lives, I can face tomorrow.
        Because He lives, all fear is gone;
        Because I know He holds the future,
        And life is worth the living, just because He lives.

And again Paul writes, "I pray that you will begin to understand how incredibly great his power is to help those who believe in him."  More hope.  We are not alone, not powerless.  We have an amazing source of power on our side, a power that comes to us from God through Christ.  A power that we first saw in the resurrection (Act II), and which we are now experiencing (in Act III), and which we will see most clearly and dramatically in Act IV, when the King comes.
 Did you notice that Paul makes the resurrection of Jesus the "hinge of history?"  It is in Easter, he says, that we see the power of God, and therefore it is from Easter that we derive our hope.  We are the Easter people.  It was there, in Joseph's lovely garden, that God's victory, and our victory through him, began. When Lord Nelson wrote his official report about his defeat of the French fleet in the Battle of the Nile, he said "victory" was not a big enough word to describe what had taken place.  Paul struggled with another inadequate word when he tried to describe our victory in the resurrection.  He didn't want to say simply that we are conquerors.  That word just wasn't big enough.  (The world had seen a thousand "conquerors" come and go.)  Our victory through the resurrection of Christ was infinitely more than that, but there was no word big enough, so Paul said "we are more than conquerors" through him who loved us.
 The Russian word for Sunday means "day of resurrection."  Through the seventy years of communist rule, the Godless leaders of Russia, whenever they wanted to refer to the first day of the week, had to say, "the day of resurrection."  It never failed to amuse the people.  It was also a reminder of the source of their hope, that "though the wrong seems oft so strong, God is the ruler yet.  This is my Father's world; why should my heart be sad?  The Lord is King, let the heavens ring!  God reigns; let the earth be glad!