Today is the very last Sunday of the Christian year, and it is the
day on which we celebrate the feast of Christ the King.
I
wonder what sort of images go through your head when you hear the
word “King”.
Often, one things of pomp and circumstance,
the gold State Coach, jewels, servants, money, royal
weddings….
Or perhaps you think of our present King, looking
rather elderly and ravaged by his ongoing cancer treatment, poor
man.
His role, of course, is largely ceremonial, and there
are many who think a monarchy is an outdated form of government,
but
I tell you one thing,
I’d rather be represented by a
hereditary monarch who is a-political than by a political head of
state for whom I did not vote, and whose views were anathema to
me!
But it hasn’t always been like that.
We think
of good, brave kings, like Edward the Third or Henry the Fifth:
“Once
more unto the breach, dear friends, once more”.
We think of
Elizabeth at Tilbury:
“Although I have the body of a weak and
feeble woman,
I have the heart and stomach of a King, and a
King of England, too,
and think foul scorn that Parma, or
Spain, or any prince of Europe should dare to invade the borders of
my realm.”
Or Richard the Lionheart –
I’m dodging
about rather here –
who forsook England to fight against
Muslims,
which he believed was God’s will for him.
Hmm,
not much change there, then.
But there have been weak
kings,
poor kings,
mad kings, like poor Henry the
Third,
kings that have been deposed, like Henry the Third or
Edward the Second,
kings that have seized the crown from others,
like Henry Tudor grabbing it at the Battle of Bosworth.
The
monarchy may be embroiled in scandal just now, with the whole Epstein
affair rubbing off badly, particularly on to the former Duke of York,
but it is very far from the first to do so.
Think of the various
Hanoverian kings, the Georges,
most of whom were endlessly in
the equivalent of the tabloid press,
and cartoonists back then
were far, far ruder than they dare to be today.
You may have
seen some of them in museums or in history books.
The ones in
the history books, incidentally, are the more polite ones.
And
that’s just the British monarchy! I am mostly quoting examples
from it as it’s the one I know best. Nevertheless, many of the
modern European monarchies have had their fair share of scandals in
recent years, and of course there have been glorious and inglorious
monarchies all over the world, from the Tsars of Russia to the rules
of the various African tribes. Chaka, for instance, or Lobengula,
and others too numerous to mention.
But traditionally,
the role of a king was to defend and protect his people, to lead them
into battle, if necessary;
to give justice, and generally to
look after their people.
They may have done this well,
or
they may have done it badly,
but that was what they did.
If
you’ve read C S Lewis’ The Horse and His Boy,
you might remember that King Lune tells Shasta,
who is
going to be king after him:
“For this is what it means to be a
king:
to be first in every desperate attack
and last in
every desperate retreat,
and when there's hunger in the land
(as must be now and then in bad years)
to wear finer
clothes and laugh louder over a scantier meal than any man in your
land.”
And when we think of Christ as King,
we
come up against that great paradox, for Christ was, and is, above
all, the Servant King.
No birth with state-of-the-art medical
facilities for him,
but a stable in an inn-yard.
No golden
carriage, but a donkey.
No
crown, save that made of thorns, and no throne, except the
Cross.
And yet, St Paul says of him, as we heard in
our reading from Colossians: “He is the image of the invisible God,
the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in
heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible,
whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have
been created through him and for him. He himself is before all
things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head
of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the
dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. For
in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through
him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on
earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his
cross.”
And yet, this glorious, wonderful King faced a
shameful death on the cross. In Luke’s account, which we’ve just
heard read, the inscription “The King of the Jews” seems to have
been put up as a sneer – “He saved others, himself he cannot
save!” No mention here that it was put up at Pilate’s orders –
maybe it wasn’t.
But the thing is, of course, that
although he was subjected to the most shameful death a person could
have – Roman citizens were never crucified, much too humiliating;
crucifixion was reserved for the “natives”; although he was
subjected to this humiliating death, he didn’t stay dead! He was
raised from the dead, and we believe, as we say in the Creed, that he
will come again in glorious majesty, and his kingdom will have no
end.
And it is this Kingdom that he preached while he was
here on earth.
That was the Good News –
that the Kingdom
of God is at hand.
He told us lots of stories to illustrate what
the kingdom was going to be like,
many of which would have upset
their hearers as they turned their preconceived ideas on their heads,
but nevertheless
it is worth giving up everything for.
Jesus
showed us how “the blind receive their sight,
the lame walk,
the lepers are cleansed,
the deaf hear,
the
dead are raised,
and the poor have good news brought to
them.”
Jesus does lead us into battle, yes, but it is a
battle
“against the rulers,
against the authorities,
against the cosmic powers of this present darkness,
against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly
places.”
And through his Holy Spirit, Jesus gives us the
armour to enable us to fight, the helmet of salvation,
the
breastplate of righteousness,
et cetera, et cetera.
Jesus
requires that His followers forgive others, everything, all the
time.
Even the unforgivable things.
the abusers, the
tyrants, the warlords….
Even those who vote Reform,
or
who spread vicious lies about asylum seekers.
We may not hold on
to anger and hatred,
for that is not the way of the Kingdom.
We
must, of course, do what we can to prevent such atrocities;
we
must strive for justice and peace,
but we must do so without
anger, without hatred, without wishing evil on those who perpetrate
such things.
Which, of course, is only actually possible through
the Holy Spirit working in us!
Jesus’ Kingdom is not
of this world.
He is the king who rides on a donkey,
the
king who requires his followers to use the weapon of forgiveness,
the king who surrendered to the accusers,
the scourge,
and the cross.
But he is also, and let us not
forget this,
he is also the King who was raised on high,
who
triumphed over the grave,
who sits at the right hand of God
from whence, we say we believe, he will come to judge the living and
the dead.
So are we going to follow this King?
Are
we going to turn away from this world, and its values, and instead
embrace the values of the Kingdom?
I tell you this, my friends,
most of us live firmly clinging to the values of this world.
I
include myself –
don’t think I’m any better than you,
because I can assure you, I’m not, and if I didn’t, Robert would
soon tell you!
We all cling to the values of this world,
and
few of us truly embrace the values of the Kingdom.
But if
Christ is King, since Christ is King,
then we must be aware
that he is our King.
If we are Jesus’ people –
and if
you have never said “Yes” to Jesus, now would be a terrific time
to do so –
if we are truly following Jesus with our whole
hearts and minds,
then let us remember our King calls out to us
from the cross and invites us to follow him and to pray fervently for
the coming of his kingdom –
• a kingdom which welcomes those
whom the rest of the world might find most unlikely followers,
•
a kingdom in which we can ask for forgiveness from those whom we have
hurt, and come to forgive those who have hurt us.
As we
reach the end of one church year
and look to the beginning of a
new one,
may the one whom we know to be King of the universe
and ruler of our lives guide us in our journeys of welcome and
forgiveness
that our churches may include all whom God loves,
and our hearts may find healing and wholeness. Amen!
