Christ the King?

The recent engagement of Prince William and burgers aside, I really don't care much about royalty.

I may pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America (though not much since 6th grade), but I don't think very often of any governmental power over my life, let alone being subject to someone's reign. I have a feeling most 21st century Americans are in my proverbial boat.

So, it's with an aura of oddness that we celebrate Christ the King Sunday.

Wouldn't it be better to celebrate Jesus is God or Christ Our Savior, or even Jesus Rules! Sunday? I'm thinking Buddy Christ could be our mascot that day, smiling down from the altar.

I mean, most of our thoughts connected with kingship are negative: the king getting fat while the subjects starve, or brutal: the king in the midst of a bloody battle, or just plain out-dated: a scene ala Monty Python--armor and horses and castles and all. It just doesn't seem fitting in our day of political-correctness, modernity, independence, and democracy to talk anymore about Jesus as Christ the King.

Or is it just entirely perfect?

In a time when we look to no one but ourselves as our greatest authority;
In a time when kingship has become an absurdity;
In a time when the world seems subject to anything other than God...

It is the perfect time for a king whose authority in love compels us to look outside ourselves, who rules in the backward absurdity of the way of the cross, who promises that all of Creation--in spite of how it may appear to our eyes--is under the reign of a God who calls Creation "good" and is working to restore it in its very goodness.

One of my favorite seminary professors and WorkingPreacher guru, Dr. David Lose, had helpful words about the concept of Christ the King, and I looked to his wisdom in preparation to preach this most awkward, yet most beautiful of Sundays. He says,

"The kingdom of God (or of heaven, in Matthew) is not simply about supplanting an earthly ruler with a heavenly one. In heralding the coming kingdom of God, Jesus was not advocating regime change. Rather, Jesus was announcing the advent of an entirely different way of being in relationship with each other and with God. It's not the ruler that changes, but the realm in which we live."

Now is the time of Christ the King.
Thy Kingdom come.


Want to hear more?
Listen to my sermon from this past Sunday: Kingdom Vision