BLOG 1/30/14. CELEBRATING THE OBSERVANCE OF ‘CHRIST THE KING’

BLOG 11/30/14. CELEBRATING: ‘CHRIST THE KING’ IS A GREAT REMINDER

In the utter trashing of the wholesome celebration Christmas by the retail industry, what with the gross consumerism that takes our culture captive from early fall, it might be useful to turn our focus to a liturgical celebration, or feast-day, that came late on the scene and is overlooked in most churches. In about 1925, the Roman Catholic Church instituted what was a new feast day for the annual liturgical calendar: the Celebration of Christ the King. It became the special celebration that concludes what we have come to know as the ‘liturgical year’. The liturgical year begins that series of special observances that we walk through during the year, which remind us annually of those benchmarks of our Christian faith that we dare not forget. It has been adopted by many traditions in the intervening years.

That liturgical year on this 2014 calendar begins today as the First Sunday in Advent. But last Sunday, November 23, was the Feast of Christ the King, even if in our obsession with Thanksgiving and ‘Black Friday’ and football games, and a gazillion requests for funds for good causes … nobody noticed.

So let me be a voice heralding that very (just past) feast day, that special day of remembrance and celebration. If one reads our New Testament documents on the significance of the coming of Jesus Christ, our much-overused word awesome simply will not carry the freight, it being of such infinite and cosmological significance as is the coming of Jesus into the world, and what was the universal impact of his life, death, and resurrection. Paul will state that all things were created by him and for him. Or again that he reconciled the world unto God by his blood. Paul also states that the whole mystery of the meaning of human history, previously hidden, is revealed in Jesus Christ.

But perhaps the passage that is most familiar is this:

“Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the    form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:5-11 ESV).

Of course, and I am not denying that we should herald the centrality of Christ all the time, but I, for one, think that along with Nativity, Epiphany, Lent, Easter, Pentecost, and Trinity seasons and celebrations, that there is a strong call to ‘pull out all the stops’ at the end of our church’s year of remembrances, and extol Christ the King, and remind ourselves that everything exists by Christ Jesus and for Christ Jesus: “All hail the power of Jesus’ Name,” “Jesus, Name High Over all,” “Crown Him with Many Crowns,” “O Could I Speak the Matchless Worth,” “Join All the Glorious Names” … then bow in sheer adoration before this One whose reconciling, self-giving love is beyond the capacity of words to portray.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. … The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. … And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory …”

If that doesn’t deserve a very special day of remembrance, nothing does. May such a celebration be echoed every time Christians gather, but especially: put it on your calendar for 2015 (November 22nd). Got it?

 

About rthenderson

Sixty years a pastor-teacher within the Presbyterian Church. Author of several books, the latest of which are a trilogy on missional ecclesiology: ENCHANTED COMMUNITY: JOURNEY INTO THE MYSTERY OF THE CHURCH, then, REFOUNDING THE CHURCH FROM THE UNDERSIDE, then THE CHURCH AND THE RELENTLESS DARKNESS. Previous to this trilogy was A DOOR OF HOPE: SPIRITUAL CONFLICT IN PASTORAL MINISTRY, and SUBVERSIVE JESUS, RADICAL FAITH. I am a native of West Palm Beach, Florida, a graduate of Davidson College, then of Columbia and Westminster Theological Seminaries.
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