On this day in the liturgical calendar, we celebrate Christ the King Sunday. It is the last Sunday of the church year. (Next Sunday, the first Sunday of Advent, begins the 2012-13 church year.)
Christ the King Sunday is particularly meaningful for me this year. Perhaps this is because of the recency of the Kingdom Focus project (with Metro West Church of the Nazarene), which focused on Scripture passages that discuss the kingdom of God, Jesus as King, His power, His reign, and His rule.
Since October I have been mindful of a particular passage from the Old Testament, First Samuel 5, where the Philistines capture the ark of God and place it next to a statue of Dagon. Dagon was the Philistines' god, commonly represented by the image of a man from the torso up and the image of a fish from the torso down. It was their god of grain and fish-- a representation of sustenance, multiplication, and abundance in land and sea.
In the First Samuel 5 passage the presence and power of God destroys the statue of Dagon, decapitating it and severing its hands. It is a message from the Sovereign God to the Philistines then, and to us now: we dare not give any person or thing "equal footing" with God. He says to the Philistines and to us, I alone sit as King over all. Though you created this statue of Dagon and ascribed it worth, its head cannot think and its hands cannot act. It is I who am Lord of grain and fish and all else.
As a parallel, the book of Isaiah well captures the theme of God as our exclusive source of all things good. In chapter 42, the first several verses speak of the characteristics of the coming Messiah. But then, in verse 8, God says: "I am Yahweh! That is My name. And My glory I will not give to another, nor my praise to idols." In the New Testament, we see in Jesus's high priestly prayer (John 17:1-5) that He is one who shares in the glory of the Father-- an evidence that Jesus is Yahweh, Reigning King of Glory. Indeed He and the Father are one.
I hope this permits us to see, in a whole new light, the significance of Jesus's multiplication of loaves and fishes recorded on two separate occasions in the New Testament (see Mark 6:30-44 and 8:1-8). It was more than just two free meals. It was a reminder from the King: I am still Lord of grain and fish and all else. I am the One who sustains you. Don't set your devotion on anyone or anything else but Me.
On this Christ the King Sunday, let us be extremely careful to devote our corporate worship to Jesus and to Him alone. The ark of God cannot and will not tolerate being combined with other "sources" of sustenance. We are called to exclusivity. Let us avoid the spirit of Dagon. We carry God's Presence, bearing the burden and weight of His glory, so that we might be changed from glory to glory.
But whenever a person turns [in repentance] to the Lord, the veil is stripped off and taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty (emancipation from bondage, freedom). And all of us, as with unveiled face, [because we] continued to behold [in the Word of God] as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are constantly being transfigured into His very own image in ever increasing splendor and from one degree of glory to another; [for this comes] from the Lord [Who is] the Spirit. (Second Corinthians 3:16-18, the Amplified Bible)
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