Sunday Before Advent 2024

Well on one hand the Marathon that is Trinity Season has come to an end…Phew…now on to the Advent fast…WHAT!

This week is actually a bit of Hyperspace not belonging to wither Trinity or Advent, Today is Christ the King Sunday. Not all Anglicans celebrate it, but those who look to the Early Church Calendar for inspiration do celebrate.

As we are about to enter the waiting of the arrival of the king in the manger, lets talk today about what are the credentials of that king in the manger. What kind of king is Jesus Christ.

There is a whole area of study of medieval kings. To see which ones are despots, which ones are mediocre and allowed there personal agenda to also help others when convenient. Then there where the great kings of Europe who say their place as a calling by God to flourish the people. King Louis the 9th of France was such a king. He truly believed in Catholic Christianity, and his role as the caretaker of the French people. And for his efforts he was much beloved. He is the name sake of Louisiana, and St. Louis.

We know what it means to have good kings and bad kings. But this Rood of David would be the best King. Lets look at the text.

The Text:

Verse 5: Behold the days are coming…

We are a 500 years before the arrival of Christ. So behold is stated to say, Look your current situation will change. Jeremiah had his ministry in the Last days of the Judean people The royal system was corrupt, as was the religious system. The kingdom was being further and further diminished by the attack of the Babylonians, and many people are being carried away in to slavery. But behold…it will not always be like this.

A king of the pedigree of David will rise up. Despite his foibles, David was a man after God’s heart and often virtuous, though we see some times where he fails morally. The kingdom was stability and grew under his reign and his long reign ment economic stability and flourishing. He was everything the current setting wasn’t, wise, just, righteous. There will be a time of a new Davidic King and Kingdom.

Verse 6: His reign will cover both the land of Judah and the Land of Israel that had fallen and was dispersed 70 years earlier. So it will be peace not only for the people of God in the land but the dispersed through out the world.

Verse 7: In fact this king will be so powerful that that he will usher in a time that will be bigger and better then the escape from Egypt. God has always loomed in the imagination of the Israelites as the God who carried his people out of Egypt. But something better. Which means a whole shift in Identity.

Verse 8 He will bring together people back from Babylon, back into the promised land of God’s presence and provision.

Jesus is that Great Davidic king all have been waiting for.

Jesus fulfill the text

Jesus will usher in a Kingdom where there is none of the verse 5 misfortunes, corruption, Exile, foolishness, Vice.

Judah will be saved and Israel regathered. The new people of God, no longer distinguished through nationality but through, faith and election. A new Judah and regathering of Israel. That is what is so important about the feast of epiphany, in January, the arrival of the Magi, people of other nations coming to worship the new king. All the nations are invited to experience the love of God.

The name of the king “The Lord is our Righteousness.” It is not a righteousness possessed but the people but a one provided by the king, provided in such a way that it effectively makes the land the very land of promise.

ANd yes a new Identity from the God who saves from Egypt to the God who saves us from Sin and Death. The slavery in Egypt to Pharoah was horrible. But more horrible still is dying a slave to sin and death. Jesus give us his righteousness by first going through sin and death. We no longer Identify as the people of Moses, we are not the people of Christ. Saved by Christ on the cross.

The people in Jeremiahs day where carried outside the city of God’s presence Jerusalem, and made to live outside the promise land, away from the presence of God. At the Crucifixion Jesus is forcefully carried outside the walls of Jerusalem so that by his death we can re-enter going all the way as the curtain was torn.

This will not be done by a king who is rich on the backs of the people. But one so poor his temple offering was Turtledoves. Not by a champion of Jerusalem, but a refugee settling in Galilee for fear of the Herods. He will not demand food from his people by way of taxes, but is the bread of Heaven, born into a manger, a feeding trough. He is the food for his people.

This Christ the king Sunday let us focus our minds on the king who went to his throne by way of suffering, He sits on his thrones and shows us his scars, his throne is not Gold but of thorns. It is for his sake that we fast during advent. For without his death on the cross none of us could ever have been his subject, none of us could call Jesus our king.

King Louise the Ninth would feed the poor from his table and oft wash their feet. Jesus washes our souls in baptism and feeds us not of his table but of himself.