Fr. Tommy Thompson
The Solemnity of Christ the King
26 November 2017
In the Name of the one, true, and living God: The Father,
the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Amen.
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord
Jesus Christ. It is such a joy to be
standing before you today on Mount Pulpit.
From this mountain, I get a fuller perspective. So, I’m going to reach into my cassock pocket
now and pull out my iPhone. It has this
super cool feature on it called “panorama mode.” When I activate this mode from
the heights of Mount Pulpit, I can simply scan the scene I want to share with
others and it creates one panoramic photo that gives the big picture of what I
see from up here.
Today is a kind of panoramic day. Today is the last day of the Christian year,
a relatively new feast day in the church called, “The Solemnity of Christ the
King.” Many of us don’t know what to do
on this day, as it seems very redundant...Christ was enthroned already on the
feast of the Ascension...and the upcoming season of Advent will be centered
upon the culmination of His reign on earth.
So, I think the best way to celebrate today’s feast is to recapitulate
the story, or, to get out our smartphones and scan the entire scene that we’ve
lived in this year so that we might share that big picture of good news with
others and be ready for the journey that starts afresh next week with Advent.
Throughout the entire year, the Gospels have focused
heavily on the Kingdom of God and its rightful King, Jesus, the Christ, our
Lord. The claim that Jesus is King of a
Kingdom that is not of this world is the primary reason Jesus ends up on a
Roman cross. The claim that Jesus is king upset the first century world in two
ways: Firstly, according to the Roman
Empire, there can only be one Lord and one King -- the Caesar. By claiming to be king, Jesus claims that
Caesar, is not. And Caesar will have
none of it. The politics and reign of
Jesus threaten the politics and kingdoms of this world. That’s one side of the coin. The other side is the Jewish one. People confess Jesus as Lord and Messiah; rumor
has it, he is the one who is to come. But the problem for first century Jews is
that Jesus didn’t match their list of expectations for the ideal candidate as the
Messiah King of Israel. The Messiah King
is supposed to march into Jerusalem on a mighty white horse with sword and
shield and army ready to conquer in the name of the LORD – to take back the
holy city from the pagan authority.
Kings are supposed to be waited on hand and foot, to
wear the finest clothing, eat the finest food, enjoy the finest of the arts --
kings live it up...Jesus doesn’t even have a place to lay his head. He hangs
around with drunkards, gluttons, no-name misfits. He doesn’t seem to be
concerned with gold or silver, fine clothing, impressive horses, or large
palaces. Is THIS the king of Israel who is to come, the one through which all
creation will be restored? Jesus message
about an alternative kingdom with an alternative way and an alternative king
upset the equilibrium of the first century world.
I mean just look at the panoramic of Jesus’ life -- the
story that we’ve been telling all year, beginning with Advent and ending today
with Christ the King. His story began
when the angel Gabriel appeared to a virgin named Mary. A young woman, not someone that people at that
time were venerating, that’s for sure...insignificant in the eyes of most...but
this lady, of all ladies, is THE favored one -- the ONE that the Father saw
worthy to be the living tabernacle for His one and only Son, Jesus. From a virgin, the Son of the Most High will
come forth and he will take the throne of David and will reign over the house
of Jacob forever and of his kingdom there will be no end! The story begins in the most unlikely of
circumstances. In the world’s eye, this
is not the way a king is brought into the world. But, as Mary said in her song of praise, God
is turning the world upside down (or maybe the correct way of saying it is – turning
the world back right side up). He is
scattering the proud...bringing down the powerful from their thrones and
lifting up the lowly...filling the hungry with good things and sending the rich
away empty. This is the true remembrance
of the covenant God has made with Abraham...and God is making good on that,
through this Jesus who will reign forever and ever.
The Son of God, very God of very God, God from God and
Light from Light, takes upon himself human flesh through the faithfulness of
the Blessed Virgin and appears here on this sod as Emmanuel -- God with
us. Born not in a palace or castle, but
a cave with animals and shepherds.
Immediately we find that this King plans on getting his hands messy in
our lives. He refuses to live in the
ivory towers...He is inaugurating the alternative kingdom that will reveal that
all others are mere parodies or imitation that falls way short of the real
thing that Jesus has come to reveal.
