LAKE JAMES

NORTH CAROLINA

CHRIST THE KING + 11/26/06 + ST. PAUL’S, LAKE JAMES

+ In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Most of the feasts in the Church calendar are quite ancient, but today we celebrate a festival which is only 81 years old and which has an interesting background, to say the least! In 1925, the Roman Catholic Church proclaimed a holy day in honor of Jesus Christ the King and scheduled it to be observed on the last Sunday in October where, the pronouncement said, it would be the final Sunday before the Feast of All Saints. What that document did not say, but what was equally true, was that by putting the new holy day on the last Sunday in October, it would serve as competition to a festival observed on that day by many Protestant denominations. That observance, called “Reformation Sunday” had become an important day for some churches which wanted to emphasize their differences from Roman Catholicism. So, beginning in 1925, there were two ecclesiastical galas on the same day, with Baptists, Lutherans, and Calvinists on one side and Roman Catholics on the other, something quite typical of the religious climate of that time. The behavior of Episcopalians was also typical! Some very “low church” folks who identified themselves as Protestants, observed Reformation Sunday. Anglo-Catholics (that is High Churchmen) made a big point of celebrating the Feast of Christ the King, while many (if not most) Episcopalians either ignored (or were unaware) of the whole thing!

A little-known piece of information is that, when the Feast of Christ the King was first proposed to be a world-wide celebration for the Roman Catholic Church, quite a number of Roman Catholic Bishops objected, pointing out that nations were then moving away from having kings as actual rulers, replacing them with presidents or prime ministers, so that the very concept of “king” was less and less attractive, meaningful, or even acceptable to some people. But the feast was proclaimed anyway and became an annual event.

Although progress has been uneven as far as the way some Christian Churches look at each other, one wonderful step forward was taken when this Feast of Christ the King was moved from October to its present place, the last Sunday of the Church Year. Now, instead of competing with Protestants and Reformation Sunday, today’s feast stands on its own, summing up the meaning of the entire Christian Year. Not only do the present Episcopal and Roman Catholic lectionaries provide a special Collect and Bible Readings for this feast, so do those of the Methodist, Lutheran, and several other denominations so that now, Christians of many traditions join in ending the year with a shared outpouring of homage and fealty to the eternal Son of God, Jesus Christ the King. Maybe, in some ways, at least, Christians are growing up a bit!

With some embarrassment, I share with you my mental image of a king (although it may not be so very different from yours). It is of a man dressed in elaborate, ermine-trimmed robes with a jeweled crown on his head, sitting on a great throne and surrounded by elegantly clad courtiers. In my mind, I can just see pictures like that which, I think, come from story books I read as a child, and probably also reflecting the lavish motion picture musicals of the 1930s and 1940s, shows we sometimes still see as re-runs on non-prime time television. With those mental images in mind, I recall my great disappointment some years ago on seeing a newspaper photograph of the King of Jordan standing in the Rose Garden with the President of the United States – two ordinary-looking men in business suits! What a let down! The image of kingship the Church puts before us this morning is neither that of an elegantly-clad figure from a stage musical nor that of a politician in a business suit. Instead, the picture we see is that of a man standing in a kind of courtroom, being tried on the charge of being a dangerous rival to the Roman Emperor.

Remember the Gospel account of Our Lord hanging on a cross while a man next to him, a criminal also being executed on a cross, screams at Jesus for not somehow saving them both from their suffering? The followers of Jesus were silent, or had fled. The strange truth is that all the Gospel accounts of the crucifixion focus on the paradox of a crucified king. Perhaps because you and I are so used to those stories, because they are so familiar to us, and because most of us have little or no first-hand experience of kings, we may fail to see how very odd that is. In ancient times, killing a nation’s king was one of the most humiliating things which could be inflicted on a country. The ironic inscription nailed to the Cross over Our Lord’s head saying “This is Jesus of Nazarus, the king of the Jews” was Pilate’s way of expressing contempt for the Jewish People. It was his rejection not only of any dignity for Jesus, but of all other Jews as well.

Now, what does all that mean to us? Most of us, unless we have lived in a country actually ruled by royalty, have not looked to a king as being our national leader. Americans are used to committing ourselves to a flag, to an idea, to an ideal. We say “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands…” We do not pledge our allegiance to a particular president and, in fact, if we dislike or disagree with any of our national leaders, we have the right to work for their replacement by people with different ideas or values. As Americans, our allegiance is to the institution, not to a particular person. But, as Christians, when it comes to God, just the opposite is true. Jesus asks for our allegiance. Not primarily to the Church, not simply to a series of doctrinal statements, and not even to living a good life. His first and most basic invitation is “Come, follow me!” He Himself is the way, the truth, and life. Jesus claims our absolute love, loyalty and obedience. In the Collect for today, we prayed to God the Father that all the peoples of the earth might be freed from sin and brought together under the most gracious rule of the King of kings, God’s only Son, Jesus the Christ. We not only accept God’s demand for our obedience, we fervently pray that the same may become true for all people, everywhere. On this Feast of Christ the King, consider this: If all of what I have said is merely symbolic language, it is very nice. It might even contribute to greater respect for others. But what if it’s not just symbolic language? What if Jesus really means what He says? What if He really is the King of kings? As we come to the end of a liturgical year and prepare to begin a new one next Sunday with the start of the season of Advent, may we really hear the message of today’s feast which says in no uncertain terms that Jesus IS King! One question: is He your King?

+ In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

The Reverend Alfred T. K. Zadig, Sr.

This page last modified on Friday, April 11, 2008 09:39 PM