1 Corinthians 15:20-28 Pastor Nathan P. Kassulke
Last Sunday of End Times: Christ the King Sunday, November 22, 2020 “Our Victorious King”
Today is, as you have heard, the last Sunday of End Times, which also means that it is the last Sunday of our Church Year. That Sunday is also called Christ the King Sunday. If you didn’t know that as our service started, or you were given the Scripture lessons from today’s service without that context, I wonder whether you might figure it out. Our First lesson talked a lot about shepherds. Maybe that sounds to you more like Good Shepherd Sunday, a few weeks after Easter each year. Speaking of Easter, maybe our Second Lesson reminded you of that festival. “Christ has been raised from the dead,” it proclaimed, and it comes from the great resurrection chapter of the Bible, 1 Corinthians 15. And the Gospel, well, it talked about Jesus being ridiculed and mocked, spit upon, and ultimately being taken away to be killed. That doesn’t sound like a king. That’s not how we expect kings to be treated. In fact, throughout history, most kings were so powerful that they would never tolerate behavior even close to that. But this king did. He was powerful enough that he didn’t have to. He could have put an end to the soldier’s behavior whenever he wanted to. But he didn’t. He allowed them to spit and to mock. In all three of those readings, there is only one time that the word “king” is actually used, and it comes when the soldiers are using it to make fun of the man in front of them. Even though they didn’t realize it, that man was and is a king. Even though they didn’t know it, he is and he was the single most important and most powerful king ever. We know it. We realize it. We’re going to focus mostly on the Second Lesson from 1 Corinthians as we talk about the king in our sermon today, but both of the other lessons are going to help us understand our king better as well. So, no, our First Lesson did not use the word “king.” It used the word, “shepherd.” If you read the little margin note in the worship folder next to that reading, you learned or were reminded that God often referred to the kings of his Old Testament people as shepherds. King David was in fact a shepherd before he became king. Good kings did shepherd God’s people and lead them in the ways that were safe and beneficial. Bad kings, and God’s people had many of them, led the sheep into danger and destruction and ultimately caused the scattering of God’s flock. And so God promised a great King David, a shepherd to truly lead his people in the best way possible. And he kept his promise by sending his own Son, Jesus Christ. And Jesus repeatedly taught and emphasized that his kingdom was a different sort of kingdom. It wasn’t so much about making sure that God’s people had power or prestige, or that they were safe in their homeland or free from their enemies. Christ’s work was not focused primarily on this world. It was preparing for a new and perfect and better world. The Roman soldiers didn’t understand that, so it became a joke to them, this “king of the Jews.” The Jewish leaders didn’t understand it, so they were the ones who handed Jesus over to the Romans. Most people didn’t understand it, and so only a few people truly mourned when Jesus died and was placed in a tomb. And then the true king showed his true power. He didn’t stay in the tomb. He didn’t stay dead. He rose to life again by his power and the power of his heavenly Father. And when anyone doubted it or thought it was too good to be true, Christ’s own apostle Paul would remind them as he does in 1 Corinthians 15:20, “But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead.” When it may have looked as though Christ’s enemies had won, when it seemed that the King had failed, he showed that he had not. He was alive again. He is alive. Yes, this is revisiting Easter. We should do that every Sunday. We should do that every day. This is our victorious king. He lives to make us alive. Not only is he alive. He is the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep in him. You see, Jesus came as King not only for the sake of this life. If that was it, all that there was to his coming and his work, it might benefit us for a number of years, some more some less. It might be useful to us for
seventy-some or eighty-some years, perhaps for some of us even 100 or a few more. But that’s it. That’s all the time we get in this life. That’s the time that we have before old age ushers in the end of our lives if disease or illness or accident or tragedy hasn’t done it before then. It’s true of every one of us from the time of Adam on. In Adam, in that first sin and in sin affecting the first man and woman God had created, sin has infected and affected all of us. No one can escape being born in sin, and each and every one of us has sinned in the way that we think and speak and act. And as a result, every one of us will die. But Jesus broke the cycle. His life was perfect. His death was innocent. His holy, precious blood paid the price for every single human being ever. He sacrificed himself—remember, he had the power to stop it. He sacrificed himself so that our sins could be dealt with and taken away. And because our sins have been taken away, death has no power over us. Just as Jesus rose from the dead, so will we who believe in him as our Lord and our Savior, our King. He is the firstfruits, the first part of the harvest that was brought in and was offered up to God. That firstfruits offering in the Old Testament indicated the confidence that God’s people had that he would allow them to bring in the rest of the harvest. Just so with the resurrection from the dead. Jesus first, but it is guaranteed that the rest of the harvest will come in. We will live with him even though we die. And that says something about how we ought to live. It says that our focus should not be on the unimportant things, the temporary things, like how money we can accumulate, how nice a car we can drive, how lovely a house we can live in with a perfectly manicured yard around it. Our focus should not be on how many people look up to us or how much influence we have at work. Oh, but too often it is. Too often our focus is on any of those things or all of those things and not on the things that really matter, like repentance for our sins, like living thankful lives in obedience to God’s commands, like sharing the good news of a Savior, a King who has conquered death. And our lives should not be lived in fear of death, but with confidence that our King has overcome death. Our King still reigns to bring us safely to his side. He still uses his power and his might and his love for us to make sure that nothing separates us, that nothing gets in the way of his plans and his purpose for us. Christ the King Sunday still invites us to look ahead to the Last Day, the day when Jesus will return in power and glory, when he will return to judge. That is the day when Jesus will raise to life all those who have fallen asleep in him. That is the day that what is real and true right now, that Jesus has defeated death forever, becomes obvious and is demonstrated fully and completely. That is when everyone who died believing in Jesus will escape the bonds of death forever. God assures us that while death is the final enemy to be defeated in this way, it is not the only enemy or threat. Our verses tell us that Jesus will have “done away with every other ruler and every other authority and power.” In other words, he is a King without equal. He is a King above any other authority or power. And that is true right now as certainly as it will be demonstrated on the Last Day when he will have completed every work the Father had entrusted to him. As one commentator correctly states it, “When the last chapter of human history has been written, he [Jesus] will offer to his heavenly Father the trophies of his victory and the spoils of his triumph. Every enemy, even that last great enemy, death, will have been overcome and put under his feet. With his mission accomplished, his victory won, the Son will turn over his kingdom to his Father and will reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit eternally.” So, dear Christian, do not fear any other power or authority. Do not fall into the trap of Satan when he says that your well-being, your safety, and your security is dependent on a doctor or a politician or a family member or a circumstance or a situation. Instead, trust in the King who humbled himself to the point of ridicule and death because of his love for you and who rose from death victorious. This is the message of every Church Year as it invites us to remember the events of the life of Jesus Christ. This is the message that we cling to on the final Sunday of the Church Year. Jesus Christ is our victorious King. He lives to make us alive, and he reigns to bring us safely to his side. He is our King forever.
The Text: 1 Corinthians 15:20–28 But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. 21 For since death came by a man, the resurrection of the dead also is going to come by a man. 22 For as in Adam they all die, so also in Christ they all will be made alive. 23 But each in his own order: Christ as the firstfruits and then Christ’s people, at his coming. 24 Then comes the end, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father, after he has done away with every other ruler and every other authority and power. 25 For he must reign “until he has put all his enemies under his feet.” 26 Death is the last enemy to be done away with. 27 Certainly, “he has put all things in subjection under his feet.” Now when it says that all things have been put in subjection, obviously that does not include the one who subjected all things to him. 28 But when all things have been subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to the one who subjected all things to him, in order that God may be all in all.