Long Live The King!

Sermon for Christ the King Sunday
Preached At St John’s Lancaster

For weeks, with just a few exceptions, the vestments and hangings in our church have been green. And now, with one week remaining before the season of Advent, they are white. Today is the Sunday set aside by our holy mother the Church as Christ the King Sunday. It is the day we pause to consider the nature of the station and dignity of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
We all know about kings. They live in palaces and wear spectacular uniforms to review their splendidly dressed palace guards. They are great tourist attractions. Their weddings are often televised. And lushly photographed books and magazines about their homes and gardens are almost always bestsellers. And one other thing, they don’t have near as much power as they used to.
Our history informs our opinion of kings as well. They are generally remembered as very fallible and somewhat out of touch Scottish or German powerbrokers that care more about enriching themselves and their friends than about fulfilling the responsibilities they claim in relation to us and our families out here in the colonies. At the end of the day, we are pretty sure that we are better off without them, unless of course they are circumscribed by parliaments or local chieftains who agree with us.
The end result is that we often see Jesus not as the imperial ruler the Scriptures claim him to be, but as a sort of buddy who doubles as our president. We like him and he likes us, and we respect him a lot, but when it comes to such things as commands and edicts, most of them are discussable, and a good number of them are negotiable. I imagine that is why so many of us who name the name of Christ today ignore so many of his precepts. So many who really do try to follow Christ fail to have respect for human life and seek to justify the use of abortion as an unfortunate but acceptable form of birth control if a child does not fit into their plans. Others who serve him so faithfully in so many other ways are willing in their anger to bomb civilian populations back into the Stone Age, and attempt to justify their attitudes and actions in the name of our own security. Still others who are devout in so many ways are willing to overlook the physical and emotional needs of their neighbors, neighbors in need, and neighbors created in the image of God himself, on grounds of practicality, or availability of resources, or their own opinions about who deserves to be helped and who does not deserve to be helped.
If we go on to add all of the other places where an individual Christian might cut corners and justify their departure from the clear teachings of Scripture: sex, wealth, truthfulness, and respect for
God and other people, to mention just a few; it becomes painfully obvious to most thoughtful people that all of us fail at some time and on some issue with which we struggle. Most of us who name Christ as our King fail to treat him as such at least on occasion. Like men and women of every age and in every place, we fail to appreciate the true meaning of Kingship as it relates to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
What are we to do? On this feast day of Christ the King, I would offer a few common sense, and biblical suggestions:
1. Remember that Christ the King is sovereign, and that means that by right, he calls the shots. He has spoken to us in the words of the Scriptures, and where their teaching is clear, we are bound to follow those teachings.
2. Remember that we all foul up from time to time. We miss the mark, and that is the definition of Sin. Even the most religious of us, the most Christian of us if you will, need to go to the King, tell him we are sorry for our failures, and ask his forgiveness. Always remember that a sincere apology, which means that we really are sorry and that it is our intent not to do the wrong thing again, will be accepted by the King, and we will be forgiven.
3. We need to work hard to change our attitude about kingship, and to submit in all things to the revealed will of our Sovereign. For that is the meaning of Sovereignty.
In conclusion, let us put aside the idea that we can live a victorious Christian life if we do not accept the plan for living laid out for us by him who loved us enough to step down from his throne and die for our sins that we might be reconciled to God and have abundant life forever. Even if we do not agree with or understand completely why he gives us some clear command in the Bible, let us strive to live in obedience to those commands in the knowledge that one day he will say to us, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant.”
My brothers and sisters, on this feast day of Christ the King, I would propose a toast to be offered at our next meal, wherever that may be: “To Christ, the True King. Long live the King.” In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. AMEN.