Christ the King Sunday, B
November 25, 2012
John 18:33-37
Grace to you and peace from the one who is and who was and
who is to come. Amen.
So:
how many of you got started on your Christmas preparations this weekend?
Shopping? Decorating? Crafting? In our culture, of course, Thanksgiving weekend
has come to be the official kick-off for the holiday season. Often, the
church-year agrees. More often than not, I’d say, this first Sunday after
Thanksgiving is the first Sunday in Advent, the first of four Sundays we spend
waiting for and anticipating the birth of Christ. Because of how early
Thanksgiving fell this year, however, we ended up with this extra week in
November before Advent, and so this year, this first Sunday after Thanksgiving
is not yet Advent, but Christ the King Sunday.
Christ
the King Sunday has an interesting history. It’s a fairly new festival for the
church, born in 1925. After World War I, Europe was in a state of economic
uncertainty, and people were putting their trust in anything they could find
that promised to rescue them. More and more, this was not religion, but
politicians and political parties. In response, Pope Pius the 11th
instigated an annual Sunday feast to celebrate and assert the “Kingship of our
Savior.” This would be a day when knees would bend and homage would be paid to
Christ, in order to witness to the day when every knee in heaven and on earth
and under the earth would bow to Christ and confess him as Lord.
Though
it was begun by a Catholic pope, today many mainline Protestants recognize
Christ the King Sunday as a day when we celebrate our unity with all Christians
on earth, a day when we pray, as we did in our prayer of the day this morning, that
“all the people of the earth, now divided by the power of sin, may be united by
the glorious and gentle rule of Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.” Not a bad
thing to celebrate, especially as we anticipate our entrance into the season
when we prepare our hearts to give glory to the newborn King, the babe in
Bethlehem, Jesus. Really, not a bad thing to celebrate any day! The week of the
election this month, several of my friends from all different political
persuasions were posting on Facebook a picture that said, “No matter who is
president, Jesus is King!” How true! Now that is something we can all rally
around!
It’s
interesting that one of the readings that is assigned for today, the one from
the Gospel of John, is one that we typically hear on Good Friday, when were not
thinking about Jesus crowned in glory, but in a crown of thorns. It is from
Jesus’ trial. It’s certainly a dramatic scene, one in which Pilate seems to be
as much on trial as Jesus is, with all of Jesus’ answers that are really
questions! You know, I always really felt for Pilate. The way he is mentioned in
the creed, he has been immortalized as the villain: “crucified under Pontius
Pilate,” we say. But when you actually read this story, it’s not so clear that
Pilate wanted Jesus crucified. Just before this snippet we hear today, Pilate
vacillates, going between his quarters and the patio where Jesus is waiting
seven times. He is wavering! He tries to get Jesus off the hook, saying he sees
nothing he has done wrong. The thing is, Pilate knows what is the right thing
to do. But he also knows what is the easy thing to do, the politically
expedient thing to do, and that is to give into the crowds, and have Jesus, the
ruler of a kingdom that is not of this world, crucified.
We’ve
all been in that place: having to decide between the right thing and the easy
thing, the right thing and the thing that will make people stop complaining,
the right thing and the lazy thing. This comes up in many ways in our Christian
life. One example that is a constant struggle for many of us, I think, is the
tension between two lifestyles: the one of simplicity and God-centeredness, and
the one of consumerism that is so prevalent in our culture. Jesus would have us
sell all our possessions and give the proceeds to the poor, and leave
everything and follow him, and give not just our coat but our cloak as well,
not just our one cheek, but the other as well. But even for the most faithful
among us, this may be the right choice, but it is not the easy one.
Never
is this more apparent then this weekend each year, the kick-off for the holiday
season and all the shopping and consumption that goes with it. I do love
Thanksgiving weekend, but I admit that this year more than any other, I have
really noticed a disconnect. Thanksgiving is the one day that Americans have
set aside to simply be thankful, to remember the many gifts that we have, to
appreciate our families and the bounty we enjoy by means of a fabulous feast.
My memories of Thanksgiving were always very relaxed – we went to church in the
morning, and then spent the rest of the day at home with family and good
friends, just enjoying life. It is, simply put, a day of enough. Then, the very next morning, it’s as if we wake up
and think, “Wait, I DON’T have enough! We need more!” and off we go to buy buy
buy, lots of presents for ourselves and others that people really don’t need
and maybe don’t even want. Maybe the reason this hit me more this year than it
has before is all the stores that started Black Friday on Thanksgiving evening.
Really, folks?? You can’t give us one full day when we truly feel like we
already have enough??
And
yet, how quickly we jump on board. Even Michael and I, both dedicated to
staying home on Black Friday, were watching TV and saw a commercial for Best
Buy and commented that that really was an extraordinary price for a TV,
something we’re in the market for. I seriously considered going to Joann
Fabrics to get some fabric I needed for 75% off. So tempting! How difficult it
is not to give in! How we waver, like Pilate, between the right thing, and the
easy thing.
So
why do we do it? Why is it so easy to give in to our culture, instead of giving
in whole-heartedly to Christ and his truth? Could it be because we place some
sense of our worth in our possessions? Could it be that the noise of our
consumerist culture convinces us that we will be somehow less if we don’t give
in? Pilate wavered, but the people demanded that Jesus be crucified. And
Pilate, even with the Truth standing right in front of him, gave in to the
crowd. Perhaps it was so that they wouldn’t think any less of him?
But
here’s the thing: what you have or don’t have or do or not do is not what gives
you worth. You are worthy, you are enough, because God says you are. Today at
Bethlehem we experienced a baptism: Molly Valentine O’Grady. We experienced how
God claimed this beautiful child and loves her and deems her worthy and enough
– just like God did this in our own baptism. We experienced the extraordinary
love that God has for this child, and for each one of us – not for who we could
have been, or for who we are trying to be, or for who we intend to be, but for
exactly who and what we are.
So
the proximity of Thanksgiving to this particular feast day, Christ the King, is
helpful for our remembering this. We have enough and are enough. We don’t have
to do anything or buy anything to earn God’s love because God has already given
us that love freely and abundantly in Jesus Christ, the King. And in realizing
that, we won’t have less, we will have more: more peace, more joy, more
contentment, a more profound sense of belonging and more clear idea of just how
precious we are to God, the giver of all good things.
Let
us pray. Christ, the King of all that is: you have claimed us and made us
enough. You have made us your beloved creatures. Help us to be content in that,
so that we will overcome the demands of the world around us, and have the
courage to follow in the truth that is your kingdom. In the name of the Father,
and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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