Proper 29 -- Jeremiah
23:1-6; Psalm 46; Colossians 1:11-20; Luke
23:33-43
A homily by Fr.
Gene Tucker, given at Trinity Church,
Mt.
Vernon, Illinois, on
Sunday, November 24, 2013.
“DIVINE MATH: ONE PLUS ONE
EQUALS ONE”
(Homily text: Colossians 1:11-20)
On this,
the last Sunday after Pentecost, better known as Christ the King Sunday, we
have before us the vision of Christ, the one who is co-eternal with God the
Father, the one, as St. Paul says in today’s
epistle reading, the one through whom all things were made, the one who holds
all things together.
This is the
vision of the cosmic Christ. It is the
vision of God’s great, big picture as the Father sends the Son to show us the
depth of God’s love.
On this
day, we celebrate Christ’s divine nature.
Of course, we also celebrate Jesus, the one who
is fully human, completely like us in every respect (except for sin).
And since
we have the human Jesus and the divine Christ in one Lord Jesus Christ, we can
say that divine math uses the equation:
One Christ plus one Jesus equals one Jesus Christ.
We spend a good part of the Church Year
hearing the accounts of the human Jesus’ teachings. We hear the accounts of His love for those
who followed Him.
But it is a
good and very necessary thing to remember that He is also “God with us”, that
is, Emmanuel.
That’s what
Christ the King Sunday is all about, reminding us that the Christ, the second
person of the Holy Trinity, set aside his status as being co-equal with the
Father to take on our humanity, even to the depths of a death on the cross, as St. Paul tells us in
Philippians 2:5–11.
Because
this second person of the Holy Trinity was willing to be totally obedient, to
show us the depths of God’s love by His agony on the cross, the Father has
highly exalted Him, and has given Him the name that is above every name, that
at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven, and on earth, and under
the earth (again, citing Philippians 2:5–11)
So the old
Church Year that ends today prepares us for the season of Advent, which is just
one week away.
For in the
season of Advent, we will prepare ourselves for the birth of the human Jesus in
a manger in Bethlehem,
an event we commemorate on Christmas day.
But during Advent, we also remind ourselves that this cosmic Christ will
return again someday with power and great glory, establishing His rule as King
over all.
Keeping the
big picture in mind allows us to live faithful Christian lives in the days
which lie before us, as our daily lives unfold.
We are reminded that this life isn’t all that there is, that there is
another reality which awaits us once this life is over. Everyday problems and challenges then take on
a different hue, if we hold God’s great, big plan in our range of vision.
One final
thought is in order here: This great
and wonderful God, that same God who sent His only-begotten Son to love us and
to redeem us, cares enough for absolutely everyone of us to send Jesus Christ
to seek each one of us out, individually. So this wonderful and loving God
wraps us up into the big picture of His plans for the future, one person at a
time as we enter the waters of baptism.
My, we must
be awfully important to a God like that.
Indeed, we are just that immeasurably important.
Thanks be
to God!
AMEN.
