Insights with Seitz: Symphony of Scripture

Twenty-Fifth Sunday after Pentecost, November 14th, 2021

We are approaching the end of the lectionary year B, and as noted, we have this Sunday a reading from the apocalyptic portion of Mark, which in its entirety runs for some 37 verses. Our selection is but the brief, opening portion of that. 

Also as noted, the focus on the end times, at the end of the lectionary year, which has its correlates in Matthew 24 and Luke 21, continues into the first Sundays of Advent – Advent in this sense, meaning the Second Coming of Christ and not the First Coming alone. So Luke’s apocalyptic material picks up in Year C where Mark’s 8 verses give but a small summary, on the First Sunday of Advent next lectionary year. And Matthew returns the favor in his lectionary year, providing a summary from his Gospel that in turns sends us to Mark chapter 13’s longer account for Advent 1 of Year B, when it comes around again.

Both Luke and Mark situate the long, final, apocalyptic—end of days—speech of Jesus after the story of the widow’s mite, where it fits naturally enough. Jesus is leaving the sanctuary he has cleansed and where he has confronted religious leaders, the scene of the extended action after his entry from Jericho and the Mt of Olives until this, his final farewell. A sanctuary not made with human hands, as Hebrews puts it, will be and is now his present place of intercession, having laid down his life in the manner Hebrews and Mark know is once for all, for all.
The departure from the temple evokes scenes reminiscent from the prophetic witnesses, Ezekiel most especially, where it amounts to an ominous withdrawal of the Lord God himself for a season of judgment. This withdrawal by the Lord, this time, is permanent, the culmination of judgment against human sin and rebellion for one final time and forever, with Jesus the Lord and Jesus himself the sacrificial offering of God’s love for the world he has made. 

Upon leaving the temple the disciples, awed at its massive size and seeming permanence – it had stones of huge girth, some weighing up to three hundred tons, and would have been by far the largest structure ever seen by them – they give voice to their astonishment. Imagine the contrast, from a tiny mite in a widow’s palm to the top of the Twin Towers. “All will be thrown down” Jesus says in response to their awe and “not one stone will be left on another.” All standards of measurement will be recast by a single wooden cross about the size the man standing before them.

Whatever one makes of the astonishing details of the end time, about to be spelled out, and their timing–details that have vexed interpreters, including the actual destruction of the temple not long off and how that correlates with the end time, given that it happened now over 2000 years ago and the end time has not come—details our 8 verse section mercifully spares us—one thing is certain. Before going to his death Jesus spoke of a final judgment, and of the end of the temple as it had previously belonged to God’s precious plans. And his own death on a cross is surrounded by just these same apocalyptic features, supplied most clearly by Matthew, and with Mark satisfied to report the dramatic rending of the temple curtain at the hour of his death. With the death of Jesus a new reign of God begins which will take us to the end of time in its significance. The beginning of birth pains, but the conception and the bringing to term are accomplished in this man Jesus and this sets in motion a temporal horizon encompassing all future time, including our own, placing us for the most part gentile outsiders, right alongside Peter and James and John and Andrew.

The Track One reading continues with the roll call of famous women of integrity, following Esther, Dame Wisdom and Ruth. Hannah’s position in the first chapter of Samuel also picks up the Davidic theme at the close of Ruth, where the birth of Obed to Ruth, Boaz and Naomi we learn is in fact the grandfather of David. The hopelessness of the last chapters of Judges, with the refrain, “there was no king in the land; everyone did what was right in their own eyes” represents its own kind of moral famine mirroring that of Ruth. And as the birth of Obed signals a new hopefulness, the barrenness of Hannah overcome opens onto a fresh new horizon in God’s generous and faithful plans with his people. “She named him Samuel, for she said, ‘I asked him of the LORD.’” Following this Hannah breaks out in her Magnificat of praise, whose final lines make the pending resolution of Judges and the famines and barrenness of this life clear: “The LORD will judge the ends of the earth; he will give strength to his king, and exalt the power of his anointed.” Like all good inspiration, Hannah is given more to sing and say than even she can fully grasp within her own present walk with God. 

