The King of Love (Rev. 1.4a-8) Nov. 21, 2021

It’s that time of the year again. Time for the holiday decorations to come out of storage and be put up. Time for the playing of Christmas songs on the radio. Time for the call to rampant consumerism. In other words, the holidays are upon us. And with the holidays comes the realization that the end of the year is fast approaching. Now, this may come as a surprise to some, but we are at the end of the liturgical calendar for the church. This calendar begins with Advent, goes through Lent and Easter, has Ordinary Time through most of it and finishes with a flourish at Christ the King/Reign of Christ Sunday.

This is the Sunday when we celebrate both the coming of the kingdom and the fact that the kingdom has already arrived. The now and not yet. We celebrate that Christ has come and that Christ will be coming again. It is a perfect segue into the time of Advent.

But what is Christ the King/Reign of Christ? When and how did it begin? Why do we in the church celebrate this time and this day in particular? And what does it mean for us in the church in this country?

Christ the King Sunday is not an ancient high and holy day. It began being observed in the mid-1920s (1925), a practice instituted by Pope Pius XI out of a concern for the growing secularism and the rise of fascism in Europe. Pope Pius XI's encyclical instituting the feast states, "When once men recognize, both in private and in public life, that Christ is King, society will at last receive the great blessings of real liberty, well-ordered discipline, peace and harmony."

Now think about what was going on at the time that the pope wrote this encyclical. The Great War (WWI) was still fresh in the minds of the people of Europe. They had seen what human beings could and would do to one another after years of hearing just how good humans were becoming without the help of God. Communism was on the rise and was feared throughout the continent. In Italy, Mussolini had risen to power in 1922 and was beginning to flex his muscles and calling the people to follow him. Pius was seeing all this and calling for the church and Christians to remember that they had a king and a ruler, Jesus Christ, the only one whom they were to pledge allegiance to. There was to be nothing else before him: not family, not country, not self.

As time has gone on, Protestant churches have picked up this celebration. It is a reminder to us of the reign of Christ at the end of the Church year. It is a reminder to us that we do not have all the answers. And, most importantly, it is a reminder to us of who is the ultimate ruler in our lives and in the world, Jesus. In fact, just nine years after this encyclical, Protestants in Germany issued the Barmen Declaration which states in one part:

“As Jesus Christ is God’s assurance of the forgiveness of all our sins, so in the same way and with the same seriousness is he also God’s mighty claim upon our whole life. Through him befalls us a joyful deliverance from the godless fetters of this world for a free, grateful service to his creatures.

8.15 We reject the false doctrine, as though there were areas of our life in which we would not belong to Jesus Christ, but to other lords—areas in which we would not need justification and sanctification through him.”

So, there is a lot going one with this day. But as 21st century Christians we have a difficult time with a “king”. After all, we are in the United States. We vote for those who are in our government. We do not have a king. But here on this day we are reminded that yes, we do have a king, one who has been reigning from the beginning of time and who brought that kingdom near, Jesus Christ.

John knew this king. This was the one who was revealed to him in the book of Revelation. The one that he was telling his readers about. This was the king that they were to be pledging their allegiance to.

The problem was that there were others that were claiming allegiance. Those who were in power in the state were saying that they were divine and that the people were to worship them as well as the other gods in the pantheon. This was known as emperor worship and the cities in the empire, especially those to whom this letter is written were in competition to show who was more loyal to the emperor in their worship of him.

Then there is a group that claims that there is another king. One who rules the entire world, not just the empire. One, in fact, who rules the entire cosmos. This ruler is not on earth but reigns in the heavens. This group was known as Christians and they were a small splinter sect of the Jews. Therefore, no real attention was paid to them until they began to make the claims of another allegiance.

It was not that the empire begrudged that they worship a different god. There were all kinds of gods being worshiped by the people of the empire. No, it was the fact that they claimed that their god was the only God and that they were to worship no one else. Not Jupiter, not Neptune, not Minerva or any of the gods in the pantheon of gods. And especially not the emperor. They were to worship only one God and this was the one whom John wrote about to the seven churches in Asia.

This was the God “who is and who was and who is to come[1]” or literally the one “who is being, was, and coming”. Notice the tenses: present, past and future. The one God is from the beginning to the end. There is no other god who is like this one. And this God is accompanied by the seven spirits and Jesus Christ, therefore making this one of the first clarifications of the Trinity. Jesus is listed as the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead and the ruler of the kings of the earth. This last is the one that I wish to focus on, the ruler of the kings of the earth.

In the Roman Empire, as in all the kingdoms of the ancient world, there was none as powerful as the emperor or the king. What this monarch said was the law and was to be done to the letter. There was not to be any doubt or arguing with the one who made the declaration. There was to be utmost loyalty.

When the Christians came and said that there was another king, one who deserved and demanded their total allegiance, there was an uproar. In local areas there were persecutions. There were questions as to why they could not just sprinkle some incense to the emperor and they go about with their crazy little religion. After all, what was a little incense? Surely it was better than facing the wrath of the empire or those who were enforcing the rules. But this group continued to say no, they owed their allegiance to the one who ruled and who will continue to rule. This was Jesus Christ.

And what did this one do that brought so much loyalty? He “loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood.[2]” This was the one who broke the bonds of slavery to sin and made us free. This was the one who loved us so much that he came to earth to live among us as no other god would dare to do. To live amongst the humans was to demean oneself and to make one like a lowly demigod. This would never do for the many gods and yet here is what Jesus did. And he loved us so much that he gave his life for us, shedding his blood so that we would be free.

But there was more that Jesus did and does. He “made us to be a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever.[3]” We the church are not THE kingdom, that only belongs to God. We are part of the kingdom and do the work of the kingdom because we are serving God and Jesus who is the King. We are priests who are doing the work of those who did the work in the temple. We, again, serve the king.

And this kingdom is not a kingdom that will possibly fall. Rome experienced civil wars over who would rule the empire and saw those rulers fall. But the kingdom that is and is coming is that of one that was, is and will be. Its dominion is to be forever, time without beginning or end.

When we say that we are to be servants of the king what does that mean? We are to do as Micah told us: do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with our God. When we do justice, we do more than make sure things are done right. We stand for the poor and the oppressed. We love our neighbors, even ones who are “difficult” to love. We care for our environment.

When we love mercy, we do the same as justice. Only when we love our neighbors it is to extend the same mercy that we have received from God. We extend that mercy to the ones who are the least deserving of that mercy because that included us.

And when we walk humbly with our God, we remember that we are servants of the King. We owe allegiance to no other entity, even when that entity calls to us seductively, even when all the others are doing it. This includes allegiance to ourselves, our families or our country. We are to remember that only one is to receive our allegiance and that is the one who freed us by his blood.

Jesus Christ is the king of love. His love is what freed us and made us servants of the king. His love helps us to know who he is and helps us to be loving toward all those who are in our world no matter who they are. His love helps us to remember that we are called to be stewards of this world, to take care of it and to call to action when it is threatened. His love is a call to stand for the least of these: the poor, the oppressed, the homeless, those with diseases such as AIDS and those whom we would rather not be around. His love takes us to places where we would never go. His love afflicts the comfortable and comforts the afflicted.

This Christ the King Sunday let us remember the king who loved, loves and will always love. The one who is, who was and who is to come. Remember, there is no other to whom we own our allegiance. Let us go and serve the King. Amen.

[1] The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989. Print. [2] The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989. Print. [3] The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989. Print.