PROPER 29, YEAR C

(CHRIST THE KING)

November 20, 2022

Christ Church, Woodbury, N.J.

 

Luke 23:35-43

 

The death of Queen Elizabeth II on September 8, and the subsequent accession of King Charles III, got me thinking about our ambivalent relationship with monarchy in this country. In my experience, we Americans are often fascinated by the British royal family. Along with millions of people the world over, many of us will make whatever effort is necessary to watch King Charles’s coronation live this May. For us Episcopalians in particular, all the pageantry showcases our Anglican tradition at its best. 

 

But this American fascination with royalty can create a misleading impression. In general, it’s fair to say that while we Americans find it wonderful that the British have a royal family over there, a monarchy is the last thing we’d ever want over here! By our history, traditions, and culture, we live in a republic, in which the people are sovereign. So, for most of us, the very idea of subjecting ourselves to a hereditary monarch is unthinkable.

 

Still, every year, the Feast of Christ the King comes around to remind us that while as Americans we may be republicans—using the word not in its party sense but in its constitutional sense—nonetheless as Christians we are indeed monarchists: freely yielding our loyalty and allegiance not to any earthly king but to a heavenly king. Today’s liturgical observance reminds us that, despite all appearances to the contrary, the risen and ascended Christ reigns as King over all creation; and no earthly political system, ideology, ruler, or power can ultimately thwart his saving purposes for humanity.

 

A relative newcomer to the Church Calendar, the Solemnity of Christ the King was instituted by Pope Pius XI in 1925 as an antidote to Soviet Communism, Italian Fascism, and modern Western secularism in general. It was initially kept on the last Sunday in October, but in 1969 moved to its current position on the last Sunday of the liturgical year. We thus conclude our annual cycle of seasons, feasts, and fasts with a ringing affirmation of Christ’s sovereignty over all human affairs.

 

The theologian Aidan Nichols points out that Christ the King belongs to a special category of feasts added to the Church calendar to afford a second look at doctrines and mysteries already given a first glance on previous occasions in the year. Thus, on Corpus Christi we take a second look at Christ’s real presence in the Eucharist, previously considered on Maundy Thursday. On Holy Cross Day in September, we take a second look at Christ’s compassion and suffering, previously considered on Good Friday. And on the Solemnity of Christ the King, we take a second look at the risen Christ’s exaltation to divine glory at his Father’s right hand in heaven, previously considered on the Feast of the Ascension.

 

After all, on Ascension Day we remember that forty days after his Resurrection, Christ is taken up from the sight of his disciples to reign as king over all creation until the Last Day when he shall return to judge the living and the dead.

 

Nichols further points out that in Western Church’s artistic tradition—as seen, for example, in the carved stone tympanum reliefs over the entrances to gothic cathedrals—Christ is typically depicted as the Judge separating the saved from the damned, as sheep from goats, at the Last Judgment. By contrast, the Eastern Church’s iconography emphasizes Christ as the heavenly ruler of all things, even now in the present. Byzantine churches in places like Sicily and Greece feature magnificent apse mosaics of Christ Pantocrator dominating the entire interior space of the building. Yet both types of image—Christ the future Judge of the living and the dead, and Christ the present ruler of the cosmos—merely illuminate different aspects of the mystery that we celebrate today.

 

But what does it mean to affirm the universal kingship of Christ? Here we touch on the doctrine of divine Providence, which teaches that God is active and involved in all aspects of human affairs, and that everything that happens in history is ultimately under his control and subject to his will.

 

I realize that claim may set off alarm bells. In seminary we were taught that the one thing we must never say to people in times of personal loss, tragedy, or bereavement—such as the death of a child—is that it was God’s will. Bad pastoral technique and spiritually very harmful! And I really don’t believe that such tragedies, or indeed natural catastrophes and disasters—such as floods, famines, and earthquakes—really do represent God’s will in any active sense. For God is infinitely good, and he wills only our good.

 

Here, however, some theologians make a helpful distinction between what they call God’s active will and God’s permissive will. That is, God doesn’t actively bring about the bad things that happen in this world. But he is in charge, and he is all-powerful, omnipotent, almighty, and that means that in some sense he permits these bad things to happen. 

 

Partly out of his respect for our human freedom, he limits his exercise of divine power and lets things play out for the moment as they will in our fallen world. Nonetheless, the doctrine of divine providence assures us that no matter what evils may befall us in this life, God is working in and through them to turn them to our ultimate good—indeed to an infinitely greater good than we can ask or imagine.

 

More than that, today’s Gospel reading reminds us that Christ enters into his kingship precisely by way of his own suffering and death on the cross. There, a king is the very last thing that Jesus appears to be. The soldiers mock him, “If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself.” The inscription placed over his head, “This is the king of the Jews,” is totally ironic in its intention.

 

And yet, against all expectations, one of the two criminals being crucified alongside him miraculously recognizes him as a real king: “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” By his response, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise,” Jesus reveals that he is indeed already the king, for only the true sovereign of the universe has the authority to forgive sins and admit a condemned criminal to eternal life.

 

Such is the nature of Christ’s kingship: exercised in vulnerability and weakness as much as in power and glory. Whatever bad things we may suffer in this life, on the cross he suffers with us, and there he turns our suffering to an infinitely greater good. And in those moments when it feels like we’re being crucified, to find our king we need look no further than the next cross over. From there he exercises his universal kingship, gently assuring us, “Truly I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”