The paired Old Testament reading from Daniel 12 also gives a vision of the future not for Daniel’s own day, but for the times outside of his understanding. Far beyond the several generations separating Hannah and Samuel and indeed unto the end times. The reference to making wise has rightly been viewed as an inner biblical interpretation and application of Isaiah’s suffering servant song. “See, my servant will act wisely,” interpreted in the light of the whole poem as the servant making those wise who see in his death God’s final purposes—“by his knowledge my servant will justify many”–including even the nations themselves: “many nations will be amazed, kings will shut their mouths because of him.” Daniel is given to see this as an end time judgment where the faithful servants of the one servant are raised and given eternal life, after a time of upheaval and tribulation. A pre-figurement of the work of Christ on the cross and extended to the end times in the manner of Jesus own final teaching of his disciples, his last teaching before that end-time-in-time event now to unfold.

Our psalm lines out his ultimate fate as we await his coming and the final judgment he announced.
8 I have set the LORD always before me; *
because he is at my right hand I shall not fall.
9 My heart, therefore, is glad, and my spirit rejoices; *
my body also shall rest in hope.
10 For you will not abandon me to the grave, *
nor let your holy one see the Pit.
11 You will show me the path of life; *
in your presence there is fullness of joy,
and in your right hand are pleasures for evermore.

And finally our epistle reading for this Sunday, the final installment of our semi-continuous reading from the Epistle to the Hebrews. We are in the period between the once for all offering, sacrifice for sins, the author of Hebrews is at pains to set before us, undertaken in and by the unique priesthood of Christ; and the end times, when enemies will no longer beset his kingdom and his accomplishment of love.

We can let the exhortation from the author of Hebrews have the last word for this Sunday, as we next move to the Sunday of Christ the King, the last Sunday of this lectionary year.
“…since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us approach with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful. And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.”

Twenty-Sixth Sunday after Pentecost, November 21st, 2021

We come to the end of our Lectionary Year. Every symphony has its crescendo and finale and the Sunday of Christ the King is that for the lectionary year.

All our readings look toward the end of things brought to completion by the King of Kings. David’s final words. Daniel’s final vision. Revelation’s NT version of that, much of it a recycling of OT apocalyptic visions and figures. We leave Mark for John and Jesus’ own final words to Pilate.

We begin with the last words of David. A man like other men, and a king like those who would follow him, in the steps of God’s Anointed. But also a king inside a special providential place, which in time will be occupied by the King of Kings. And so he is given to see this when, like Moses looking across into the Promised Land, he comes to the end of his days. The Holy Spirit has gifted him quite concretely – a feature Luther paid close attention to in his lectures on the psalms of David, where David is given to see the beloved exchanges between God the Son and God the Father. “He said to me you are my son, today I have begotten you.” “The Lord said to my Lord.” The line he paid attention to we find at verse 3: “The spirit of the LORD speaks through me, his word is upon my tongue.” And so David speaks of things pertaining to the house of God’s making in him. “Is not my house like this with God—like the sun rising on a cloudless morning—for he has made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and secure.”

The Psalm allows another to reflect on David, one of the few psalms where David is mentioned as the subject of the psalmist’s discourse and not his own. “Lord, remember David and all he endured.” David is himself but he also betokens all of God’s promises through time in him and leading to the King of Kings. “For your servant David’s sake, do not turn away the face of your Anointed.” He continues, “The Lord swore an oath to David; in truth he will not break it,” even in the face of seeming abandonment – in David’s day, so Psalm 89 – nor in the day of God’s Son the Christ. “A son, the fruit of your body will I set upon your throne.” And “I have prepared a lamp for my Anointed.” Mashiach. Messiah. Christ.

