shepherd of the people

In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, magi from the east came to Jerusalem, asking, “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star in the east and have come to pay him homage.” When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him, and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. They told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for so it has been written by the prophet:

‘And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,

are by no means least among the rulers of Judah,

for from you shall come a ruler

who is to shepherd my people Israel.’ ” (Matthew 2:1-6)

In the history of the churches three important obstacles to overcome have been:

1. in ancient times, the incarnation

2. in medieval times, the crucifixion

3. in modern times, the resurrection.

In modern times many rational or sceptical minds have balked at the idea that a person could be raised from the dead. Not reincarnated, and not the resuscitation of a corpse, but resurrected. A problem for Easter preachers.

A problem for Good Friday pastors, at least in the West, has been the overwhelmingly abhorrent image of a crucified god, of the one who was and is and is to come fastened to a cross. And then of course its necessity becomes the new object of attention.

The ancient Mediterranean world had its problem with the feast of the Nativity, and the idea of incarnation. That in one unique moment into human history precipitously from above the one true and living God would blast into history leaving no remainder left over. In him the fullness of God was pleased to dwell. And in no other.

Of course in all these periods of history, modern, medieval, and ancient, there was another problem to be overcome.

Jesus is Lord. And there is no other.

Caesar is not Lord. No earthly sovereign can be an acceptable substitute for the ultimate claims of Christ.

He came out of nowhere, if you weren’t listening. If you were a Jew, or a God-fearing Gentile, he was long expected, and for some long feared. 

Jesus’ birth was as Matthew reminds us the fulfillment of the promise of ages. This was the king of kings, the one true scion of David’s lineage, who would rule forever. 

In ancient times, as  in the Iliad with its repeated epithet, “shepherd of his people”, applied to Hector, Agamemon, and Nestor, kings were supposed to be as faithful protectors and providers as a good shepherd was of a flock. David was called from the herds to the halls of kingship.

And so the long expected Jesus was anticipated to be the fulfillment of messianic prophecy, and a champion in the fashion of David and other warrior kings. He would liberate his people. 

But not like that. Perhaps a hint could be found in the humility of his birth. Sure, birth stories are origin stories, verification of our impression of the later adult. Mary Queen of Scots gave birth in a small panelled room in Edinburgh’s hilltop castle to a child who would become James VI of Scotland and I of England. Jenny Jerome Churchill gave birth to Winston Spencer Churchill in a not much larger room on the ground floor near the library in Blenheim Palace. And so the careers of magnificence began.

In a castle. In a place. Not in a manger. Or a shepherd’s cave. Or in a stable. Or a nearby inn. Or a guestroom in an overcrowded family home. 

Matthew in his story of the magi and their gifts provides a heralding fit for a king. Nobody got it  but Herod. 

Where is he who is born to be king of the Jews? “A ruler who is to shepherd my people.”

This was not a happy portent for Herod Antipas, son of a greater Herod, a client-king enthroned at the sufferance and for the service of Rome, and the emperor across the sea whose mighty hand could and would crush any rebellion coming from Jerusalem.

And Jesus was a bigger threat than that. He was more than a king like any other. He was indeed a king unlike any other. We've got the concept of kingship wrong if we think some earthly ruler fits the bill.

We are all stewards, from our moment of greatest power to our time of summary weakness. We share in the kingship of Christ in our care for his people. Sometimes it is our turn, in line at the supermarket, on the witness stand in court, in the privacy of voting, or in some greater public act. Our common humanity is our kingship. We share in that sovereignty as we are sovereign in the freedom of our acts and choices.

O little town of Bethlehem, birthplace of the greatest hero of antiquity, who was no hero in the mythic mode, but a savior and shepherd, servant sacrificial in love and obedience, fierce defender of the innocent.

Redeemer. Shepherd of the people.

JRL+

"Who's in charge here?"

 23 November 2025

Last Sunday after Pentecost:
Christ the King
Proper 29 Year C RCL Track Two

Jeremiah 23:1-6
Psalm 46
Colossians 1:11-20
Luke 23:33-43

The Collect

Almighty and everlasting God, whose will it is to restore all things in your well-beloved Son, the King of kings and Lord of lords: Mercifully grant that the peoples of the earth, divided and enslaved by sin, may be freed and brought together under his most gracious rule; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

"Who's in charge here?" was the title and closing line of a science-fiction story I read in an oversize Ace paperback we bought in a drugstore in Chico, California, sometime in the last century. As I recall, in that story it was clear no one was in charge: just an urban wasteland, desultory and desolate, trash and stray dogs and stray survivors wandering about. A world without God, for sure. 

