The Feast of Christ the King

On Sunday, November 22nd we celebrate the Feast of Jesus Christ being the Sovereign King, and this concludes the Christian year.  On the following Sunday, November 29th the liturgical year starts afresh with the First Sunday of Advent and once again the cycle of time begins to prepare us to meet our God in Jesus Christ.

Our faith is so beautifully expressed in the Book of Common Prayer and its liturgy provides to the world hungry for meaning the truth that it seeks which is God in Christ, who is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.  Jesus is the faithful Giver as He pours out His life for the salvation of the world, and in His life and death and resurrection He is the fulfillment of all time. In Jesus the whole world is being made new every second of every day.

Do you remember the Parable of the Wedding Feast (Matt 22:2).  The meaning of being invited to "the wedding feast" and to receive the Bridegroom (Jesus) when He comes is for us to find love and power in being the Bride of Christ. This relationship with the Bridegroom is like an anchor for us to be tied to as time moves us always into the future and the unknown.  His love endures forever!

Through sacred Scripture, spiritual reading, and the beautiful language and services of our Prayer Book the Holy Spirit invites us to reflect on the eternal meaning of the four last things: death, judgment, heaven and hell.  Ultimately and in some way these four last things find themselves attached to every decision and every attitude and every position we will ever hold.

Now, this fact of the presence of the four last things is not a negative thing at all, but rather it is a good thing, it is something to rejoice in, because they form a "reality check" and they are part of a greater responsible spiritual and theological system of "check and balances" that keep us honest with our self and with God so that we may be made worthy at the end of life to enter more fully into His Divine plan.

In God's view of things there is no real separation between what we call "the secular things" and what we refer to as "the sacred things."  Rather than separation God helps us to make holy those things that seem mundane and all too ordinary.  After all, they are all His as well!  In the great truths of our faith rooted to the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ our heavenly Father is forever making all things new.  It is that movement of "glory to glory" that St. Paul wrote about in 2 Cor 3:18.

We do not bring God into our time through our prayers and actions of "needs and wants and service." Rather its through these things in time that we discover how God is the living Author of all things; the known and the unknown, the visible and the invisible.  In essence, our creedal faith.

I invite you on this Sunday of the Feast of Christ the King to receive Jesus Christ as absolute Lord of your life; and after this in humility discover how to acknowledge Him in every part of life.  When Jesus truly reigns as Lord and God, "time" becomes a precious gift; even a wonderful gift that we use to return to Him the very life He has given us to live.

Amen