Rev. Dr. Rebecca L. Kiser
Nov 24, 2019 Christ the King Col 1:11-20
You all
have probably realized that I really like FaceBook and the internet. I know I’m 65 and supposed to be too old to
“get it.” I know I’m a Boomer, too, and I’ve heard the jokes about “OK, Boomer”
as if I’m virtually irrelevant to 2020. Too bad! I’ve especially liked Google, where I can ask
just about anything, and find 200,000 articles that answer in some way. Of course I also know to use places that are
trustworthy. I also like being able to
pick my phone up and say, “Hey Siri, find directions to GreenStar Market” and
let the computer look things up for me.
So I was
looking around what the internet offered about Jesus Christ for this day’s
sermon, and came across a question in a site named Quora that asked this:
(SLIDE) (Where did the Christ surname
originate? Was that Mary’s name?)
I almost
laughed, that someone knew so little about Christianity and Jesus that they
would ask this. Then I stopped and said
to myself, “Well, more and more people know very little about Christianity except
the weird stuff that makes the news.”
Its an opportunity to share what we know about Jesus, and why the title
“Christ” has become a part of how we refer to Jesus.
(SLIDE) (meme
- Christ isn’t Jesus’ last name).
No, Christ isn’t Jesus’ last name. Jesus’ name, before we Latinized its
pronunciation, was Yeshua, or Joshua, which means “Savior” in Hebrew. In Hebrew custom, he was probably identified
by his parentage, so he would be Yeshua bar Yoseph, or Joshua son of Joseph. Or he may have been known by his profession,
like many older countries did, maybe Jesus Carpenter. Some of the people in the Christian
Scriptures are identified by their city of origin, like Mary of Magdala, or Mary
the Magdalene - so Jesus was sometimes called
‘Jesus of Nazareth.’ (This is from the
Quora site’s answer and other places.)
The earliest followers of Jesus were
fellow Jews of that era, who saw Jesus’ attributes as those they expected the
Messiah to exhibit - the Messiah, or anointed one of God, who would deliver
them. So Jesus’ followers called him Messiah Jesus, or Jesus the Messiah. Jesus the anointed one, anointed by God, as
kings were anointed to their position.
“Messiah” is a title. When our
Scriptures were translated into Greek, the equivalent word for “anointed” was
‘christos’. So Christ is the same title
- Jesus who is the Christ, Jesus the Christ of God, the anointed of God.
So actually, when a person says
“Jesus Christ”, they are awarding Jesus the title, “God’s Anointed One,” which
is the belief of Christianity. When we
use that name and title together, we are making a claim about who Jesus is. We are stating our faith that Jesus is the
one anointed by God as Messiah, Christ.
The historical Jesus was
middle-eastern. (SLIDE – meme of a dark-skinned
Jesus) I know we’re used to seeing
pictures of a white Jesus, so he looks like us white folks. If we had time this morning, I could show
paintings of Jesus in various other cultural guises, too, as artists show Jesus
as like them. That’s interpretation,
which we all do, because no one back in that era was taking pictures! Folks who study skeletons and skulls of the
middle-eastern graves have produced this picture (SLIDE - composite 1st
century Jewish face) that might be what a historical Jesus looked like. In the last few years, experts have tried to
construct what a Hebrew man may have looked like from various sources, and came
up with this as a possible literal look.
Most of the portrayals of Jesus in paintings
are not meant to be literal, though, but to convey or communicate what our Christian
faith believes about who Jesus the Christ is.
(SLIDE - shepherd) For example, this one is from 570 BC, from A
CATACOMB, using the common Greek and
Roman motif of a shepherd with a lamb, and is a reference to Jesus as the Good
Shepherd.
(SLIDE - halo) This one is from a
catacomb from the 4th century, and already shows the halo effect of Jesus’
divinity (or the openness of the 7th and spiritual chakra in Eastern
traditions).
