Next week is Advent Sunday. It’s the start of the Christian year, which always begins with the run up to Christmas. And this means of course that today is the end of the Christian year.
This is the last Sunday to sum up our faith before a new round begins again and we start to think of Jesus being born into our world once again. And in the lectionary, this Sunday has a name. This last of all Sundays is called Christ the King Sunday.
One of the enduring criticisms of Christianity is that it’s old fashioned.
It’s for old people,
filled with old fashioned ideas,
old fashioned traditions,
steeped in ancient history,
with an old fashioned book,
and the old fashioned belief in God.
Imagine basing your life on anything written in a book that’s two thousand years old!
Imagine people today still being so superstitious that they need to believe in a God!
And today on this Sunday – the last Sunday of the Christian year we have the day known as Christ the King. We remember that Jesus is our King.
There is just another example of this old fashioned stuff.
Who thinks in terms of kings and queens these days? The world has moved on.
Nowadays we don’t often think of kings and queens. If they exist it is only as figureheads. The real power lies with governments and politicians.
So today when we think of Jesus the King – it seems to be yet another out of date picture – an old fashioned idea that we no longer relate to.
But you know for me the real challenge when we think about Jesus as King isn’t that the image seems old fashioned.
The real challenge about talking of Jesus as a king is not that we can’t imagine what a king is like. Because I think we still we can.
The real challenge is that Jesus the King is like no other king we can imagine.
WHEN WE SAY CHRIST IS KING WE NEED TO REMEMBER
THAT JESUS IS LIKE NO OTHER KING
Jesus’ idea of being a king is at complete odds with what we expect.
Think of what I was saying to the children earlier. Jesus turns the notion of kingship upside down.
Just look at the picture on today’s Order of Service……Just look at today’s text!
The scene is ridiculous to our eyes. Jesus is being crucified.
The one we call the King of Kings and the Lord of all is dying on a cross!
How can that be?
Instead of zapping his enemies, Jesus the King willingly lays down his life to show the extent of God’s love.
Jesus has come to our world to call into question what life is all about.
Jesus has upside down values
about what it means to be a king,
about what is important,
about what is strongest (– love not hate),
about how life should be lived,
and about what faces us at death.
God’s way is different.
The ultimate power is God’s and Jesus’ whole life demonstrated that trust and dependence. Inasmuch as we follow his values we too are set free to live in a different, and better way.
Saying Christ is king may seem like an old fashioned expression. And it may be tempting to drop it from our thinking. We might think we need to stop living in the past.
In fact I think the opposite is true.
The more we forget about Christ the King and his values
the less the church will truly be the church and
the more the church will suffer and appear irrelevant.
There is another thing to note…
WHEN WE SAY CHRIST IS KING WE NEED TO REMEMBER THAT
WE ARE MAKING A RADICAL STATEMENT
This is one aspect we are liable to forget, because the concept of monarchy is more distant to us now.
For example, if I say Elizabeth is the Queen of Britain that’s not a radical statement. It’s not radical because it’s not much more than a simple statement of fact. But it’s mostly not radical because Elizabeth doesn’t really affect our lives.
In our country the Queen is a figurehead.
And there are people who like her and the Royal family and there are others who cant be bothered with the Royal family and for all sorts of reasons - but at the end of the day it doesn’t really matter.
Because most people in our country will never even meet the Queen and apart from the odd story in the papers for those who are interested the Queen’s life and our lives don’t intersect. We are not connected to her. She is not in charge of us day by day. She is not the boss of us.
But years ago to say someone is our king is to say something different. Someone who was your king was someone you swore allegiance to. This was a person you were deeply connected to. This was the person you looked up to – this was the person you followed – this person truly was your boss – your leader. And so this person had a big impact in your life.
The sceptic will say that people who call Christ the King are basically weak.
Who needs a king? Who needs a leader? Why can’t you just stand on your own two feet?
People who need a king (or some kind of leader) are poor, inadequate, unadventurous folk that want to live a safe and boring life – too timid to really live life to the full.
Christianity is for these timid people that cant stand on their own. The Faith is a crutch for people who are weak and inadequate.
A crutch? A safe, unadventurous, timid life?
Tell that to the first Christians who risked death (and many of whom actually went through death) rather than renounce their faith.
Tell that to the thousands of other Christians who have suffered persecution ever since.
Tell it to Martin Luther King who gives up his life for the goal of equality.
Tell it to Martin Neimoller and Deitrich Bonhoeffer two Christian ministers who stood up against Hitler.
Tell it to William Wilberforce who made his life’s work abolishing the trade in slaves.
Tell it to Oscar Romero who spoke out against injustice in Central America and became a martyr for his faith.
Tell it to Raul Wallenberg who risked his life to save countless Jews from the Nazis.
Tell it to Mother Teresa who lived her life serving the poorest of the poor.
Tell it to Desmond Tutu – leader in the fight against apartheid.
All Christians. All believed Jesus was King. But that knowledge (rather than being a crutch for the weak) was what inspired them to live adventurous lives – and to make a difference for good in our world.
And of course these are just a few well-known examples. There are countless more out there.
Saying “Christ is the King” and meaning it, is the opposite of a crutch.
It’s a call to a radical and challenging new life.
So here is what I am saying today: “Christ the King” may seem on the face of it to be an old fashioned expression.
But it’s really a subversive statement.
It means that Jesus is our leader, and that we are serious about following him.
And if this is true then we have signed up for something radical indeed. We have signed up to a campaign of changing this world into a better place and refusing to accept the status quo, or to bow to anyone else.
Because you can only fully serve one master. There is only room in a life for one king.
If Jesus is the king - then other people aren’t.
The early church got into trouble and faced persecution because of exactly this.
Because they were serious about Christ the king.
Because, of course, if Christ is King then Caesar isn’t.
And to bring it up to date… if Christ is truly king for us,then no one else is king in our lives.
We Christians need to be bold about this. Jesus is our King.
He is our leader, our guide, our inspiration, and the one we follow before all others.
As Richard Rohr so memorably said in a seminarat the Greenbelt festival in the summer:
“You never have to apologise for Jesus.”
Sometimes you may have to apologise for me.
Sometimes I may have to apologise for you.
Sometimes we may have to apologise for the church.
But we never have to apologise for Jesus.
That’s why he is our King. That’s why we follow him.
That’s why we give our hearts and our allegiance to him -
before anyone or anything else.
Jesus is the King! Thanks be to God.