Jesus grows and is nurtured by the holy family, becomes
a man, passing through every phase of human life for us, and then shows up to
announce that he is about to do an earth-shattering new thing called the
Kingdom of God. “The time is fulfilled
and the kingdom of God is at hand -- repent and believe in the good news.” The rest of the Gospel we heard from that
point early on in the season after Epiphany until now was a fleshing out of
what the good news of the alternative kingdom is all about. He commands unclean spirits to come out of
the oppressed and the oppressed are freed; people quickly began hearing about
Jesus so they began flocking to him, bringing all who were sick or oppressed
and Jesus cured them. Even when Jesus’
journey took him to the outskirts of town where the untouchables resided --
those who were deemed unclean by the religious authorities -- Jesus didn’t keep
his distance but engaged the unclean and restored them to fullness of life in
the community. One time, when the
passover was near, Jesus went into Jerusalem and did not seek to make a
favorable impression on all the big name Jewish leaders. He rubbed elbows with em alright -- but he
did so in such a way that would not win him points to become the next big thing
in Jerusalem. He marched into the temple
where he found injustice and overturned the tables and drove the crooks
out. He dared to take his disciples not
only into the sea, but to the ‘other side of the tracks’ if you will...on the
way he calmed the storm and when they had arrived to the other side, Jesus
freed a man from a legion of demons.
Even when he was tired and exhausted, he showed us what a real King does
for His people. He carried on and went
with Jairus to heal his little girl who was at the point of death. While on the way, an unclean woman took a
risk and went out into the crowd and reached out and touched the hem of Jesus’
garment and was healed. It was this
woman Jesus affirmed while others would have berated her for breaking the
rules. What an alternative Kingdom! What king does these kinds of things? The lowly are being exalted and the mighty
and powerful and being knocked from their thrones! Jesus ate with sinners and outcasts. He touched the unclean and made them
well. He engaged Gentiles in conversation,
them leaving knowing their lives would never be the same.
And then there’s that Gospel lesson in Mark that lays it
all on the line. “Whoever wants to be
first must be last of all and servant of all. Then he took a little child and
put it among them and taking it in his arms, he said to them, “Whoever welcomes
one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me, welcomes not me
but the one who sent me.” Children--the
visible expression of this kingdom. Not
warriors, not the rich and powerful, the smartest, the bravest—no—children! those
who have no status in society, the most
vulnerable, innocent, imaginative – children!
These are the ones that Jesus says are sacramental – a visible
expression of the Kingdom. By welcoming
these little ones we welcome the One who sent Jesus. This is not a kingdom from this world --
Jesus told the truth to Pilate!
Kings of this world do not get their hands so messy. They do not love their people with such
fervor, with such unshakable love that they are willing to lay down their own
life so that all might be restored/renewed.
And this is the culmination of the entire story of God’s saving activity
that we rehearsed during the Great Three Days from Maundy Thursday to Easter
morning. The alternative kingdom was too alternative -- its presence in this
age that is passing away pushed the buttons of evil like nothing ever before
and evil rolled up its sleeves and gave love incarnate its best punches. And on the cross, love -- God -- true
humanity was crucified and God found himself in a dark, cold tomb. Yet God’s love proved more powerful than evil
and on the third day love sprung forth from the cold grave of our sin when
Jesus rose from the dead as the first fruits of those to rise to everlasting
life. He ascended beyond the veil into
the heavenly realm where he has been enthroned as the king of Israel and the
King of the entire universe and his kingdom will last for ever and ever!
But that’s not the end of the story. On Pentecost, God the Spirit descended and
empowered disciples everywhere to live the kingdom Jesus inaugurated in the
here-and-now. With the coming of the
Spirit, we learned that, just as God did in the beginning when he created us in
his image and likeness, so God invites us to cooperate with him in bringing
about new creation -- the fullness of God’s kingdom on earth. With Pentecost and the Sundays thereafter, we
learned that there is a meantime – that the Kingdom of God is both already and
not yet; and in the meantime, the baptized are called forth from the womb of
the kingdom of God (aka the baptismal font) to live the alternative kingdom in
the midst of an age that is passing away for the glory of God and for the
transformation of God’s world.
What a beautiful yet sobering panoramic photo! When we look at the life of our Lord and King
Jesus Christ, we know that the road that leads to eternal life in goodness and
love won’t usually be easy. It will be
hard. There is nothing about shouldering
a cross and following Jesus the Crucified that is easy. Which is why we need these panoramic days.
Because when we see the big picture of Jesus, life, death, resurrection,
ascension, the pouring out of the Spirit on Pentecost, and the ultimate
re-appearing of the Son of Man on the clouds of heaven to put all things to
rights, all is put into perspective and we know that faithfulness, even when it
leads to persecution and suffering, is leading to newness because our Lord is
no longer in the grave but is coming again to make all things new. Therefore, as Paul says at the end of 1
Corinthians 15, nothing we do in the name of Christ and for the sake of this
alternative kingdom will be wasted. So be steadfast and immoveable in the Lord
as we mark the close of the church year and endeavor to begin the journey with
Christ the King afresh next Sunday with the seasons of Advent.
In the Name of God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Ghost. Amen.
