"Christ the King"
Here on the cusp of a new year in the life of the church we once again proclaim “Christ the King.” Yet we’re are challenged to understand this vast disparity between common notions of “kings” and what we see in Jesus. This is a different kind of king. And he calls all of those who would enter into his kingdom to a different kind of loyalty and obedience. He says things like, “the one who would be ruler of all must become the servant of all.” The one who would “rule over all the kings of the earth,” clothes himself like a household slave and washes feet. And he calls us to do likewise. He challenges everyone who is chasing after divine proofs and evidence as a basis for faith to seek him in the faces of the hungry, the suffering, the stranger and the prisoner. Taunts of kingship will be shouted at his mock trial, and will hang in ridicule above his head on the cross. And yet, this is the one God sends to redeem the world, to make all things new; the one whose “kingdom shall have no end.” Today we embrace the true kingship of God’s Christ, and the kingdom he is calling forth in the world.