In the Lord of the Rings, toward the end, Sam looks up at the sky and realizes that behind the brooding clouds the stars are still shining, and would. There was good beyond the reach of evil and it would prevail.

words and deeds

 “Some people were talking about the temple and the beauty of its fine stones and ornaments. He said, ‘These things you are gazing at–the time will come when not one stone will be left upon another; they will all be thrown down.’ (Luke 21:5-6, REB)

Twenty-three years ago I slapped my hand on the Romanesque wall, exposed by renovations, of Chester Cathedral and said to my host, this is the church Anselm knew. There has been a church on the site since the eighth century. The building now is Gothic in style, but that is wrapped around an earlier Romanesque structure. And so I knew that back when “Cur Deus Homo” (Why a God-Man?) was hot off the copying desk, its author, Anselm the Archbishop of Canterbury, was visiting, the wall he would have touched was the wall I touched.

Ten years ago I placed my palm against a large well-worked stone in Jerusalem. It was the Western Wall, foundation stone of the third Temple, built under the direction (and the lash) of Herod the Great, just before Jesus was born. Despite our Savior’s words of prophecy, not every stone fell away from every other. The Romans, when they came in destructive fury, left a few standing, just a few. They are the largest and oldest and best-fashioned of the stones in the wall. Though I doubt the soldiers of Titus spared them out of respect for the stone masons.

Stones last. Sometimes they are repurposed: they become spolia, salvaged or stolen from an old ruined (mostly) building and put to new use. Churches in Rome have pillars from pagan bath houses. Churches in Spain have stones that were once in mosques that were once churches. 

Sometimes they stay where they were put, for a very long time. Sometimes they are in ruins, evocative of earlier, lost ages, and forgotten rituals.

Stones last. But not forever. And they don’t matter anyway. That is what Jesus tells us. “The Lord is faithful” - the steadfast love of God : that is what endures. 

By your endurance you will gain your souls (NRSV)

Or– By standing firm, you will win yourselves life (REB)

Or– By holding fast, you will gain your lives (CEB)

Or– By your perseverance, you shall gain salvation.

(Luke 21:19)

Do you remember the persistent widow from a gospel a week or two ago, how she persisted? And in persisting, she demanded justice against her opponent, or as the King James would say, to be avenged against her adversary. (Luke 18:1-8)

Jesus calls his followers to endure and hold on in the midst of persecutions and says that by so doing they will save their souls and their lives.

Early in the passage, he talks about what to do when someone says to you follow me because I am the one. I am the one who can save you and the time is near. He says don’t go after them, don’t follow that leader, that false leader. 

That is part of saving your soul, not to be seduced by false messiahs, false leaders.

Today’s psalm ends with this verse: ‘In righteousness shall he judge the world, and the peoples with equity.’ (98.10)

What does that mean? Are there other ways to say it? You can also say, he will judge with saving righteousness.

You can say, he will establish justice; you can say, he will bring salvation and that that is his victory.

And all of these other ways of saying it remind us that it is the Lord who is our king. Christ, the king.

In the early days of Christianity within the pagan Roman empire, all you had to do to be convicted of treason was to say that Jesus is Lord —that Christ is King, not the emperor.

And that is who we turn to, as our judge for the people who receive this message. It is joy to the world for the Lord to win himself the victory, for the Lord to win salvation. For him to come and judge the Earth means that we will be vindicated, that he will establish a saving righteousness with equity and justice.

That is a pretty different sense of judgment from that of the persistent widow’s unjust judge who seemed simply to be awarding the victory to one side or another in a dispute.

In the justice of God, salvation and righteousness are established for the world among all people.

But it is for us to step out of that tight frame of jurisprudence that simply chooses a winner between opponents in a lawsuit and it is for us to step into a larger world in which justice rolls down like waters and the day of salvation is at hand. (Amos 5:24) 

“But before all this occurs, they will take you into custody and harass you because of your faith. They will hand you over to synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors because of my name. This will provide you with an opportunity to testify. Make up your minds not to prepare your defense in advance. I’ll give you words and wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to counter or contradict.” (Luke 21:12-15, Common English Bible)

What would I say if I were hauled up before the magistrate to defend my religion? First of all, it doesn’t seem likely; after all I’m not a Christian in Baghdad or Bahá’í in Tehran or Muslim in western China or Buddhist in Tibet. 

