Devotional Messages

DEVOTIONAL MESSAGE

Colossians 3:15 – Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body.  And be thankful. (NRSV)

This Sunday, in a liturgical sense, is sort of like New Year’s Eve.  The new liturgical year will begin next Sunday with the first Sunday of Advent.  But we don’t usually treat this Sunday like New Year’s Eve.  In traditions more “high church” than ours, the last Sunday of the liturgical year is often celebrated as “Christ the King Sunday.”  (And some Disciples churches do that too, because they’re Disciples, so they can if they want to!)

But in our church – at least this year – and many other congregations, we will be celebrating Thanksgiving this Sunday.  We don’t usually embrace “secular” holidays, but Thanksgiving isn’t really a “secular” holiday, even though it’s not part of the official liturgical calendar.  When Christians give thanks, it is a religious confession: that we are not self-made creatures, and that God is the source of our blessings.

Indeed, when we consider that while we’re giving thanks, other Christians are proclaiming the sovereignty of Christ as King, ruler of our hearts, we can see that the two observances are not that different.  To give thanks is an act of humility, admitting that we wouldn’t be who or where we are without many things over which we had no control.  As Christians, we see the movement of God in all those twist and turns of our lives that brought us to our present state.

The proclaim Christ as King is also an act of humility, admitting that we don’t do nearly as good a job running our own lives as we sometimes like to think.  Without the love and grace of Jesus, where would we be?  Without the “peace of Christ ruling in our hearts” we might be living lives guided only by fear and greed.

So when we come to worship this Sunday, let us truly open ourselves to the invocation we share in our Call to Worship and truly “worship with humble gratitude and joy!”  In offering our thanks, we are proclaiming Christ as King, Jesus as Lord, the God of Love and Peace as the ruler of our hearts and our lives.