This week's thinking bit... |
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This week's thinking bit... |
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Christ the
King. We’ve been working through Luke’s gospel recently - and one of the major
themes Luke uses is about how Jesus came to proclaim God’s royal rule. “The
kingdom of heaven is at hand!” This is the last Sunday of the Church’s year, so
it is fitting that we should reflect on what it means to have Jesus as our
King...
A King has a kingdom. And woe to those who think they can claim Christ as their
king but not let it affect their lives or what they do or how they live.
And a kingdom has a King. Woe to those who think that just by being nice to
people, not hurting others, being good they are Christians. A Christian is one
who follows Christ - one who has Christ as King.
So we need remember both: if Christ is our King then he has the last word, he it
is to whom we owe highest loyalty, his the name that bends our knee, Christ the
one who sits on the throne of our lives: he who rules. And if we work with God
for the coming of the kingdom as citizens, or ambassadors, we will interact with
others, we will bring Good News in our actions, attitudes and words; we will be
salt and light, we will identify where God is already working and work with him.
But this kingship is not what the world expects. It is a servant kingship. It is
more akin to a shepherd that a despotic ruler. The throne of our king, the thing
that lifted him high above people was not a chair of authority or ease, but a
cross... and the servant king bids us to follow him: to serve, rather than to be
served; to love as he loves us; to take up our cross...
It is a kingdom and a kingship which is inclusive: it stands for the poor and
marginalised, those rejected or ignored by society - even so close to his death
Jesus includes a criminal. There is a sketch that Riding Lights Theatre Company
used to do about what the reception would be like at the Pearly Gates when the
first person through was the Penitent Thief... It is an unexpected kingdom.
And the prayer of the citizen? “Jesus remember me, when you come into your
kingdom”
Fr Andrew Perry
Rector, St John the Evangelist, Pevensey Rd, St Leonards on Sea
