Defeated Powers

On this, the last Sunday in the liturgical year, we celebrate one of the most outrageous, and at the same time essential, affirmations of the Christian faith. We celebrate the "kingship" – or if you prefer, the "reign" of Christ. In our hymns and prayers and affirmations we ascribe the most extraordinary titles to Jesus.

We call him "Lord" -- the one in charge, who deserves to be obeyed. We call him "King" – not an elected leader who relies on our votes to stay in power but a sovereign Monarch to whom we owe our ultimate allegiance. We call him, "the head of the body, the church." We call him "the firstborn from the dead." We call him "King of Kings and Lord of Lords." We call him the "alpha and the omega," the beginning and the end.

We stretch language to its breaking point, piling metaphor upon metaphor, image upon image. Perhaps the most sweeping claim of all comes from that glorious passage in Colossians which we just read. "He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together." Jesus Christ is the glue that holds the cosmos together.

The church arrived at this language through the experience of knowing Jesus – knowing him before his death and knowing him after his resurrection. To know the crucified and risen Christ, we believe, is to know the one who has defeated "the powers and principalities of this world."

That’s language from the first century, but it’s easy enough to understand. Before Christ came upon the scene, humanity was ruled by these "powers and principalities" – these invisible forces far beyond anybody’s control. Before Christ, the best anyone could do was to curry favor with these unseen powers and principalities, and hope that they would play along.

If you went to sea, you were at the mercy of Neptune. If you were fighting a war, you had better sacrifice to Mars, the god of war. If you wanted successes in love, you needed the blessing of the goddess Venus. The principalities and powers were never far away. "They were behind or above every event in the visible world and controlled the destinies of humanity" (William Willimon).

William Willimon suggests that we modern people also put great stock in the "powers and principalities." We just call them by different names. If things go wrong, we are told "the economy" is to blame. Ever seen "the economy?" Of course not. It’s one of those invisible powers that controls our destiny. And how about "market forces?" They can work all sorts of mischief, but what exactly are they?" They are as illusive as the members of any ancient pantheon.

And don’t forget "global terror" and "security." Surely these are "powers and principalities of this world." They can make us forget who we are what we stand for.

Just last week candidates for the presidency of the United States were asked, in effect, if they would bend the knee to the deity named "security." There was a time when candidates for that office would fall over themselves defending the Constitution against that dark force. That was before 9/11, Abu Ghraib, and "extraordinary renditions." Now even candidates for the nation’s highest office have to admit that they are putty in the hands of the powers.

We Christians have to be careful when we talk about the "powers and principalities." It’s not that creation is divided between two opposing armies – the powers and principalities on one side and God on the other. To fall into that way of thinking would be to succumb to an ancient heresy (Manichaeism). The world is not divided into the good part that belongs to God and the bad part that belongs to the powers. No, the faith makes an even bolder claim: the powers and principalities have already been defeated. They’re whipped. Vanquished. Kaput. Jesus Christ reigns over them now.

Be thankful, Paul writes to the Colossians, that God "has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us to into the kingdom of his beloved Son." Humanity has been re-assigned, Paul contends. The entire cosmos is under new management. The powers and principalities don’t call the shots anymore.

The way Paul saw it, we humans gave up our God-ordained responsibility to manage the world under God’s authority. We gave the world over to the powers, who were all to happy to take charge. That’s the kind of thing that happens, Paul says, when we loose sight of God. When we become obsessed with sexuality, Venus quite happily takes charge. When we put our trust in weaponry, Mars is glad to oblige. When we conduct business just for money without regard for the welfare of our neighbors, mammon takes over and tries to run our lives.

But Jesus took on the powers and principalities. He showed us how to be human in a way that honors God and puts the powers in the back seat.

The powers didn’t like Jesus’ way of living. The powers said, "Live and die for the almighty dollar." Jesus said, "You cannot serve God and mammon." The powers said, "Amass all the weaponry you can, and your guns will make you secure." Jesus said, "Whoever lives by the sword will perish by the sword." The powers said, "Caesar is Lord." Jesus proclaimed the kingdom of God.

The powers did their best -- which is to say their worst -- to defeat Jesus and everything he stood for. They arrested him and tried him in a kangaroo court. They mocked and humiliated him. They stripped him naked and hung him on a cross, and they put a sign above his head that mocked his claim to kingship. They celebrated their victory over him and reminded us that nobody beats the system, least of all a would-be king from Nazareth.

You tell us that you still have power over us, but we know better. You tell us that you can’t fight the system, that you have to go along to get along, that things have always been this way, and will never change. Get a gun. Get a fat bank account. Stop your ears to cries for justice. You can’t win.

But the gospel knows better. Christ has already won. We are living between D-Day and VE-Day. The decisive battle has already been fought. The rest is a mopping-up operation. You and I have been liberated – transferred to the jurisdiction of Christ the King. In the words of William Willimon, "There is now only one power we are to obey, in life and death, in life beyond death. That power has a human face, a face once crowned with thorns."

What is it, do you suppose, that kept Desmund Tutu and other Christians in South Africa from giving up the struggle against apartheid? It was the knowledge that the powers and principalities have already been defeated. What fuels our struggle for justice today? Is it not the confidence that Jesus Christ is Lord?

Who keeps you and me from giving in to the temptation to measure our lives by the size of our bank accounts? Who rescues us from the relentless pressure to turn Christmas into an orgy of self-indulgence and conspicuous consumption? Surely it’s Christ the King. The powers tell us that we must buy, buy, buy. To honor whom? Certainly not the child born to be King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

Every time we pray the prayer King Jesus taught us -- every time we pray "thy kingdom come," we say to the powers and principalities, "You don’t rule the world. You have already been defeated. The bloody cross which you thought was proof of your hegemony has in fact become your downfall."

Every time we bow our heads to give thanks for a meal, we are making a political statement that the food we eat is a gift of God, not the sole achievement of some economic system.

Every time we come to this Table to eat the bread and drink the wine offered by the living Christ, we take part in his victory banquet over the powers and principalities. This is Christ’s inauguration feast as King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

And when we leave this place of worship, we leave not as victims of the system, not as cogs in a wheel, not as subjects to the powers, but as citizens in Christ’s commonwealth and royal ambassadors of his dominion.

As sure as Christ is alive, the day will come when every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. That’s not a threat. It’s a promise. It’s the promise that the Triune God is working out God’s loving purpose for you and me and all of creation. God’s sovereign grace will have the final word.

Toward that end we have all been enlisted, and in that hope we live to the glory of God.