Worship Helps for Christ the King
Title: Resurrection of the
Flesh
Artist: Luca Signorelli
This is a very interesting
painting. It is based on St. Paul’s great resurrection chapter in 1 Corinthians
15. The painting is especially founded upon this particular Bible verse: “For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be
raised imperishable, and we will be changed” (1 Corinthians 15:52).
In the painting, two angels are blasting their long
trumpets from the sky. There is action upon the earth. Skeletons are rising
from the ground. Flesh and muscle and sinew are returning to their bodies.
There is laughter and joy at the great reunion of flesh and bones; the great
reunion of body and soul; and the great reunion of God’s saints embracing one
another.
Worship Theme: Lord, keep us joyful
in Christ our King! On this last Sunday of the Church Year, we rejoice in the
fulfillment of God’s plan for our salvation through Christ our King. And we
rejoice because our Christ our King reigns—the king who once came as a
sacrifice; the king who still shepherds us day by day; the king who one day
will conquer all our enemies. Rejoice in his reign and look forward to the day
when every knee will bow with us before the king of kings and lord of Lords!
Prayer of the Day:
Lord Jesus Christ, by your victory you have broken the power
of the evil one. Fill our hearts with joy and peace as we look with hope to
that day when every creature in heaven and earth will acclaim you King of kings
and Lord of lords to your unending praise and glory; for you live and reign
with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
Old Testament: Ezekiel 34:11-16, 23-24
11For this is what the Lord God
says: I myself will seek the welfare of my flock and examine them carefully. 12As
a shepherd examines his flock when he is with his sheep that have been
scattered, so I will examine my flock and rescue them from all the places where
they were scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness. 13I will
bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries and bring
them to their own land. I will shepherd them on the mountains of Israel, in the
valleys, and in all the settlements of the land. 14I will pasture
them in good pasture, and their grazing land will be on the high mountains of
Israel. There they will lie down in good grazing land, and they will pasture on
rich pasture on the mountains of Israel. 15I myself will shepherd my
flock, and I myself will let them lie down, declares the Lord God. 16I will seek the
lost. I will bring back the strays. I will bind up the injured. I will
strengthen the weak. I will destroy the fat and the strong, and I will shepherd
them in justice.
20Therefore, this is what the Lord
God says to them. I myself am going to judge between the fat sheep and the
skinny sheep. 21Because you have shoved them with your side and
shoulder and knocked down all the weak with your horns until you had scattered
them abroad, 22I will save my flock so that they will not become
plunder any more. I will judge between one sheep and another.
23Then I will raise up over them one Shepherd, and he will tend them, my
servant David. He will tend them, and he will be their Shepherd. 24I,
the Lord, will be their God, and
my servant David will be the Prince among them. I, the Lord, have spoken.
1. In the verses that directly precede this lesson, God
rebukes the shepherds, i.e., the kings, leaders and priests of Israel for not
being taking care of his sheep. According to God, our Shepherd-King, how will
he deal with his sheep?
2. These verses
were written hundreds of years after the reign of King David. So, who is this
“servant David” that God would raise up to rule over his people?
Epistle: 1 Corinthians 15:20–28
20But in fact Christ has been raised
from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. 21For
since death came by a man, the resurrection of the dead also is going to come
by a man. 22For as in Adam they all die, so also in Christ they all
will be made alive. 23But each in his own order: Christ as the
firstfruits and then Christ’s people, at his coming. 24Then 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. 25For
he must reign “until he has put all his enemies under his feet.” 26Death
is the last enemy to be done away with. 27Certainly, “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. 28But 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.
3. Explain the comparison between Adam and Christ in these
verses.
4. What does it mean that Christ is the “firstfruits” of
those who have been raised?
5. Evaluate. Verse 28 is telling us that Jesus is somehow
inferior to God the Father.
Gospel: Matthew
27:27–31
27Then the governor’s soldiers took
Jesus into the Praetorium and gathered the whole cohort of soldiers around him.
28They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him. 29They
twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head. They put a staff in
his right hand, knelt in front of him, and mocked him by saying, “Hail, King of
the Jews!” 30They spit on him, took the staff, and hit him
repeatedly on his head.
31After they had mocked him, they
took off the robe and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him away to
crucify him.
6. How did the King of kings show his love for us his
subjects?
7. As we celebrate Christ the King Sunday, how can we be
joyful as we see Jesus dying on a cross as a criminal?
Answers:
1. He promises to seek out and rescue the lost, to gather
his sheep from every nation, to provide for all their needs and to strengthen
them when they are weak.
2. This is a prophecy about the coming Messiah. God had
promised that a descendant of David would rise up to sit on his throne. The
Messiah would be the greatest king in the history of Israel. Jesus, a blood
descendant of King David, is that king. He is King of kings and Lord of lords.
Since the time of David, Israel had called her kings
“shepherds.” The men who followed in David’s line, however, did not shepherd
Israel in the paths of God. So God made a promise: the Sovereign LORD would
shepherd his people. Notice the first person pronouns in this lesson—we rejoice
because we have a King who acts on behalf of his people, like a shepherd for
sheep. God says, “I will guide them; I will guard them; I will seek them; I
will find them.” Most importantly, God promised to raise up King David’s
greater Son to be the prince of his people and their Good Shepherd. Rejoice in
the Christ the King who shepherds his flock day by day!