Daniel’s vision as recorded in chapter 7 uses the language of Son of Man for the kingship of his conception. The Ancient of Days is on this account the LORD God almighty seated at court, with attendants without number. A royal scene of final judgment, at which time the books recording all deeds done are opened. The Son of Man appears and enters the celestial courtroom. He is presented to the LORD God, and from his hand he receives a kingdom that has no end. In this dramatic depiction we have the OT’s equivalent of the creed’s “of one substance with the Father.” The identity of God and the identity of the Son of Man is both different but profoundly shared. To “sit at the right hand” is to share the selfsame identity of God Almighty. We see a kingship that is never destroyed for just this reason.

The apparel the LORD puts on, as the psalmist depicts it, is indeed, in the fullness of time, the flesh of the Son of Man. In so doing we see an enthronement that in fact has its origins from everlasting, from before the world’s beginning. Eschatology and eternal generation: two sides of the same divine identity and purpose before and through all time.

Revelation speaks of “the one who is and who was and who is to come”, the “I am who will be good on my promises through time,” the LORD, solemnly revealed to Moses. The grace and peace that come from God the LORD come in the same manner from Jesus Christ, who is the firstborn of the dead and the ruler as such of all the kings of the earth. Now the author turns his attention to this same Jesus as he comes a final time, not from the emptied tomb but from the eternal throne. Using the language of Daniel he comes on the clouds. And now we see the nail wounds born for us and permanently identifying the eternal Son of Man. All now see him. All. Every eye he has made, from the creation of Adam through all time. All will stand before the Cross and wail as they bear witness at last to the love shown forth there and from the very heart of God through all time. Crucified before the foundations of the world.

The Gospel reading for Christ the King Sunday comes from the passion account of John’s Gospel. Jesus has been arrested and condemned by Jewish officials. Yet because they seek to put him to death they must bring him to the Roman civil authorities, from the house of Caiaphas the high priest to the headquarters of the Roman governor Pilate. This begins a 35 verse string of episodes involving Pilate, the Jewish officials and Jesus. This is the only scene in which Jesus and Pilate are alone, since the Jewish officials cannot enter the praetorium due to the laws regarding defilement. These they respect, but they need another law to kill Jesus.

In a way the word “king” is a motif word running across all the scenes to follow. Pilate asks Jesus if he is a king, somewhat out of the blue. Jesus responds that he has a kingdom different from the kingdoms of this world. Pilate again asks if he is a king. Jesus does not answer yes or no simply, but turns the question back on him. His is a kingdom of truth, and those who belong to this kingdom hear his voice. Pilate’s question “what is truth” tells us he is not of this kingdom.

But then as we read on it is Pilate who insists on calling Jesus a king, indeed, the king of the Jews. He has Jesus invested as a king, in mockery. The soldiers address him as King. In one final scene of desperation we learn the most powerful man on the scene is now afraid. He has said he is the son of God, the officials tell Pilate. Now it is their turn to call Jesus king, in an effort to corner Pilate. Pilate bring Jesus out one last time, and now the word is in the air without footnote. Behold your King. Shall I crucify your king? We have no king but Caesar. Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews. What I have written I have written.

And the rest is, as they say, history, under the King of History to whom God almighty has given all times and all dominions. The King “crucified under Pontius Pilate,” as a creed compactly says, “in accordance with the scriptures,” with Daniel, and Samuel, and Isaiah and psalms we read for today and all the scriptures from beginning to end. “And on the third day he rose again,” in accordance with the scriptures. And because of that inaugurated kingdom of truth, “he will come again in glory to judge both the quick and the dead, whose kingdom will have no end.”
As our lectionary year comes now to its end, we will let the scriptures have their last according word.

For he has made with me an everlasting covenant,
ordered in all things and secure.
The LORD has sworn an oath to David; *
in truth, he will not break it:
“A son, the fruit of your body *
will I set upon your throne.

To him was given dominion
and glory and kingship,
that all peoples, nations, and languages
should serve him.
His dominion is an everlasting dominion
that shall not pass away,
and his kingship is one
that shall never be destroyed.

Ever since the world began, your throne has been established; *
you are from everlasting.
Look! He is coming with the clouds;
every eye will see him,
even those who pierced him;
and on his account all the tribes of the earth will wail.
So it is to be. Amen.
“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.
He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon.”
Amen. Come Lord Jesus.