The way up is down.
Fullness is found in emptiness.
Such is the stuff that life in the Spirit is made of.
These seeming contradictions and paradoxes draw us into the mystery of love and the very heart of God.
Today is Christ the King Sunday, the last Sunday of the Christian year, where we celebrate our Lord as King of the Universe, enthroned over the heavens and the earth, enthroned in glory, uncreated light pierces our souls.
And the contradiction quickens our spirit and converts our lives.
For we bow before the king whose crown is made of thorns,
Whose robes are torn skin and new blood
Whose throne is a cross
Whose footstool a Roman spike.
We bow before the King of the Universe, King of Kings, Lord of Lord’s.
Christ the King, a scandal to some, foolishness to others, but to us the very image of God, the very icon of God, the fullness of God in the flesh of a tortured and executed Jew.
In the place of emptiness there is an immensity that can not be measured, the vastness of love poured out upon us, never ending always growing, like a river that swells until the banks are overrun and the world is flooded, not with destruction but life.
That is who our King is, an offense to some, and the hearts desire of others.
A different kind of King.
A different kind of Kingdom.
A different kind of Judgment.
A different kind of comfort and hope.
A different kind of power, a different way of being in the world.
And for those who belong to the King,
the way up is down, and fullness is found in emptiness.
We worship and belong to a servant King, and we are his servant people.
He has freed us from slavery to the power of sin.
He is the liberator, Christ the liberator, freeing us from all that enslaves and diminishes God’s creation, the power of sin overcome and abolished.
The way of love, the way of servant hood are the way of freedom from all that binds and withers our humanity.
In Christ we see the fullness of undiminished humanity, the total freedom of life unbound, and in that fullness, that glory of a human being fully alive we see God.
The power of God, a different kind of power. Not to control or grasp or dominate, or force. That is weakness enslaved to sin. True power has been revealed to be the strength that is known in weakness, to nourish and serve and let go.
We celebrate those who in some way show us the right use of power, power harnessed to serve, power surrendered.
We buried this past week our former governor Robert Evander McNair. While other southern Governors used the integration of public schools as a wedge issue to further their own carriers, much like the politicians today who use the issue of illegal immigration as a wedge issue to further their own cause rather than the good of anyone else.
Governor McNair used his power for the good of our State, and kept the schools open. In political cartoons he was shown propping the school doors open, and integration went much more smoothly here than elsewhere, and along with that came a great deal of new business and investments, but his future career in politics suffered for it.
Using power to serve the poor and persecuted rather than using power to use the poor, that is the difference between God-power and Sin-power, between Christ the King and slavery to sin.
God-power both judges the world and blesses the world that we might be free, that we might have life, that we might have the fullness of God, that we might become fully human.
The way up is down.
Fullness is found in emptiness.
Such is the stuff that life in the Spirit is made of.