Christ the King Sunday Year C A sermon based on Jeremiah 23:1-6 and Luke 23:33-43
In the name of Jesus; amen.
Rejoice, for Christ is king! Your Lord and king adore; rejoice, give thanks, and sing, and triumph evermore: Lift up your heart, lift up your voice; rejoice, again I say, rejoice!
Are you done being thankful yet? Now that the Thanksgiving holiday is over are you finished making your lists of all the things you are thankful for; are you done saying thank you?
I’m going to make an assumption and say no. I am going to assume that despite the fact that it is now past November 23rd and no longer Thanksgiving Day that we would all agree that the time to be thankful is not over. After all we are not just allowed to be grateful on one day of the year; it is simply that there is one day of the year that we specifically set aside to celebrate our thankfulness.
A similar thing can be said about this day, Christ the King Sunday when the church has specifically set aside a time to remember that Christ is King. Christ isn’t just king on this day, but on all days.
But, unlike Thanksgiving, Christ the King is a hard concept to really understand especially in a country where we don’t have kings or a concept of a monarchy. For us kings are found in fairy takes or in the history books of Europe. The closest we come to having a king in America is one who sells hamburgers and fries at Burger King.
The prophet Jeremiah describes the king as a shepherd, another hard concept to understand in our modern American world. For Jeremiah, the king as shepherd was a king who gathered the people together and ruled over them with justice unlike the kings he experienced in his lifetime. The king he waited for was a king who would bring the people together and care for them with justice and righteousness so that they would live in safety. For Jeremiah, the king was someone who served the people.
It is believed that in ancient European pagan cultures the king was required to give himself as a sacrifice for the people. When things were good the sacrifice of the king was sometimes a symbolic ritual, but when things were bad the ritual sacrifice of the king was not symbolic, but actual and the king was expected to go willingly to the slaughter for the sake of his people.
In our gospel today, Luke paints a picture of Jesus as king combining these two ideas of kingship; as the shepherd who gathers together in righteousness and justice and as the king who willingly gives himself as a sacrifice for the people.
This is supposed to challenge our notions of power and strength most often associated with kings and rulers.
The festival of Christ the King is a fairly young tradition. Pope Pius XI instituted The Feast of Christ the King in 1925. It was intended to proclaim God’s reign over a world wracked by one world war and facing another and to counter a rise of secularism. At the time, Pius XI witnessed the rise of dictatorships in Europe, and saw Christians being taken in by these earthly leaders.
Christ the King Sunday used to be celebrated on the last Sunday of October, but in 1969 the church calendar was reformed and now it is celebrated on the last Sunday of Ordinary Time, which is the Sunday before Advent, which is today.
It is an appropriate time to remember that Christ is king as we begin the journey into Advent and the Christmas seasons. Jesus isn’t born with a silver spoon in his mouth, but rather he is placed in a manger in a dirty cave used to house animals during the cold nights. And Jesus doesn’t reign from a gilded throne, but rather from a cross used to execute criminals.
These seasons of the church year and its festivals and feast days are meant to remind us that God doesn’t operate the way that we expect people to operate. Shepherds were hired hands out to make a buck and earn the best living they could afford. And pagan kings that were meant to willingly go to sacrifice and appease the gods for the good of the people often dressed up slaves and criminals in royal robes to take their places.
But Jesus is king because he is the good shepherd who gathers the flock together and offers them safety. And Jesus is king because he willingly goes to the cross as a sacrifice for our sins.
Just as Pious XI instituted this special day in 1925 so that Christians could remember that Jesus was the true ruler of our lives we should remember that Christ is the ultimate ruler not because he received the most votes or because he staged a successful coup or because he inherited a crown, but because he is the one who gathers us in safety and judges us with righteousness, justice, and forgiveness.
And so we give thanks not just for turkey and family dinners or the presents under the trees that soon will be here, but for the gift of Christ who cares for us as the King of kings and lord of Lords. Amen.
Rejoice, for Christ is king! Your Lord and king adore; rejoice, give thanks, and sing, and triumph evermore: Lift up your heart, lift up your voice; rejoice, again I say, rejoice!
Are you done being thankful yet? Now that the Thanksgiving holiday is over are you finished making your lists of all the things you are thankful for; are you done saying thank you?
I’m going to make an assumption and say no. I am going to assume that despite the fact that it is now past November 23rd and no longer Thanksgiving Day that we would all agree that the time to be thankful is not over. After all we are not just allowed to be grateful on one day of the year; it is simply that there is one day of the year that we specifically set aside to celebrate our thankfulness.
A similar thing can be said about this day, Christ the King Sunday when the church has specifically set aside a time to remember that Christ is King. Christ isn’t just king on this day, but on all days.
But, unlike Thanksgiving, Christ the King is a hard concept to really understand especially in a country where we don’t have kings or a concept of a monarchy. For us kings are found in fairy takes or in the history books of Europe. The closest we come to having a king in America is one who sells hamburgers and fries at Burger King.
The prophet Jeremiah describes the king as a shepherd, another hard concept to understand in our modern American world. For Jeremiah, the king as shepherd was a king who gathered the people together and ruled over them with justice unlike the kings he experienced in his lifetime. The king he waited for was a king who would bring the people together and care for them with justice and righteousness so that they would live in safety. For Jeremiah, the king was someone who served the people.
It is believed that in ancient European pagan cultures the king was required to give himself as a sacrifice for the people. When things were good the sacrifice of the king was sometimes a symbolic ritual, but when things were bad the ritual sacrifice of the king was not symbolic, but actual and the king was expected to go willingly to the slaughter for the sake of his people.
In our gospel today, Luke paints a picture of Jesus as king combining these two ideas of kingship; as the shepherd who gathers together in righteousness and justice and as the king who willingly gives himself as a sacrifice for the people.
This is supposed to challenge our notions of power and strength most often associated with kings and rulers.
The festival of Christ the King is a fairly young tradition. Pope Pius XI instituted The Feast of Christ the King in 1925. It was intended to proclaim God’s reign over a world wracked by one world war and facing another and to counter a rise of secularism. At the time, Pius XI witnessed the rise of dictatorships in Europe, and saw Christians being taken in by these earthly leaders.
Christ the King Sunday used to be celebrated on the last Sunday of October, but in 1969 the church calendar was reformed and now it is celebrated on the last Sunday of Ordinary Time, which is the Sunday before Advent, which is today.
It is an appropriate time to remember that Christ is king as we begin the journey into Advent and the Christmas seasons. Jesus isn’t born with a silver spoon in his mouth, but rather he is placed in a manger in a dirty cave used to house animals during the cold nights. And Jesus doesn’t reign from a gilded throne, but rather from a cross used to execute criminals.
These seasons of the church year and its festivals and feast days are meant to remind us that God doesn’t operate the way that we expect people to operate. Shepherds were hired hands out to make a buck and earn the best living they could afford. And pagan kings that were meant to willingly go to sacrifice and appease the gods for the good of the people often dressed up slaves and criminals in royal robes to take their places.
But Jesus is king because he is the good shepherd who gathers the flock together and offers them safety. And Jesus is king because he willingly goes to the cross as a sacrifice for our sins.
Just as Pious XI instituted this special day in 1925 so that Christians could remember that Jesus was the true ruler of our lives we should remember that Christ is the ultimate ruler not because he received the most votes or because he staged a successful coup or because he inherited a crown, but because he is the one who gathers us in safety and judges us with righteousness, justice, and forgiveness.
And so we give thanks not just for turkey and family dinners or the presents under the trees that soon will be here, but for the gift of Christ who cares for us as the King of kings and lord of Lords. Amen.
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