Christ the King Sunday; November 25, 2007; Bethel Lutheran Church, Rochester.
1 Corinthians 15:20-25.

Dear Friends in Christ, Grace to you and Peace, from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ. AMEN.


In December 1997, a young man in West Paducah, Kentucky, took a gun to school and killed seven of his classmates. Parents came from all over the community, frantically praying a parents’ most heartfelt prayer: Not my child. Please don’t let anything happen to my child.
Timothy Kennedy tells the story of one mother whose prayer was not answered that day in a way that would please the mother. Her son died in the shooting. In spite of her shock and grief, the mother didn’t hesitate when doctors ask if she would donate her son’s organs to someone else in critical need.
Many months passed, and the mother discovered that some of her son’s organs went to a Methodist pastor. She contacted him and asked to meet. The day of their meeting, the grieving mother and the grateful pastor talked and prayed and celebrated the life of the precious son who died. And then the mother asked one last question: “Can I put my ear to your heart? Can I hear my son’s heart beating, one more time?”

As God’s children, we have a king who has given his heart that ours might beat with greater love and greater service. That God is the creator of all hearts. Many of you know that my daughter, Kari, is more than halfway through a pregnancy that will deliver a child unto her and Joe in about four months. They have brought amazing information and pictures to us—including the fact that the doctor can see all four ventricles of the heart functioning just as they ought. Amazing. A little tyke that is only halfway through gestation and who has a beautiful heart given by God.

I pray that it is a heart touched by the King. Some minutes from now we are going to hear an important word out of Matthew about the King. At the end of time this king will separate the sheep from the goats. This king will remind the sheep and the goats as to the work they have completed in this kingdom. Ultimately, the king will say to sheep and goats alike, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.”

When God leans down to listen to your heart today, will he hear the heart of his Son, the King, beating? Will he detect a heart of compassion that is given to feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, welcoming the stranger, caring for the sick, and visiting the imprisoned?

Will God find a heart that sings for joy? What does a heart sound like? Pum-pum. Pum-pum. Pum-pum. Praise-God. Praise-God. Praise-God. Perhaps you can listen to the heart of someone you love this day. May you hear the rhythmic love of God in every pulse, every beat. May you consider a king, a king no less!, who has given his life that we might live in the kingdom.

We end this church year in celebration of the king. And the rhythm begins again next week. We start with Advent. We prepare the way both for a King who would be born in a manger, and a King who will come again at the end of time. How shall we serve this king of ours? Praise-God. Praise-God. Praise-God. amen.