The Endgame

Colossians 1:15-20

Introduction

Last week, the last two Sundays of the liturgical calendar were compared to the popular Avengers movies of Infinity War and Endgame. As a comic book geek, I appreciated that comparison and I am going to run with that. If you are not familiar with the movies, they are a two part story about trying to defeat the incredibly powerful villain Thanos. In Infinity War, the Avengers and their allies try to use all of the strength and abilities they have to stop Thanos from using the infinity stones from wiping out half the life in the universe. While they are doing that Doctor Strange uses his magic to look at all of the possible futures and he discovers that there is only one option for them to win. To the horror of the Avengers, Doctor Strange allows Thanos to have the last infinity stone, allowing him to impose death upon the universe. Doctor Strange says to Iron Man, “We are in the end game now.”

Just a story but in many ways this mirrors what God has done through Jesus Christ. This Sunday, the last Sunday before Advent is sometimes called the Feast of Christ the King. This is part of the Roman Catholic tradition, and not necessarily something that Protestants are drawn to and yet it has a message for us. It actually goes back to 1925 and an encyclical by Pope Pius XI. It was a response to the utter destruction of the First World War and the fall of four different royal houses in Europe. It was also a reaction to the growing secularization of the world and the rise of numerous totalitarian governments around the world. It basically was a confession of the impotence of human power and kingship and an acknowledgment that Christ is the real King, the only one that we can truly trust in. Human failure has made that clear.

Here we are one hundred years later. Can we stand in agreement with Pope Pius XI? Is his statement just as relevant? Are we open to confessing Christ as King in a world where people are still trusting in human power and wisdom, the most obvious example being the plan to develop a powerful enough artificial intelligence that it can be asked how to save the world.

But if we are going to trust in Christ the King, we are going to have some idea of what kind of King this Jesus is.

God Incarnate  

As we think of this, I want to share a little about my own journey to understand Jesus. I grew up attending church and I attended Sunday school and heard many sermons. I left church in my mid-teens and returned near the end of my undergrad studies in university. A big part of my renewed faith was a better understanding of Jesus, specifically the incarnation of Jesus. Once I started reading the Bible myself, I realized how much the New Testament talks about Jesus as the Word made Flesh. I find it interesting that two of the earliest heresies in the church were the Docetists and Ebionites. The Docetists believed that Jesus was all God and only seemed to be human. The Ebionites believed that Jesus was all human and only seemed to be God-like. What came to be orthodox Christianity was that Jesus was fully God and fully human. The Apostle Paul was able to say “for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” I did much of my graduate work at McMaster University and their motto is “Ta panta en Christoi synesteken,” “In Christ all things hold together.” This is a radical statement. Consider that Christianity emerged out of Judaism with its strong monotheism and spread throughout the Greco-Roman world, which had plenty of demi-gods and heroes but nothing like the concept of the incarnation.

As we enter into the season of Advent, this is what it is all about, God becoming a human being. This is the kind of king that we can rely upon, one who is both fully God and thous has both the authority and power to reign over us, but also fully human, one who is like us and can represent us with knowledge of our experience. 

Having a king is great but we need one who is one in more than just name. As a student of history, I have seen that much of the chaos in our world has been from illegitimate leaders, people who claim the throne, but do not have what it takes to back it up. Our king, King Jesus, is uniquely qualified as the God-man, as God with human flesh.

Exalted on a Cross

We have looked at the who of the King of Kings, but what about the how of that reign? In our Gospel reading, we have a person asking Jesus to remember him when he comes into his kingdom. That seems like a reasonable request. If you knew someone who was being promoted to an extremely high position of influence, you may want to ask them to consider you once they are in that place of power. These kinds of conversations happen all the time and we can understand the logic. However, it is the context that really matters here. Both the person requesting and Jesus were at the time nailed to crosses with no likelihood that they would be leaving those crosses alive. With that context, that conversation seems completely bizarre. If you are about to die, why ask for favours. And if the person you are asking is also about to die, it is even stranger. And yet Jesus receives the request and assures them that they would be together in paradise. This is the kind of kingdom that Jesus would be reigning over. 

I do not mean that he would reign only over he dead, something too many Christians mistakenly believe, as if Jesus was only interested in heaven. What we need to understand is that Jesus’ reign does not look like that of worldly rulers. It does not conform to typical forms of power. It happens in ways that look like weakness but are really strength. It looks like reaching to a dying criminal and receiving the faith he had, even if he may not have had all of the head knowledge we might expect.

This is the kind of king that Pope Pius XI recognized that the world needed back in 1925 and the kind of king that we most likely recognize as being needed today in 2025.

Conclusion

The Avengers movies that we talked about at the start are about an attempt to defeat evil with their own strength and then the recognition that it would only by allowing death to have its own way, at least in the short-term. In that movie, there is a type of resurrection, life from death. One hero recognized that only through the foolish plan could victory every be achieved.

Those who have designed the liturgical calendar decided to end the year with Christ the King Sunday, the last Sunday before Advent. Christ the King is about shaking our confidence in human strength and renewing our confidence in our true King. This is the King who is the image of the invisible God, the One by whom all things hold together. This is also the King who went to the cross and in his agony welcomes a dying thief to join him in his Kingdom. Does it make sense? More importantly, is it true? Jesus reigns today and always, he reigns through us, and in ways beyond our imagination. May we live out the prayer: “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done.”