At the beginning of His ministry, recorded in Mark, chapter one, Jesus announced that it had already come. But at the close of His days on earth, before He ascended into heaven, when His disciples asked Him if the time was right to establish and make it secure, our Lord answered them, "It is not for you to know the times or the seasons which the Father has fixed by His own authority" (Acts 1). In other words, Jesus told them it was still yet to be.

And with the words which He taught us, Jesus said, "Pray this way: Thy Kingdom Come." He called it the kingdom of God.

You see, on this Christ the King Sunday, we are faced with a paradox. In one sense, the kingdom is around us and within us, here and now. But in another sense, the kingdom is beyond us and will someday be revealed to us, then and there. Frederick Buechner, the Presbyterian pastor and author, has written that we live between "the already and the not yet," which means, I think, that the kingdom of God is already part of our history but has not yet been fully established and so it is still shrouded in mystery.

Because, through the birth, the life, the death and resurrection of Jesus, we can affirm by faith that the kingdom has already come among us. He said it was so, and even though He never completely explained it, He pointed us toward it through the parables He taught.

Barbara Brown Taylor, the Episcopal priest who has preached several times from this pulpit, reflects on the two brief parables from our gospel lesson this morning in the 13^th chapter of Luke. Listen:

Moreover, Luke records that "People will come from east and west and north and south and sit at the table in the kingdom of God . . . where the first shall be last and the last shall be first (Luke 13:29-30). That is also a parable Jesus told, a picture in words of a kingdom where everyone is welcome, no one is left out and the "pecking orders" of this world do not apply, because there are no reserved seats in the kingdom of God. We, all of us, have a place at the table!

There was a day when I didn’t think that way. I have told you from time to time about growing up in the manse out on eastern Long Island where my father was a Presbyterian pastor. Every Thanksgiving, my parents would invite others from the church and community to join us for dinner, and as a young boy, I didn’t like it.

Over the years, the cast of characters included John, who was the dogcatcher in town and was always down on his luck . . . and Cora who never married and complained about the men who had jilted her . . . and Jim who had been in jail several times for an assortment of crimes . . . and Jean in a wheel chair, who suffered from muscular dystrophy and had to be fed by her mother . . . and Carl Klug, the garbage collector, and his whole family who took us in one Christmas Eve when our house burned down . . . and a distant relative we called Uncle Wendell who always said the blessing and concluded with the exclamation "God bless us, everyone!" which was so loud that my grandmother feared for the china.

Well, I was embarrassed by that cast of characters, and I longed for an old-fashioned, ordinary Thanksgiving dinner with just our own family. But looking back now, I wish somehow that I could re-live just one of those November days, gathered there with my parents and all those people whom they welcomed into our home. Because that dining room table was not only filled with food - it was an open table full of love and grace and joy and celebration.

Jesus told us the kingdom of God is like that - a great banquet table where anybody and everybody is invited and encouraged to join in. And when we open our hearts and our homes and the doors of this church to welcome those people who have been left out or cast aside by our society, Jesus Himself comes among us, saying "Inasmuch as you have done it unto one of the least of these, you have done it unto me" (Matthew 25).

At that very moment, in the presence of Jesus, we can know beyond the shadow of a doubt that the kingdom of God has already come among us.

In our gospel lesson, Luke reports that some of the pharisees (who were apparently friendly toward Jesus) came to Him and said, "Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you." He answered them, "Go and tell that fox, ‘Behold I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow and on the third day I must finish my course.’"

And with those words said about the battle of good versus evil, foreshadowing His own death and resurrection, Jesus, whose heart must have been heavy with sadness, lamented:

You see, there was opposition to His grace and good works in that city, like unto darkness that cannot abide the light. And so it still is today.

There are people in this city who are trying to do good, to build bridges between those of different races, colors, and creeds; there are people in this city who are trying to break down the barriers that divide us into economic classes and to raise up resources for those who are in need; there are people in this city who are trying to bring about reconciliation and healing for those who have been hurt and broken. And we in this church, at the corners of 16^th and Peachtree and Lombardy, located in the heart of this city of Atlanta, we are committed to helping all of that happen, in the name and for the sake of Jesus Christ.

So as we work to advance the cause of the kingdom, in spite of the opposition, look toward the Light, Christian! Look toward the Light! Because the Light is still shining in the darkness and the darkness cannot put it out. And no matter how deep or disturbing the frustration may be, no matter how slow the progress might seem, let us keep our eyes, our hearts, our minds, our lives focused on Christ the King. Because His power to lift us up and lead us forward is greater than all those forces and foes which would drag us down and hold us back.

In one week, we will begin the Advent season, a time for us as Christians to rejoice in the birth of Jesus. It is a season of great expectation! And 40 days from now, we will celebrate on New Year’s Eve the monumental transition into a new millennium. Have you noticed, over the past few months, how the predictions of gloom and doom about Y2K have already tilted and turned toward great expectation?

I can’t say this for certain, but it would appear that God is opening a window through which the fresh wind of His Holy Spirit is beginning to blow a renewed sense of hope and expectation wherein the whole world can know that "the best is yet to be."

Do you think that is possible? Charles Schultz does. He’s a Christian, and the creator of the Peanuts cartoon characters. Not long ago, he gave Charlie Brown a baby sister. Charlie was concerned about the dire and discouraging condition of the world into which his baby sister had been born, and he expressed those concerns to his friend Linus. But Linus interrupted Charlie’s litany of woes and warnings with this hopeful affirmation: "I think" said Linus, "that the world today is a better place than it was six years ago."

Charlie protested: "Don’t you read the papers, aren’t you watching television or listening to the radio? How can you say that the world is better today than it was six years ago"?

Linus looked at him and answered simply, "Because I am in it now."

Could it be that what God is telling you and me and all of us today is the same thing? Because Jesus is in the world now, the kingdom has come. Because Jesus has conquered sin and death, the kingdom will prevail. And because Jesus is alive and at work in this world, even the gates of hell will not be able to stop Him!

If that is true, and we believe it is so, then glory be to God and to His Son our savior Jesus, who is Christ the King. May His kingdom come and His will be done, on earth as it is in heaven!

In the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.