Colossians 1.11-20; Luke 23.33-43
+ Throughout this past year, at our
Wednesday night masses here at St. Stephen’s, we have been commemorating the events
of 50 years ago. 1963 was, of course, a very momentous year. We commemorated in
June, the 50th anniversary of the death of Pope John XXIII—a Pope
who is still very important to all of us who call ourselves Christian. In
August, we commemorated Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream Speech” in Washington.
In September, we commemorated the 50th anniversary of the bombing in
Birmingham, Alabama that killed four little girls in their church.
Which, of course, brings us to today. Today,
was in 1963, also a Sunday. On this morning in 1963, here at St. Stephen’s, we
would of course be worshipping according to the 1928 Book of Common Prayer. And
this Sunday, according to the 1928 BCP, was called “The Sunday Next Before
Advent.”
Our collect that we prayed this morning,
would be the same. Our Old Testament reading would be the same, though our
Gospel reading that morning would be from the sixth chapter of John.
These events that we have been commemorating
these last few days have certainly intrigued me. I, like many of here this morning, was not
born yet when these events transpired. But I was raised hearing them in almost
apocryphal tones. My mother, of course, was a die-hard Kennedy Democrat and
loved John Kennedy deeply.
For many people of her generation,
John Kennedy represented hope for the future.
And with his death, many of those hopes were dashed. As I grew up hearing the stories of this
weekend in 1963 or from the Presidency of John Kennedy, none of it sounded like
an American president. Our appreciation for
President John F. Kennedy and an administration that was often nicknamed
Camelot, was certainly on the level of what one felt for a well-loved monarch.
I was discussing this with a dear friend this
past week. In the course of our conversation, I also said, “You know, Christianity
is not a democracy. It is a monarchy.”
My friend was appalled.
“How can you say that,” she said.
I can say it because we follow a king
and our job is essentially to expand that monarch’s kingdom. My friend thought was horrible. But, that is
what we are called to do as Christians.
And if we doubt that in any way, we
are reminded of it no uncertain terms on this Sunday, in which we commemorate
Jesus as King. This is Christ the King
Sunday.
Now, for us, good democratic Americans
who love our freedom from such archaic forms of government as a monarchy, this
no doubt sits wrong with many of us. But, I have to say to you what I said to
my friend: just relax.
What we’re talking about when we discuss
Jesus as King is simply making Christ as first and foremost in our lives. For us, followers of his, he is not just some figurehead,
nor is he a despotic ruler who tells us what to do and we do it blindly. Jesus the King is truly a humble and loving
King, who is also the Shepherd—the ultimate servant leader, shall we say?—who
rules not above us or over us, but beside us. And who invites us, his followers, to be
co-inheritors of his Kingdom.
Christ the King is the King and
Shepherd who has come to us wherever we may be and is with us. But, this King also makes clear to us that our
job, as inheritors of that Kingdom isn’t just sit smugly by. Our job as
inheritors is to allow that Kingdom to be present here, in our midst, again and
again, through our ministries. And that
is the real point of this Christ the King Sunday. And because he comes to us as one of us,
because he is the true servant leader, it is easy for those who do not
recognize that royalty personified to degrade that role.
In our Gospel reading for this
morning, we find that title of King being used in a derogatory way. The King of the Jews, as Jesus is called today
in our Gospel reading, is meant to be a demeaning title. It is a way to mock him. Those taunting people did not recognize the
royalty present within Jesus. Rather
they saw him as a little man with thoughts of grandeur.
But what we know and celebrate on this
Christ the King Sunday is that, yes, he is King. And
his Kingdom—that Kingdom that we, as his followers are called to bring forth
into this world, is not a kingdom of the privileged. It is a kingdom of the
outcasts, the marginalized, the downtrodden. It is a kingdom of those people,
uplifted by their King.
As the Anglican theologian Reginald
Fullers says,
“It is not just an abstract idea; it
involves the doctrines of creation, redemption and reconciliation of the
universe, and of the Church as the sphere in which his reign is already
acknowledged and proclaimed.”
It is a celebration of not only who
Jesus was, but who Jesus is and will be. It is a celebration of the fact that, although
it seems, at times, as though this Kingdom of God is not triumphant, at times
it seems, in fact, to have failed miserably, we know that ultimately, in all
that we do, in our ministries, it does break through into this world again and again.
And it triumphs, again and again.
We—the inheritors of that Kingdom—are the
ones who birth that Kingdom. We bring that Kingdom into our midst whenever we
love radically, we welcome radically, we serve radically in the Name of Jesus. That’s why we celebrate this incredible day on
this last Sunday before Advent begins.
Advent, after all, is that time for us
to look toward the future, and to hope. It is a time for us to gaze into the
dark and the haze and all that lies before us and to see that it is not all
bleak, it is not all frightening and scary, but that, in the midst of that
darkness, there is a glimmer of light. This
Sunday and the season we are about to enter, is all about the future and hope.
On Friday, I posted this quote from
John F. Kennedy;
“Change is the law of life. And those
who look only to the past are certain to miss the future.”
Those words speak loud and clear to us
50 years later. And they speak loud and clear to us, followers of our King, as
we look forward into our own future. We,
on this Christ the King Sunday, are looking forward into the darkness of the
future and eternity, and we are seeing
the rays of light shining through to us. For us, as follower of Jesus the King, as inheritors
of that Kingdom , it is a hope. It is a time to remind ourselves that we must
continue on in bringing about that Kingdom of God into our midst.
So, let us rejoice on this Christ the
King Sunday. Let us move forward into
our future together. Let go together into
that future with confidence and joy and gladness at all the blessings we have
been given and that we are able to give to others. And let us to do all that we do, as Paul tells
us today in his letter to the Colossians, “made strong with all the strength that
comes from [God’s] glorious power…”
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