Ephesians 1:15-23, Ezekiel 34:11-16,20-24, Matthew 25:31-46
Today is Christ the King Sunday. The idea of Jesus being a king is one of the images of Jesus as the Messiah, which we explore at this time of year. People at Jesus’ time expected him to rule but didn’t have the idea of the caring shepherd type ruler that Jesus talked about – and this despite knowing the descriptions which Ezekiel and other prophets had given years before. Jesus was the Messiah but his way of ruling confounded the preconceived notions of what a Messiah should be.
Paul, writing to Christians in Ephesians, speaks of how those who have faith in Jesus know God, enjoy the wonderful blessings God promises and have God working in and through their lives. He also says how Christ rules over all other powers and indeed over everyone and everything. Our God is not the kind of king who keeps people at a distance and is suspicious of others trying to replace him. Christ the King knows who he is and the extent of his authority and is very near his subjects, closely involved in our everyday lives.
When Jesus described himself as the Good Shepherd he was using an image with which his hearers were familiar through passages like the one from Ezekiel. God the King is like a shepherd who cares for his people and insists that they are as caring of one another as he is of them.
So Matthew tells us that when Christ returns as King to reign forever he will deal with all people in terms of how they lived like him. For he lived not as a king lording it over his subjects, but as one who serves those in his kingdom.
Clearly, not all people are citizens of God’s kingdom. Who are the citizens of God’s kingdom? They are those who obey the laws of God’s kingdom. As a citizen of new Zealand I am subject to the laws of new Zealand. I may live in another country, in which case I must obey the laws of that country also, but as long as I hold my New Zealand passport I must abide by New Zealand law as applicable. In the same way, we who follow Jesus are citizens of God’s kingdom and follow his rules whichever earthly country we live in. There is generally no law against being the kind of person God wants us to be and doing the good that he expects of his people.
Following Jesus’ example
Many people today need love and care. Jesus always pointed to those in society whom nobody else seemed to care for, like widows, orphans and people with skin diseases. God is always on the side of the weak and the poor. Jesus healed people whom no one else would touch. He ate with people no one else loved. He talked to people whom everyone else ignored. And he wants us to do the same: to care for people whom no one else wants to have anything to do with.
Helping people and loving them, especially people who are different from us, isn’t always easy. Some people are hard to love. Some are hard to serve. Sometimes we just don’t want to do it – it’s too much effort or we don’t have what seems to be needed. But Jesus expects us to love and serve people like he does. Jesus will give us the love and compassion, the desire and the means and we find when we do what he asks that this is fulfilling work. Loving others is part of being a Christian, part of our service to God. Fulfills our mission statement – to grow in Christ and serve him in love. We may not always feel like helping others; this is one of the reasons why God sent his Holy Spirit to fill us with the love, compassion and care that Jesus had. If we ask him to give us this kind of love, he will. If people are hard to serve, remember that serving them is like serving Jesus. We need to imagine it’s him whom we are helping when we help others.
Story: our motive is love for our King
The legend is told of a desert wanderer who found a crystal spring of unsurpassed freshness. The water was so pure he decided to bring some to his king. Barely satisfying his own thirst, he filled a leather bottle with the clear liquid and carried it many days beneath the desert sun before he reached the palace. When he finally laid his offering at the feet of his sovereign, the water had become stale and rank due to the old container in which it had been stored. But the king would not let his faithful subject even imagine that it was unfit for use. He tasted it with expressions of gratitude and delight, and sent away the loyal heart filled with gladness. After he had gone, others sampled it and expressed their surprise that the king had even pretended to enjoy it. “Ah!” said he, “it was not the water I tasted, but the love that prompted the offering.” Many times our service is marked by multiple imperfections, but the Master looks at our motives and says “It is good.”
[This story is found at http://associate.com/library/www.christianlibrary.org/authors/Grady_Scott/makemeservant.htm Copyright 2000 by Grady Scott may be reproduced for non-commercial purposes at no cost to others.]
Conclusion
How striking and frightening is this picture of the Messiah proclaimed king of the whole world? The most striking thing of all is that it is the Messiah, the king, who divides all the people who ever lived. It is the Messiah, the king, who decides which group they belong in. On the right will go those who have welcomed him; and on the left, those who have rejected him. Furthermore, the ones on the right and the ones on the left are equally surprised.
Who will be judged the righteous ones? They are the people who thought that they were unimportant in this life and in this world and who, therefore, did not mind spending time, energy, and money on behalf of other unimportant people.
Who will be the ones on the left? They are the people who thought they were too important to waste their time, energy and money on unimportant people.
What is perhaps most incredible is that the unimportant people are surprised that the king, the Messiah, considers them to be not only important, but the ones with whom God wants to spend eternity. Likewise, it is equally incredible that the self-important people are surprised because God considers them to be so unimportant that they are good for nothing but to be thrown into the fire of eternity, just as in Jesus’ day chaff, or husks and broken straws, were thrown into a fire.
Who among us is now the true Israel?
Who, now, is looking for the Messiah to come as king?
Who among us is burdened and heavy laden?
Who among us truly loves Jesus?
Who among us looks to God alone for relief from distress?
Who among us sees hungry, imprisoned, ill-clad, impoverished, diseased, oppressed people of this earth and is moved to tears?
Who among us waits and waits and waits for the coming of God to put an end to all the misery on earth?
Who among us hopes with an impossible hope, dreams a seemingly impossible dream, that there will come a day of justice and peace and joy that will reign over the whole earth?
Who would follow Jesus right down the roughest road he/she knows?
Who lives in faith and hope and love and expectation for the Messiah King to come to judge the living and the dead?
And who among us still expects to be surprised?
That’s what Jesus says for us to be. He says for us to expect to be surprised, and he says for us to expect to be surprised someday soon.