And what would I have done that might make them think they could convict me of being a Christian? Have I been comforting the bereaved, visiting the sick, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, or standing up for justice? Have I been doing those things? Have I been encouraging other people to do those things? Or is it guilt by association with people who do those things? 

After all, I did sign that “Bear Witness Now” letter along with 100 other pastors that said, this is what Christianity is about, and included three main points. 

And those points were about compassion and justice and charity. About God’s love for all people, God’s love for creation, God’s particular love for the poor.

● “For God so loved the whole world” 

● “God created the world and called it good”

● "For the least of these”

John 3.16. Genesis 1.4,10,12, 18, 21, 25, 31. Matthew 25.40, 45.

Maybe that's enough to get me busted. I hope so, cause I haven’t done a whole lot else. Nothing to stand out. Then again, what does stand up? How would we know? 

There’s a story about an old Scottish pastor reflecting back on his life who worried that he’d never really had his words or his ministry turn someone’s life around; except maybe, he thought aloud, maybe that little Davy Livingstone. David Livingstone, you may know, devoted his life to a very dramatic ministry in Africa, missionary, physician, explorer, and  anti-slavery crusader. 

Maybe we won’t know what would stand up in court, if we were brought before kings and governors. Maybe we would slide by because of the modest nature of our commitments. Maybe we would. Maybe some of us will have to stand up and stand out, because of the nature of the gospel. Of the gospel, not our own bravery or detachment or internal virtue. Because he calls. 

He calls us. As he called Nicodemus, and Andrew and Peter, and Matthew. And a blind beggar no one knows the name of. Of Mary and Martha. And of that saint we sang of, on All Saints, that we met at shops or at tea. (Love that.) Because the saints of God are just folks like we—

https://chestercathedral.com/about/heritage-culture/the-building-and-its-history

https://www.mezquita-cordoba.com/en

Lesbia Scott, “I sing a song of the saints of God”, Hymn #293, The Hymnal 1982, ‎page 515. [https://hymnary.org/hymn/EH1982/page/515]

[https://www.britannica.com/biography/David-Livingstone]

https://www.bearwitnessnow.org/

Malachi 4:1-2a Psalm 98 2 Thessalonians 3:6-13 Luke 21:5-19

May the Lord direct your hearts towards God’s love and the steadfastness of Christ. 

(2 Th 3.5, REB)

JRL+

standfast

By your endurance you will gain your souls (NRSV)

Or–

By standing firm, you will win yourselves life (REB)

Or–

By holding fast, you will gain your lives (CEB)

Or–

By your perseverance, you shall gain salvation.

(Luke 21:19)

Do you remember the persistent widow from a gospel a week or two ago, how she persisted? And in persisting, she demanded justice against her opponent, or as the King James would say, to be avenged against her adversary. (Luke 18:1-8)

Jesus calls his followers to endure and hold on in the midst of persecutions and says that by so doing they will save their souls and their lives.

Early in the passage, he talks about what to do when someone says to you follow me because I am the one. I am the one who can save you and the time is near. He says don’t go after them, don’t follow that leader, that false leader. 

That is part of saving your soul, not to be seduced by false messiahs, false leaders.

Today’s psalm ends with this verse: ‘In righteousness shall he judge the world, and the peoples with equity.’ (98.10)

What does that mean? Are there other ways to say it? You can also say, he will judge with saving righteousness.

You can say, he will establish justice; you can say, he will bring salvation and that that is his victory.

And all of these other ways of saying it remind us that it is the Lord who is our king. Christ, the king.

In the early days of Christianity within the pagan Roman empire, all you had to do to be convicted of treason was to say that Jesus is Lord —that Christ is King, not the emperor.

And that is who we turn to, as our judge for the people who receive this message. It is joy to the world for the Lord to win himself the victory, for the Lord to win salvation. For him to come and judge the Earth means that we will be vindicated, that he will establish a saving righteousness with equity and justice.

That is a pretty different sense of judgment from that of the persistent widow’s unjust judge who seemed simply to be awarding the victory to one side or another in a dispute.

In the justice of God, salvation and righteousness are established for the world among all people.

But it is for us to step out of that tight frame of jurisprudence that simply chooses a winner between opponents in a lawsuit and it is for us to step into a larger world in which justice rolls down like waters and the day of salvation is at hand.

(Amos 5:24) 

 

Sunday 16 November 2025. JRL+

Christ the King

Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24

Psalm 100

Ephesians 1:15-23

Matthew 25:31-46

https://www.lectionarypage.net/YearA_RCL/Pentecost/AProp29_RCL.html

The Last Sunday after Pentecost, Christ the King, Proper 29 Year A RCL.

