Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God the Father and our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen!
If I say the word “King,” instantly an image comes to mind. Royalty. Crown. Throne. Robe. Maybe a jewel encrusted golden staff or sceptre. Something along those lines. Every fairy tale story we read as children, every Disney movie that showed the Princess’ Dad, and even now on the other side of our most recent Canadian coins, has the image and likeness of a King. You no doubt get the kingly drift. But when we look at Jesus, the King of kings and Lord of lords, do we get a kingly drift? In some ways yes and in some ways no. Think about His lowly birth in Bethlehem. Born out of wedlock to a young virgin girl that in and of itself defies all understanding. No room in the inn. A nearby cattle cave was available, thus originating the term “born in a barn!” Is that the birth place and circumstances for royalty?? Hardly! But then a little while later, the Wisemen come, the Magi, kings in their own right, they travel a great distance from the East, following the star to worship this one “who has been born king of the Jews” (MT 2:2).
Throughout this whole past year, we’ve travelled the road to Bethlehem. We watched our Lord grow up and saw Him journey into the villages and countryside of Galilee. We saw Him demonstrate His power over Satan, sickness and even death itself. We heard anew His teaching both to the multitudes as well as the disciples. We likewise followed our Lord as He made His journey into Jerusalem, to the upper room, to the Garden of Gethsemane. We watched as the Christ carried His cross through the mean streets of Jerusalem. And then the hill outside the city, the Lord of life was innocently crucified for the sins of world. The words of cousin John the Baptizer on the banks of the Jordan river came flooding back to us: “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (JN 1:29) But our Lord of course doesn’t stay dead. We walked over to the empty tomb to peer inside and behold, the stone was rolled away and it was empty. Truly, He was risen indeed.
This, our Lord’s greatest sign, as well as all of His other amazing miracles, pointed to the same place: Jesus is the promised Messiah of old. He truly is the “Son of Man” with the clouds of Heaven we heard about in our reading from Daniel. “And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion” (Dan 7:14). It’s quite clear that Jesus checks all the boxes. Messiah stuff? Check. King stuff? Check. Back to the Magi, this is precisely why King Herod did what he did in a jealous rage. He ordered the slaughter of all the young boys who could potentially threaten his rule. We commemorate this with the Sunday of the Holy Innocents on December 28th. So it’s “kingly” from the get go. St. Matthew goes to great pains in His gospel to illustrate that Jesus’ genealogy is likewise royal as a descendant of King David. And, back to the cross and empty tomb, we recall that a claim of Kingship is what got Jesus into hot water with Roman governor Pilate. Jesus says “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world” (JN 18:36). And to this end, Pilate writes the sign of mockery that hung atop our Lord’s cross: “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews” (JN 19:19).
And herein we see the rub. Christ the King and His Kingdom are not of earth like the rulers of men. Empire after earthly empire have risen and fallen for thousands and thousands of years. Assyrians. Egyptians. Babylonians. Persians. Greeks. Romans. Mongolian. British. Russians. Germans. American, and many countless more. All of these Empires had the lust for ultimate power. They rule by force, with an iron fist. They expand their kingdoms by defeating other nations and taking their territory and in turn, making them their slaves. They all come to be personified as the Beast rising from the sea in Revelation 13. Like a carousel through the ages of man, round and round and round it goes, dictators and tyrants and empires rise and fall. But these earthly kingdoms are nothing like the Kingdom of God. St. Paul tells us that the Kingdom of God is “righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” (Rom 14:17). Jesus Himself called the disciples in close to tell them “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. 26 It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, 27 and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, 28 even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (MT 20:25-28).
Here it is that we realize there is only one Good King in all of human existence. A benevolent King. A merciful King. A gracious King. And this King of kings and Lord of Lords has truly come to us as a servant. A slave. Humble. Lowly. Completely the opposite of the power and opulence of earthly kings. And to us, His baptized believers, He gives this same pattern of humility. If you want to follow Christ the King, the path is service. The path is love and care for your brothers and sisters in Christ and indeed everyone according to their needs. We serve our King by serving each other.
There was a pretty big and “successful” church. Big budget. Loads of programs and hundreds and hundreds of people in attendance. There was a real excitement in the air because they had been vacant for quite some time. Sunday morning rolled around and their new pastor was going to be preaching and leading the service for the first time. The congregation was excited to see the new guy in action! They had seen his photo on Facebook. He was a nice, clean cut young man with a dapper hair do. Trendy suit and tie. Very respectable young man in deed. The church started to fill up with excited parishioners. There was though, a guy hanging around outside the church. He was shabby looking, obviously homeless, dirty and rather smelly. The church goers wouldn’t make eye contact with him and tried their best to avoid him as they went into the church. This man also made his way into the church and sat down in a pew by himself. Nobody sat with him or greeted him. He just looked out of place. 10AM arrived and then 10:15 and soon 10:30. The service was supposed to start at 10 and the new pastor was nowhere to be found! Did his car break down on the way to church? He wasn’t answering his cell phone. After the excitement in the sanctuary had thoroughly shifted to uneasy concern, the homeless man stood up and began walking to the front of the church. He walked right up to pulpit and quoted Matthew 25 “I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not welcome me.” He took off his shabby coat and the fake beard he was wearing. It was none other than the new pastor in disguise! Humility hit that congregation like a freight train. He said “Today I see a gathering of people. I do not see the church of Jesus. This world has enough people but it is severely lacking in disciples.”
“And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me’” (MT 25:40). The Kingdom of God comes through the lives of His people. To follow the King means to put His grace and mercy into action as servants of all. This is what we do while we wait for our King to come again. In lives of repentance, overflowing with grace and mercy, we embrace our King and His Kingdom that has no end. “To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood 6 and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen” (Rev. 1:5-6). Come, Lord Jesus. Amen!
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