The Ruler of All Earthly Kings

Grace to you and peace from

him who is and who was and who is to come

and from the seven spirits who are before his throne,

and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead,

and the ruler of the kings of the earth.

(from Rev. 1:4-8)

About 17 years ago I wrote a letter to the people in the United Church of Underhill. The purpose of the letter was to explain I was retiring at the end of the Conference Year.

I felt the time had come for me personally to move on and for the church to grow with a new pastor.

I secured a moving company while the church formed a search committee as we both prepared for the inevitable.

This is the nature of the book of Revelation, as recorded in 1:4: “John, to the seven churches in the province of Asia.”

This is Revelation’s context: it was written for the benefit of particular people at a particular time for their particular situation.

John’s letter narrates a drama about God’s imminent invasion of the “kingdom of this world” (Rev.11:15), to take its reins for God’s and Jesus Christ anointed one.

From beginning to end, John calls his audiences to live with this future invasion in view.

Christ the King Sunday in 2024 arrives just as we recover from another presidential election season.

Some woke up the morning after election day and greeted the results with great relief hoping their candidate will provide temporary salvation for the nation; others woke up sure that the nation was on the road to moral collapse.

Every Christian, however, already had, and continues to have, a king who loves and redeems us from the beginning to the end.

Revelation’s vision is a reminder of this hope in King Jesus.

The Lord's Prediction

“When you hear of wars and rumored wars, 

keep your head and don’t panic. 

This is routine history, and no sign of the end.”

(From Mark 13:1-8)

For five years I worked at a boy’s summer camp as an assistant riding instructor.

I had a great deal of respect for him because he not only taught me about riding and teaching but also drew me into a greater maturity.

I loved him for his teaching and mentoring at a significant time in my life.

In the Spring I learned he would not be returning to camp and there would be a new instructor.

That was a Summer of adjustment and grief.

Two summers later I was asked to be the camp riding instructor.

I knew that would be a great responsibility and wanted to do my best as his protégé.

Without him there, it wasn't easy to recall and practice his teaching.

I would imagine the disciples experienced similar feelings and questions.

Without Jesus there physically with them, what did it mean to follow him?

What, if anything, changed in being a disciple? 

Mark, the Gospel writer, uses the example of the Temple destroyed in the future and doomsday deceivers claiming to be the Messiah.

These doomsday deceivers will spread wild conspiracy theories and try to find the exact time of the destruction.

In this confusion, Mark reminds the disciples to keep their heads and not panic, it’s routine history.

What the disciples are to do is continue Jesus’ teachings stay awake and pray.

It seems to me that the challenge of our chaotic times calls us to keep our heads, not panic, and stay awake and pray.

Elijah's Miracle Meal

"She did as Elijah had told her.

So there was food daily for Elijah the woman and her family.

For the jar of flour was not used up and the jug of oil did not run dry,

in keeping with the word of the Lord spoken by Elijah."

 (from 1 Kings 17:15-16)

Elijah is on a mission to announcing to everyone a coming drought unless God provides rain.

Elijah’s miracle lunch break begins when the Lord tells him to go camp at the Cherith canyon, where the ravens feed him twice daily.

Eventually the canyon's waters evaporate producing a drought.

Go to Zarephath, the Lord tells Elijah, where a woman will feed you.

He goes, meets a woman gathering sticks, and asks her for a bite to eat and a drink of water.

She reacts sarcastically saying, “I have a handful of flour and a little oil; you found me scratching together enough firewood for a last meal for my son and me!”

Elijah answers, “Don’t worry about it. First make me a small biscuit and bring it back. Then make a meal from what’s left for you and your son.”

Elijah declares, “This is the word of the Lord: ‘The jar of flour won’t run out and the bottle of oil won’t empty before God sends rain on the land ending this drought.’”

She did as Elijah asked and it turned out as Elijah said, the jar of meal didn’t run out and the bottle of oil didn’t become empty: God’s promise fulfilled to the letter, exactly as Elijah had delivered it!

The miracle here relies on our capacity for understanding the potential of the miraculous in the stresses of the past few months.

Then, when we recognize a revelation from God in the ordinary stuff of life, doing what we can to build God's Kingdom.

It may be through coffee and donuts rather than flour and oil, but we can trust in a revelation from God.

Two Coins in the Temple

 When the widow put her two in the offering plate, Jesus said:

“Truly this poor widow put more in the treasury. 

All of them have contributed out of their abundance,

 but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, 

all she had to live on.”

Adapted from Mark 12:38-44

Come Stewardship Sunday, one of the most common texts you will hear is Mark 12:41-44 focusing on the widow as a model of sacrificial giving.

It’s one I used often for the same reason; make a sacrificial offering for the ministries of the church.

Another way I used the text was to highlight the difference between God’s ways and our ways.

The scribes paraded around the marketplace in their robes while they “devour widow’s houses” while this poverty-stricken widow gives her last two coins to the temple.

The widow, therefore, is a model disciple because she gave all she had.

There’s a problem here; it doesn’t seem like Jesus to ask a destitute woman to give all she had to God.

Jesus, as a Rabbi, would certainly know the scriptures don’t demand the poor to give everything they have to God.

Jesus would also know the probable reason the woman was destitute was that her husband died leaving her nothing; no adult son for support, no brothers, sisters, mother, father, or fields.

More than that, if the leaders had kept the law and loved God, the widow would not have been poor.

When the destitute widow put her two last coins in the wealthy temple, which hardly needed her coins, the purpose of the temple was called into question.

Jesus’ teaching is asking, when does a temple of God lose its reason to exist?

There are many ways to answer that question in today’s society.

For me, a glaring one is misunderstanding or misusing scripture.

A Day the Lord Gave

This is the day that the Lord has made;

let us rejoice and be glad in it.

Ps.118:24

The beauty of the day is not that it is new, but that we are being made new.

The glory of the day is not that it marks a change, but that we are being changed.

The blessing of the day is not that it is a day off, but that it is the Lord’s Day.

R.C. Sproul Jr.

The day began with my first-ever distressing case of acid reflux.

A call to The Dr. resulted in a prescription for omeprazole (Prilosec) which the pharmacist dispensed along with 2 pages of “instructions, warnings, and in some cases” comments.

Returning home I immediately took a pill, without reading directions, and my body began a disagreeable adjustment to the medication.

A portion of the adjustment was not being able to write last Monday’s “Reflections”, which I enjoy.

It’s Friday, and the Structured Me said it’s time to reflect on the Day the Lord gave.

I have reason to rejoice because in reflecting on the unexpected I came to realize a new experience as a time to look for a Creating God.

And then looking I saw God’s Re-Creation of a new day in the Morning sun on the autumn leaves.

The pause in my thinking as giving time to recognize this on-going re-creation and to give thanks even as I was in a time of confusion and concern.

Thanks be to God for the Day the Lord gave!!!