Christ the King

Kings. We don't seem to have much use for them on this side of the Atlantic. But, incurable anglophile that I am, I have to confess a certain fondness for British royalty. I admit it. I just eat that jazz up. I love to watch those royal weddings. I dig the high church processions and clerical vestments. I'm enthralled by the parades with the Household Cavalry with their red tunics and silver helmets and black horses. All that ritual and pageantry and protocol is just so cool. I mean, I'm really glad they have royal people over there! I can't help it—I'm into that stuff. It's just so regal.


Shortly after Will and Kate got married, one of my Confirmation students asked me just what is it that makes a royal person royal. I had to admit that this was a pretty interesting question. I hadn't thought about it, but I guess I'd have to conclude that royalty comes from having some ancient ancestor who was the biggest bad-ass around—the guy who could whoop everyone else into submission and declare that he was in charge. I mean, how else could we account for it?

But today, royalty has different requirements. The king or queen is the representation of the people. If your picture is going to be on the folding money of a nation, you are required to have a bit more going for you than just your pedigree. The job—which I think is ironically both public and lonely—calls for a certain amount of dignity, uprightness, and love for the people.

The Christian festival of Christ the King, the last Sunday of the liturgical calendar, originated with Pope Pius XI in 1925. Following hard upon the devastation of the First World War, this wise spiritual leader recognized what earthly kings, kaisers, and czars had done to civilization and urged a return to obedience to the one true king who ruled through peace, love, and forgiveness.

The gospel lesson for this Sunday (Luke 23:33-43) does not depict a monarch ruling through force of arms. Indeed, the image of this gospel, the very image upon which Christians focus when we worship, is that of a man being tortured to death out of love for people he has never met. In the cross of Jesus we see his great dignity—his faith in God's purpose. We see his uprightness as he forgives those who mock him. And, most vital and sacred of all, we see his great love and compassion for the people as he comforts the suffering man dying beside him. Try as hard as the earthly powers could, they could not kill the divine love which reigned within Jesus.

“For God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than human strength.”(1 Corinthians 1:25)

I also really like this phrase from Shakespeare's Richard II:

“Not all the waters in the rough rude sea

Can wash the balm off an anointed king;

The breath of worldly men cannot depose

The deputy elected by the Lord...”

Pontius Pilate's ironic inscription over the cross of Jesus, “This is the King of the Jews” may have been intended as a sneering jab at the dignity of a pathetic people who dared to think one of their own could challenge the might of Imperial Rome. “Here's your king,” the sign says, “He's a naked, broken, bleeding, abandoned, betrayed, helpless wretch dying before your eyes.”

Yes, Pilate. Here is my King.





Like a true king showing compassion for his subjects, my monarch has come down from his palace to walk through the rubble of my life. He's joined me in my confusion and my doubt and my neediness. He's assured me of his presence, and he's suffered with me. And, unlike earthly monarchs who inspect the scenes of disaster and then retreat to the comfort of their palaces, this king is always with me.

In his cross we see not only his dignity, uprightness and love, but we also see the power of Christ. When I look at his bleeding, impaled form, I see the depth of human sin—mine included. But I also see the power of sacrificial love. And not all the parades, banners, horses, soldiers, and trumpet blasts for all the monarchs who've ever reigned can bring my heart to repentance like the sight of my King on the cross.

I owe it to him to be obedient. As a pious Jew is constantly in dialogue with the Law, so I wish to be in constant dialogue with Christ. For Christ the King is not an abstraction. He is love made real

Thanks for reading, my dears. Drop me a line if you wish.

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Hey! October 31^st 2017 will be here before we know it. Let's celebrate the 500^th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation in a really BIG way. I'm asking Pope Francis to let Lutherans and Catholics share Holy Communion once again. Do you think I'm crazy? Of course I am, but what the heck..?You won't get if you don't ask. Sign my crazy petition here.