Preaching in the autumn of the Church Year reminds us that in the midst of death there is life, for the crucified King has been raised from the grave and all who trust in Him will live with Him in a kingdom which has no end.
In the northern hemisphere, the end of the Church Year coincides with autumn. Green gives way to shades of red and yellow as leaves change color and ultimately fall to the ground. Daylight becomes less radiant as the hours of light shorten. There is a chill in the air. Farmers harvest the crops that have grown to maturity as the bright hues of fall move inevitably toward more wintry weather with its ashen gray skies and barren earth. Autumn, and the encroachment of winter, become a parable of approaching death. We think of two stanzas from Susan Palo Cherwein’s hymn, “O Blessed Spring,” from the Lutheran Service Book (LSB):
When autumn cools and youth is cold,
When limbs their heavy harvest hold,
Then through us, warm, the Christ will move,
With gifts of beauty, wisdom, love.
As winter comes as winter must,
We breathe our last, return to dust;
Still held in Christ, our souls take wing,
And trust the promise of the spring” (LSB 595:3-4).
Just as autumn reminds us of the bleakness of winter when nature itself appears dead, so the end of the Church Year calls us to pay attention to the transitory nature of human life, our own death, the return of the Lord to judge the living and the death, Hell, and Heaven. The Christian life moves toward death but with the confidence that whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s (see Romans 14:8-9). The ancient prayer from the “going-to-bed” liturgy of the Church, the service of Compline, brings to culmination the Christian’s waking hours, but encompasses the end of life and the end of this world:
“Abide with us, Lord, for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent. Abide with us and with Your whole Church. Abide with us at the end of the day, at the end of our life, at the end of the world… Abide with us when the night of affliction and temptation comes upon us, the night of fear and despair, the night when death draws near. Abide with us and with all the faithful, now and forever” (LSB, pg. 257).
This beautiful and intimate collect serves as a template for evangelical proclamation in these last Sundays of the Christian year as the realism of the lectionary brings us face to face, not simply with our own mortality, but with death, which is the result of sin, carrying with it God’s own judgment. The tone is one of lament. There is a distance between God and man, between the Judge and the accused. Helmut Thielicke captures this:
"God is not identical with His creatures, not identical with the world, and that even though they all came from His hand, even though He clothes the lilies of the field and feeds the birds of the air, even though we can say ‘Our Father’ to Him, God nevertheless stands at a distance from all these things and from all of us. We must say to Him: We are sinners, but Thou are the Holy One; we are accused, but Thou art the Judge; we are under the dominion of guilt and tears and death, but Thy Kingdom is not of this world! And when one day that Kingdom comes, there will be no more suffering nor crying nor death anymore, and every tear will be wiped away from our eyes - so ‘different’ and ‘otherworldly’ is Thy Kingdom!” (Man in God’s World, trans. John W. Doberstein. New York: Harper & Row, 1963. 69-70).
These last Sundays of the Church Year show us the great divide between God and humanity, between Creator and creature, between life and death, and between the fleeting and unstable kingdoms of this world and the reign of a King whose dominion is not of this world (see John 18:33-37). Persecutions and betrayals, disruptions in nature, tumult among the nations will mark the age that Jesus’ cross and resurrection ushers in (see Mark 13:1-13) but to His own chosen people, Jesus gives the promise: “But he who endures to the end will be saved” (Mark 13:13).
Now is not a time to retreat in fear or hunker down in despair but to move forward in the confidence that the Lord of the harvest has already obtained the victory by the shedding of His blood, and He now lives and reigns as our Brother and King. Instead, the writer of Hebrews exhorts us:
“Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful; and let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and the more as you see the Day drawing near” (Hebrews 10:23-25; Revised Standard Version).
We live in the evening of the world. The day is far spent, and the shadows lengthen. The years move ahead, and we move with them from birth to youth, from youth to adulthood, from adulthood to old age, and finally to death. We do not know when we might be called from this life just as we do not know the day or the hour of our Lord’s return. We do recognize, though, that we are living in the twilight of history. All people are living either in the light of the Last Day or in its shadow. Baptized into the death and resurrection of Christ Jesus, we are not children of the darkness but sons and daughters of the Light which never grows dim, a light whose radiance will brightly beam long after the sun ceases to shine. We are, indeed, citizens of an “otherworldly Kingdom,” for our King is not of this world. His Kingdom is a heavenly reign, and He gives us a citizenship which is not touched by the changing tides of political fortunes or misfortunes.
Preachers on the last Sundays of the Church Year are heralding this King whose reign is sure and certain. He alone is our everlasting dwelling place (see Psalm 90), and He gives us the peace bought with His own blood and a hope that is beyond the grasp of death. Autumn reminds us winter is at hand. Preaching in the autumn of the Church Year reminds us that in the midst of death there is life, for the crucified King has been raised from the grave and all who trust in Him will live with Him in a kingdom which has no end.
