Sunday, November 25, 2018

Christ the King/Reign of Christ

The Revised Common Lectionary passages for the Lord’s Day are:

First Reading: 2 Samuel 23:1-7, Psalm: 132:1-12 (13-18)
Second Reading: Revelation 1:4b-8
Gospel Reading: John 18:33-37

The liturgical color for the day is: White

Christ the King Sunday.

That last Sunday of the liturgical year. The Sunday that culminates and finalizes the year. Today, it is the cross on the “t” and the dot on the “I” of the Christian year. Then the year starts over with Advent as the beginning.

The struggle on this Festival Day is the image of King. We don’t have kings in our world. We don’t speak that kind of language and this does not resonate with us.

In the death and resurrection of Jesus a different language is spoken by God to us. We are shown an alternative way of living and being. It is a way where truth of the ages has less to do with power and more to do with love.

What language do we speak? What if we spoke the language of Jesus? What if we spoke the language of God? What if how we talked and how we lived had less to do with power and more to do with love?

What if our personal truth—were not about what we have and what we can get, but who we can be? What if…

In Christ there is this alternative “life speak” to what is offered as the way of being in the world. How we choose to live will really determine what language we speak. Will we speak the language of life and love—the language of truth, or will we speak the world speak of power and self?

How will your life speak? It is a choice? It is the way of the cross…it is the hard way to which we are called. We are called to this way of love and sacrifice that leads to this great love of God. It is the language of our living as the Body of Christ. It is the language of justice and it is the truth of the ages.

We crown Christ our King not with our words but with our life speak.

Pilate could not speak that language, so it is no wonder that in the verse following today’s lection he asks, “What is truth?” The way that we live in Christ answers that question to the world.