Revelation 1. 4b – 8
John 18. 33 – 37
The Feast of Christ the King
Fr Alex
Today we celebrate the reign of Christ our King over all creation. But so soon in our act of thanksgiving, any preconceptions we might’ve brought with us about what this kingship means, have been punctured by our Gospel reading.
We see our King on trial, bound and brought before the secular authority in humiliation.
It may seem a strange way to end the liturgical year, to be reminded of the moment when Our Lord seemed to have no power or authority at all.
But the new liturgical year begins in the same way, if we think about it. Advent is a short season of preparation for our celebration of the birth of our King at Christmas.
But what kind of a birth is it? This King’s palace will be a dirty stable; his royal robes are swaddling clothes. His attendants are rough shepherds and farm animals. When he grows up, he will be crowned, as a king should be; only it will be with a crown of thorns. His throne will be a cross. He will be abandoned by almost everyone who follows him.
Why on earth does Christ choose this way to win the allegiance of humanity – people he himself brought into being with God?
There’s a story – a parable, really – by the nineteenth-Century philosopher, Soren Kierkegaard, called ‘The King and the Maiden.’ It’s a reflection on the Incarnation, and the true nature of Christ’s Kingdom. It goes like this.
“Suppose there was asking who loved a humble maiden. The king was like no other king. Every statesman trembled before his power. No one dared breathe a word against him, for he had the strength to crush all opponents.
And yet this mighty king was melted by love for a humble maiden who lived in a poor village in his kingdom. How could he declare his love for her? In an odd sort of way, his kingliness tied his hands. If he brought her to the palace and crowned her head with jewels and clothed her body in royal robes, she would surely not resist—no one dared resist him. But would she love him?
She would say she loved him, of course, but would she truly? Or would she live with him in fear, nursing a private grief for the life she had left behind? Would she be happy at his side? How could he know for sure? If he rode to her forest cottage in his royal carriage, with an armed escort waving bright banners, that too would overwhelm her. He did not want a cringing subject. He wanted a lover, an equal. He wanted her to forget that he was a king and she a humble maiden and to let shared love cross the gulf between them. For it is only in love that the unequal can be made equal.
The king, convinced he could not elevate the maiden without crushing her freedom, resolved to descend to her. Clothed as a beggar, he approached her cottage with a worn cloak fluttering loose about him. This was not just a disguise—the king took on a totally new identity—He had renounced his throne to declare his love and to win hers.”
Christ our King does not come to us as a mighty and terrible conqueror, to demand our obedience: he comes as one ‘melted by love,’ as Kierkegaard put it. One who desires not our submission, but our love, given freely and authentically. One who descends to us in humility, so that he may share with us his glory. “It is only in love that the unequal can be made equal.”
What Kierkegaard expresses in parable form, St Paul wrote in his letter to the Philippians, where he praises Christ the King,
“who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross.
Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
Pilate couldn’t understand how Jesus could possibly be a king, poor and humbled before him, handed over for torture and death by his own people.
But it is the great paradox of his kingship that it is on the cross that we see his power, made perfect in weakness and suffering. In giving everything up, even his very life, so that only love is left: we see that that love has the power to overcome all that is set against it, even death itself.
If only Pilate knew that when we come to the last day, to meet our maker at the final judgement: the face of the King before whose throne we will kneel, will be that same bruised and bloodied face that gazed on the world in pain and pity and love from the cross.
If only Pilate knew that he already sees the face of the King, not just in the one standing before him, but in the faces of all the oppressed, the abused, the exploited. If he knew, truly he would tremble before this poor and ragged King.
As we heard in the reading from Revelation, the vision of the last things: “Look! He is coming with the clouds; every eye will see him, even those who pierced him.”
But we do not need to tremble. When we come to look upon Christ, when we see our King as he really is, seated in glory – we will have no cause to be afraid. Because we have already seen him: we have already come to know him not as a vengeful tyrant, but as one who is “melted by love;” one who comes to meet us again and again, and makes his home within us. And we have already seen the signs of his Kingdom, in all that is good and reflects his love in this broken world.
This King “did not come to be served, but to serve.” And we serve him best when we can let ourselves be melted by love; when we can put aside all thoughts of earthly status and power, and can give up everything as he did, so that only love is left. Then we may find the true power that can overcome all things, and may take our place in the kingdom that is “not from this world.” “To him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.”