3. Through Adam and Eve’s sin, all mankind fell and became
subject to death. We are born dead spiritually. We will all face physical death
someday. Because of our sins we all deserve eternal death in hell. But in Jesus
we have been made alive. With his suffering and death, the payment of sin was
made. His resurrection is proof that we too will be raised and will live
forever with him in heaven.
4. If the story of Christ ended on Good Friday, there
could be no joy at all. Had Christ not been raised, we should be pitied more
than all men, as Paul says in the verse immediately preceding this lesson. But
the story didn’t end on Friday—a whole new chapter started on Easter Sunday
morning! Christ has indeed been raised, and that means he is the firstfruits of
the dead. When the Israelites brought the firstfruit offering to the Lord, they
confessed that the whole harvest belonged to God, and they rejoiced at the
greater harvest that was coming. Through the resurrection of Jesus, God
promised that a field full of souls will follow the firstfruits from death to
life. Until then, Christ will reign as king until the Great Day comes when he
reverses everything Adam ruined and destroys every enemy that stands against
the Church. Then our joy will be complete, and God will be all in all. Rejoice
in Christ the King who will conquer all our enemies!
5. Verse 28 is a difficult verse. The Bible states clearly
in many places that Father, Son and Holy Spirit are equal in power, glory and
authority (John 10:30). No one is superior to the other. Jesus however humbled
himself to come to earth and obey the will of his Father (John 14:28). How can
this be? As Professor Carleton Toppe once wrote: “Such is the mystery and wonder
of the Trinity and of the God-man Jesus Christ” (The People’s Bible: 1
Corinthians, p.148).
6. Our King did not come to be served, but to serve and to
give his life as a ransom for many. Jesus showed his love for us in this: that
as King of the universe he allowed himself to be mocked and tortured by a
handful of ignorant unbelieving soldiers. In love, he allowed himself to suffer
the physical agony of the cross. In love, he willing suffered the punishment of
sin in our place. Our King truly deserves our honor, service and praise!
7. Joyful? How can this make us rejoice? The scene would
seem like bad satire if not for its sad reality. Petty little men in a tiny
little fortress bully the One who created light from darkness and divided land
from sea. He deserved the finest crown, but look what man gave! He deserved the
noblest scepter, but look what man handed him! He deserved the sincerest
devotion, but look what man offered! He came to that which was his own, but his
own did not receive him. The King of heaven came to earth, and look at what man
gave him! He could have swept them all away; he could have condemned us like he
had the fallen angels. Man deserved nothing more—but look at what the King gave! He gave his holiness
for our sin and his death for our life. This scene is joyful because we know
how it ends. The picture of our King wearing a crown of thorns is not tragic,
but rather it is full of grace. We have a King in Christ who left his heavenly
throne and regnavit a ligno crucis (“reigned
from the wood of the cross”, Justin Martyr; Augustine). Rejoice in Christ the
King who came as our sacrifice!
Putting your faith
into action
Baptism promises and brings: victory over death and the
devil, forgiveness of sin, God’s grace, the entire Christ, and the Holy Spirit
with His gifts. In short, Baptism is so
far beyond us that if timid nature could realize this, it might well doubt
whether it could be true. Think about
it. Imagine there was a doctor somewhere
who understood the art of saving people from death or, even though they died,
could restore them quickly to life so that they would afterward live
forever. The world would pour in money
like snow and rain. No one could find
access to him because of the throng of the rich! But here in Baptism there is freely brought
to everyone’s door such a treasure and medicine that it utterly destroys death
and preserves all people alive.
We must think this way about Baptism and make it
profitable for ourselves. So when our
sins and conscience oppress us, we strengthen ourselves and take comfort and
say, “Nevertheless, I am baptized. And
if I am baptized, it is promised to me that I shall be saved and have eternal
life, both in soul and body.” For that
is the reason why these two things are done in Baptism: the body is sprinkled
and the Word is spoken for the soul to grasp.
The soul lives through the Word, which it believes, but the body lives
because it is united with the soul. By
Baptism we are made holy and are saved.
No other kind of life, no work on earth, can do this. – Large Catechism,
Part IV, Baptism (paragraphs 41-46)
1 All hail the pow’r of Jesus’ name! Let angels
prostrate fall;
Bring
forth the royal diadem And crown him Lord of all.
Bring
forth the royal diadem And crown him Lord of all.
2 Hail him, ye heirs of David’s line, Whom
David Lord did call,
The
God incarnate, Man divine, And crown him Lord of all.
The
God incarnate, Man divine, And crown him Lord of all.
3 Sinners whose love can ne’er forget The
wormwood and the gall,
Go,
spread your trophies at his feet And crown him Lord of all.
Go,
spread your trophies at his feet And crown him Lord of all.
4 Let ev’ry kindred, ev’ry tribe On this
terrestrial ball
To
him all majesty ascribe And crown him Lord of all.
To
him all majesty ascribe And crown him Lord of all.
5 Oh, that with yonder sacred throng We at his
feet may fall!
We’ll
join the everlasting song And crown him Lord of all.
We’ll
join the everlasting song And crown him Lord of all.
Text:
Edward Perronet, 1726–92, st. 1-3, abr., alt.; A Selection of Hymns, London,
1787, st. 4-5, alt.
Comments
Post a Comment