Last Sunday of the Church Year – “Christ Comes Again” (Colossians 1:13-20)
[/mp_heading] [/mp_span_inner] [/mp_row_inner] [mp_row_inner] [mp_span_inner col=”12″] [mp_code]Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, amen. The text for the sermon is the Epistle, which was read earlier.
The day has arrived when we flip the calendar. Another year has ended, another year is set to begin. I don’t mean a calendar year, but a Church Year. The sun has set and yet it has risen again. Looking at the words of St. Paul, we get a glimpse of what has and what is to come: “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”
All around, we see darkness. The darkness that we see is not a physical darkness, but a spiritual darkness. This spiritual darkness has great power, both over our lives and in this created world. The darkness can seem very powerful at times, almost as if it controls and reigns over us. We know that there really is a king of darkness, and he is very powerful. But for as powerful as Satan is, there is One who is even more powerful than he: Jesus Christ.
Our text from Colossians is a fitting text for the close of a Church Year because it speaks of what has come and what will come on account of Jesus Christ. Darkness has been overcome and we have the forgiveness of sins. That is a promise that has been made and a promise that has been kept. A new King, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, is now reigning over heaven and earth, and all authority of darkness has been broken.
All too often, the darkness of this world seems to be strong, as if it might seem as if there is no end to it. That is because this truly is a “domain of darkness.” Satan, the prince of darkness, revels in deception, temptation, and fear; in other words, sin. These sinful actions strive in the darkness because they originate from darkness. We were very once very much a part of that kingdom because our sin cast us out from the kingdom of light, Christ’s heavenly kingdom. Even now, we still feel the effects of that dark domain in our lives. We face the separation of God. The temptations and deceptions that we face in this world are just what Satan wants to happen. The pull of sin causes discouragement and despair in our lives, ever reminding us that we cannot live up to the expectations as those created by God. We despair that we cannot do enough to earn our salvation. We know that this is not the way that God intended things to be. Something must be done to bridge the gap between God and man. That’s where Jesus comes in.
God has rescued you and placed you under the authority of His Son. God has delivered you from the authority of darkness and transferred you to the reign of His Son. This happened because an event in history happened: redemption by the death of Jesus, God’s beloved Son. Jesus’ death on the cross paid for all our sins and bought us back from darkness. The redemption price was sufficient; the rescue was complete because of who Jesus is.
Paul gives to the Church a wonderful definition of who Jesus Christ is in our text. “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.” If you want to know what God is like, God’s image has been given to us in Christ, for we were created in the image of God. However, through man’s sin, that image was lost. There would be no way for mankind to restore such an image. The sole way for that image to be restored was through Jesus. It is truly miraculous that we are here at all. Why is this such a miracle? Precisely because we are sinners.
Christ is nothing short of our King, as Paul describes Him. He is the one who created everything there is, including you and me. He’s the one who sustains our lives and sustains the world in which we live. He creates earthly thrones and powers, and He holds the authority to rule over all things. That is how He overcomes this domain of darkness, with the light of His glory, “the light that shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”
Listen to these words of Paul again: “For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.” On the cross, we see Christ ruling as only He can rule. On the cross, we see His love, His compassion, His humility in action, reconciling us to God our Father, forgiving our rebellion and making our peace. On the cross, we see Christ shedding His own blood, and promising us that holiness will flow through our veins for eternity in heaven.
What a wonderful joy to see how this all worked out, from start to finish. God created the heavens and the earth, including His greatest creation, mankind. Mankind is created in the image of God to be holy and perfect. Through Lucifer’s rebellion, a new variable enters creation and mankind is exposed to it: sin. This new variable destroys the relation between Creator and creation, separating us from God. As horrific as that sounds, and it truly is horrific, God saw fit to implement a way to restore creation to the Creator. He made a promise to Satan, one that would not or could not be broken, regardless of how hard Satan tried to break it.
The promise is fulfilled when Christ our Lord comes to earth in an unglorious fashion. He is born to lowly parents in a manger, nothing more than a feeding trough. He grows in stature and makes His way to a hill called Golgotha where He gives His life on a cross for the sins of the people: for the thief on the cross who asked for Jesus to remember him in His kingdom. He gives His life for those who curse His name. He gives His life for your sins. Christ gave His life so that we, His Church, might have life. He continues to give us, His Church, life by His Holy Word, in which He tells us both Law and Gospel, His Holy Absolution, with which He declares our sins forgiven, and His Holy Supper, through which He gives us His sin-purging and faith-strengthening body and blood.
As the Church’s Head, He rose from the dead as the first to do so. His return in glory is the day that we too will rise again. Christ did exactly what God had promised in the Garden so long ago. He did this to restore creation to its rightful place as God’s beloved creation. We are no longer under the condemnation, the danger, the fear of our sin. God has rescued us and redeemed us by the blood of the Lamb. One day, Christ will indeed come again to take us with Him. Until then, we continue to wait in eager expectation for His coming in all of His glory, both in His nativity and again on the last day. In Jesus’ name, amen. Now the peace of God that passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds through faith in Christ Jesus, amen.
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