Christ the King

This morning, the Sunday before Advent, is known in the Church calendar as Christ the King Sunday. In it, we celebrate the kingship of Christ, and our readings point us in the direction of His glory. 

The reading from Daniel (7:9,10,13,14) prophesies about an everlasting kingdom where peoples, nations and languages will serve their king in the kingdom that shall never be destroyed. The reading from Revelation (1:4b-8) again gives that picture of the everlasting glory of God – To him be glory and dominion for ever and ever… The reading begins ‘Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come’ reminding us that God is the God of the past, the present and the future, the Alpha and the Omega !

These are great pictures reminding us that God can never be contained within our thoughts or our understanding – God is far away above anything or anyone we can ever understand, and yet he is personal… 

And this is the emphasis of our Gospel reading (John 18:33-37). The gospel of John is one that’s very different from the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke – it recounts some history, but also a lot of theology, but this account where Jesus is being questioned by Pilate is one included in all the gospels. It is important as Pilate pursues this line of questioning about whether Jesus is the ‘King of the Jews’. 

It’s a complicated bit of questioning, but Jesus in his answers points Pilate to the conclusion that he is not a king of one nation - his kingdom is limitless, his kingdom is everywhere. In these statements Jesus was challenging very quietly, and almost unnoticed, the authority of any earthly ruler, and pointing to a wider kingdom. 

So Christ the King – a Grand title, but what type of King was He. ?

I don’t know about you but when I was a child I loved the idea of kings and queens and princes and princesses.  I imagined wonderful kingdoms that were always beautiful, nothing ever went wrong and if it did – well that was because there was a nasty prince waiting to attack. 

As I thought of that this week I thought of the world at this time, I thought of people still in shock after the events in Paris, I thought of people in fear at the threat of terrorism. I thought of people across the world who are treated badly and live in fear every day and I wondered where the perfect world of my childhood had gone. 

Actually the answer has come today. There has never been a perfect world but there has always been a perfect King. A king whose kingship is beyond all our expectations to such an extent that He defied our expectations. We worship Christ the King who stepped into our world and showed us a better way, who came amongst us and showed light.

I was reading a book the other day called the Velvet Elvis – I am only telling you the title because it is a great title - anyway this book is by a man called Rob Bell who spoke of the fact that God holds everything together and when we see things working God is there, and then He is also there when things don’t seem to be working. God is there, Christ the King is here for us and we must pray for His light to shine in the darkness as we try to be more like Him. 

The challenge to us as followers of Christ the King is that we are called to live like Jesus.  We are called to spread some of His glory around. 

This means being prepared to let God use us as we move from the ordinary to the extraordinary by the power of God working within us.  This may mean going against the norms of society when needed, it certainly means being prepared to change our world starting from now by the way that we live.

The Kingdom of Christ the King is the one which we hear about in the gospels.  It is a Kingdom which offers love and a welcome to everyone including those who are homeless, those who are different to us, those who would be seen as outcasts in society. To be a good subject of the Kingdom of Christ we are to see others as if they were Jesus.

One of the best known Christians in relatively recent times is probably Mother Teresa. Her kindness and commitment to God and her work can not be doubted, and it is perhaps the way in which she viewed fellow human beings that is probably the most astounding. 

For Mother Teresa as far as she was concerned every person was Jesus, and with this in mind she made sure that above every bed of every patient that was treated in her hospital, was the statement “This person is the body of Christ.” 

Basically that means every person should be treated equally with dignity and compassion, as if those treating others are actually treating Christ himself. What a challenge to all of us in our daily lives, to walk past the beggar or the drunk or any other person we may view as some sort of social outcast, and see in them the face of Christ…

We worship a King who tore apart social conventions and offered a better world. It is our task to do the same, to reach out to those we wouldn’t normally wish to and to offer them in our lives, in the way we behave, a little of the light of Christ. To turn the ordinary into the extraordinary as we show the light of Christ - a reflection of His glory !

Desmond Tutu tells the story of a light bulb that shone brightly and proudly. He says how it began to strut about arrogantly, quite unmindful of how . . . it could shine so brilliantly, and thinking that it was all due to its own merit and skill." One day the light bulb was taken out of the socket and placed on a table. "Try as hard as it could, the light bulb could give no light and brilliance. . .”

We do not need to wait one moment to shine in this World and to make a change.  Jesus came in a way that was not expected, but He made an extraordinary difference as He offered love and salvation to all people. 

So, may we be prepared to shine as lights of Christ, to do the extraordinary and go against the ordinary when needed by loving everyone as if they were Jesus Himself.  AMEN