(SLIDE - pantocrater) This one is
from the 6th or 7th century, and from the monastery of St Catherine actually on
Mt. Sinai, now in Egypt. The open right
hand making the sign of the benediction, or blessing, is used to show Jesus as
the Christos, with the power and authority of God, like from the Hebrew names
for God: Sabaot - Lord of all hosts, and El Shaddai, God Almighty. Some think that the 2 sides of this
painting’s face indicate both the human nature and the divine nature combined
in Jesus the Christ.
(SLIDE - on throne) Here’s another
that shows Christ as King, by seating
him on the throne of God.
I’ve tried to find words to explain
the meaning of “Christ the King,” and its difficult. If we let our minds imagine, let’s imagine
that the title “Christ” carries overtones of God’s universal power and
presence; open our minds to imagine Christ as timeless and cosmic; as part of
the One God who is the source & maker of all being, the capital-L Life that
keeps the planets spinning and rotating, and watches the stars from their
births to their imploding deaths.
Imagine Christ as a part of the One God who is the essence, the
“isness,” of all that “is.” Imagine the
wonder, the immensity, the scope, the force inside existence in all its
forms. That’s what the title of Christ
carries. This is mysterious, mystical,
and overwhelming to imagine, for me.
Yet at the same time, we also affirm
God as intimate and as personal to us, as the one born in human flesh,
Jesus. Just at the point when we’re
ready to throw our hands up and say that we will never be able to comprehend
God (which is true), we also have Jesus, who walked in the earth’s dust, grew up
through childhood and teenage years, ate food, had good friends, and suffered a
human, physical death. And we affirm
that God’s Spirit also comes to dwell in our own selves, binding us up in a new
family of God, placing us to live in the new realm of Christ’s reality.
Back in my Boomer day, we’d call
that mind-blowing.
So who is Jesus the Christ to
you? I guess that’s the important
question, after all this talk. Our faith
affirms that God and Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit are all this, all
together. Totally universal, totally in
the macro of the universe and the micro aspects beyond our discoveries about
creation. God has designed all and knits
it all together. God is capital-L Life. God is capital -T Truth. God is capital-P Peace. God is the capital-W Way of living. And yet this God seeks us out, provides for
us to be forgiven and restored in relationship with God, and now lives within
each of us. God’s love is overwhelmingly
large, yet also individually personal.
Jesus Christ died and was raised for the world, and for each of us. Jesus Christ now sets us within the realm or
kingdom or kindom of heaven, and desires that we walk this Jesus path.
Now, next week the Church year
starts over, and we will find ourselves metaphorically preparing ourselves, our
inner selves, for Jesus to be birthed in us and therefore into the world. This is probably my favorite doctrine or
belief, what we call the Incarnation, or Enfleshing, of God.
This week, however, we celebrate all
that Jesus the Christ is, and all that this means in Jesus’ right to tell us
how God created humans to be, how God desires humans to act, and to tell us the
truth about what its like to live in God’s realm, following God’s expectations
and design. As Christ, Jesus tells and shows
us the reality of existence, the world view that comes from God’s self, the
understanding and the context in which we live and move and have our being.
In our civil year here in the US,
this is the week we commemorate some of our nation’s beginnings, with the feast
of Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving gives us a
picture of us as Europeans interacting wisely with the Native peoples of this
country who were already here. Its hard
not to be aware of the native peoples of this land when we’re constantly
driving past places with names like Onondaga Nation, Cayuga and Syracuse,
Ithaca, and more (here in upstate NY)….
we can’t help but be reminded of those who were on this continent before our
ancestors were, and who taught our European ancestors how to survive here. I
wish the rest of our story with the native peoples stayed at that level of
harmony we celebrate at Thanksgiving.
Unfortunately it didn’t, and we still have weeks like this past one,
where unrest and racial discord showed up at our local university. The good will
of Thanksgiving holds a hopeful picture that I hope inspires us. May it be so.
May the reality of God and Christ as
King of all that is be a part of our lives this week, and enrich our
thankfulness as we consider the love and grace God has towards us and all
creation. AMEN.
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