Reign of Christ - C                                                         

November 25th, AD 2007

Meadowvale Lutheran Church, Mississauga Pastor Peter Lisinski

 

GOD 'S CROWNING ACHIEVMENT

(Luke 23; 233-43)

 

 

The Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School recently presented journalist Bill Moyers with its fourth annual Global Environment Citizen Award.  In his acceptance speech, Mr. Moyers traced the history of Christian fundamentalism's attitude toward environmental protection over the past twenty-five years, and lamented how deeply it has influenced both public opinion and government policy in the U.S.   I quote:

 

“Many people who believe the Bible is literal­ly true -- one third of the population, if a recent Gallup poll is accurate -- feel called to help bring on the end of the world   That's why they morally and financially support more Jewish settlements in the West Bank; it's why they believe war with Islam in the Middle East is not something to be feared, but welcomed and essential for the fulfillment of prophecy; and that environmental destruction is not only to be disregarded but actually encouraged as a sign of the coming apocalypse."

 

Christian fundamentalism -- though not as obviously extreme or overtly violent as the Islamic fundamentalism that inspires suicide bombings and Improvised Explosive Devices" --- seems potentially just as dangerous and destructive.  It distorts the Bible, especially the book of Revelation, and paints a rather bizarre vision of Judgment Day   Here's how Bill Moyers outlined it in his speech:

 

"Once Israel has occupied all its biblical ter­ritory, legions of the antichrist will attack it, triggering a final showdown in the Valley 0f Armageddon.   As the Jews who have not been converted to Christianity are burned, the Messiah will return for the rapture.   The true believers will be lifted out of their clothes and transported to heaven, where they will watch as their political and religious opponents suffer plagues of boils and sores, locusts and frogs during several years of tribulation to follow,

 

The major problem with the fundamentalist scenario is that it interprets the Battle 0f Armageddon as a literal event of a not too distant future, rather than a symbolic event of a not too distant past.  The battle 0f Armageddon is already over.  It was fought and won nearly two thousand years ago.   Luke tells us the story in today's Gospel:


"When they came to the place that is called The Skull, they crucified Jesus..."

 

The place called The Skull -- Golgotha in Hebrew, Calvary in Greek -- is the place the book of Revelation calls Armageddon. At the cross of Jesus Christ all the legions of antichrist -- all the forces of sin, evil and death opposed to God -- assembled to do battle against God 's chosen and anointed Messiah.  And around the cross of Jesus there is no distinction to be made between righteous and unrighteous, true believer and false believer, faithful and infidel

 

Contrary to the tragic distortion of the Gospel which blames the Jewish people for Jesus' death -- a distortion which has been used to justify the vicious anti-Semitism that stretches from Nero's Roman Empire to the gas chambers of Hitler's Third Reich, and which still survives in the "convert-or-burn" destiny of the Jewish people envisioned by Christian fundamentalism -- the Gospel truth claims that the whole human race -- every nation every religion, every people, every person -- is involved in, and res­ponsible for, the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

 

The very forces of sin, evil and death that assembled at the cross to do battle against God, are at work in us, among us, and through us.   But the good news of the Gospel announces that the cross of Jesus Christ is God's crowning achievement   by his death, Jesus has defeated those very forces of sin, evil and death once and for all; and by his resurrection, he has freed us and all of humanity from their lethal grip forever.  Therefore, even though not one of us is innocent of Jesus' death, not one of us is beyond the redemption of his dying prayer:  "Father, for­give them: for they know not what they do."  And even though we all share equally the guilt of his death, we all share equally the promise of his undying love:  "Today you will be with me in paradise”.