BLOG 11/25/13. THE FEAST OF CHRIST THE KING: IMPLICATIONS.

Yesterday, in the liturgical year, was the celebration of the Feast of Christ the King. Never heard of it? Well, it is a latecomer in the liturgical calendar, having only been introduced in the mid-1920s into the Roman Catholic calendar by Pope Pius XI, and only in more recently has it made its way into the calendars of some Protestant denominations. But I love it! It seems a fitting climax of the long liturgical season called: Ordinary Time.

That at least once a year we should focus intensely on that One who is Lord of All, King of the universe, whose Name is above every name. Here is the One who is the glory of the Father, the One by whom and for whom all things are created. That such a celebration should precede the season of Advent in all the more fascinating.

Let me retrieve the delicious paraphrase from Eugene Peterson’s The Message:

“The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood. We saw the glory with our own eyes, the one of a kind glory, like Father, like Son, Generous inside and out, true from start to finish” (John 1:14).

Then, consider that it is God eternal/eschatological design to call out a new humanity in and through Christ, a New Creation community, each of person of which community is to be conformed to the image of this same Son (Romans 8:29). That has awesome implications. If God was in Christ becoming flesh and blood and moving into the neighborhood, then that means that all of us who have come to that Son by faith, are also to become those who are the flesh and blood demonstrations of that same glory of God, the radiant display of the divine nature, and living in our respective neighborhoods. This means that every believer’s life is sacred, and is purposeful in the eternal design of God.

But let’s go on … we are also instructed to have this mind in us “which is ours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant” (Philippians 2:5-7). And where did this happen? It happened right in the neighborhood, right in the “stink and stuff” of daily life, right in the midst of often intractable and uncontrollable circumstances, in the midst of many unlikeable and often pernicious personalities … along with all of those wonderful expressions of beauty, justice, human love, caring, humor, and courtesy.

Yes, Christ the King is the suffering servant who comes to us where we are—not where we’re not! We are to be the living, breathing incarnations of his life and mission, of his glory, whether we’re executives in the boardroom, or minimum wage employees scrubbing urinals in the restroom of a fast-food franchise. And the celebration of Advent takes us right to that calling. Exciting. Incarnation. God with us. Purpose.
Daily work. Suffering. Hilarious joy. Such implications flow out of such celebrations. The psalmist says that those on their way to Zion make it a place of springs (Psalm 84). That’s precisely what Christ in us is to produce: springs of God’s miraculous New Life in the midst of the often barrenness of this present social and cultural scene. Christ the King! Then Advent, and our own calling as the sons and daughters who are the incarnations of that Light right in our neighborhood.

The late Dick Halverson used to give, as part of his benediction: “Wherever you go, Christ goes!” Amen.