The Great Dictator (1940, Charles Chaplin). 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcP_4Nthzzs

St Matthews Tucson, AZ Christ the King Sunday - Last Sunday after Pentecost.

(21:12-28:42)

 https://i.pinimg.com/originals/9a/5b/29/9a5b29d42c88f7ef4eccbd9b633c2698.jpg

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the nations will be gathered before him…” (Matthew 25:31-32a)

In my church and many others the Sunday just before Advent is the Feast of Christ the King.

One thing that happens at my house is that we watch old movies. Once we’re settled down and the movie starts, if we’ve left room on the couch two dogs appear and welcome themselves to sit with us. The other night’s movie was relevant for understanding the feast of Christ the King. It was called, “The Great Dictator", made in 1940. At the end of the movie, a Jewish barber finds himself standing in front of a crowd of people who are waiting for him to speak and he says things they don’t expect. How did he get there? The director, writer, and producer of the movie heard that people were saying, “You know, what? The great dictator of that country over there looks an awful lot like Charlie Chaplin!” And Charlie Chaplin, who was himself the writer, director, and producer of the movie, thought, “I can use that!” 

The movie begins with two characters who kind of look a lot like each other – and like Charlie Chaplin. One is the great dictator, who looks a lot like that great dictator you might guess the name of, who does all those things you would expect that fearless leader to do. He yells at his microphone, he makes arbitrary decisions. He causes life or death to happen for innumerable people without much sense of compunction or compassion. Meanwhile there’s a Jewish barber in the ghetto who really has no clue about any of this, except finds himself eventually in a concentration camp. Somehow, through the miracle of Hollywood, he is able to escape. In the course of his escape, he finds himself dressed in the uniform of the army, walking down a road. Meanwhile, nobody has seen the dictator for a while. He seems to have disappeared. Suddenly there’s this guy who looks just like him! — so they grab him, put him in a big car, and take him away. The next thing you know he is standing in front of a bunch of people who are expecting him to continue with the hellfire and the brimstone, the condemnation and the heavy “let’s get them” rhetoric. And instead he says, we need to show some compassion for each other and love each other. 

You know, I’ve never seen a king. I’ve thought about it. Forty-two years ago from a distance I saw the Prince of Wales, but somehow I don’t think that is an adequate experience for understanding what a king is. I’m not sure growing up in a country like ours that doesn’t have a king that I really get it, but not every king probably gets it either. 

Because if we look at the lessons in the Bible about what a king should be, from Ezekiel to the Gospels, they’re very subversive of that kind of king who’s just an arbitrary tyrant and authority without accountability. What we see is a whole different idea for what a real king is, and probably even if you had an idea for what the king was, this would kind of wreck it. Because the good king is not like that cruel tyrant at all, so the question will come back: “Have I ever seen a king?” What we hear in the prophet Ezekiel is that a king should be like a shepherd. A king should be, yes, in charge, but protecting, looking after the people, as a shepherd who’s doing their job right looks after the sheep – which can be dangerous, boring, self-sacrificing, and difficult, but it gives you a very different idea of leadership from arbitrary authority and crafty cruelty. 

If you look at the image of Christ the King, and ask what the feast is about, because if the king is an arbitrary tyrant who has no accountability, who just bosses people around… Do we really think that Christ is like that? Would we want to celebrate that? Uh, uh, no. 

In fact, what the feast of Christ the King was implemented for was to say, that’s not what the leader of people really should be doing. That’s not how we should be with each other, that’s not what a real king really is. There’s really only one king, and that’s the one who we’re talking about today. If we look at the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 25, there is a wonderful image of Christ the King in all his glory, but the image I think that stays with us from the gospel is the king who is not in all his glory, who is a little more prepared than a Jewish barber who’s just been in a concentration camp, but a Jewish barber who’s just been in a concentration camp comes a lot closer to the real king, than the glorious self-aggrandizing dictator, who also look like Charlie Chaplin. In fact, when we see the king – Have we seen the king? – maybe we all have… Have we ever seen someone sick or hungry or naked or thirsty? Have we ever visited someone sick or in prison? Well, then, maybe we have seen a king, after all.

“Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’

(Matthew 25:37-40)

Martyrs and Kings

Every transition has an end, a middle, and a beginning. The Church Year ends with the feast of Christ the King, the Reign of Christ, a feast instituted by Pope Pius X during the rise of Fascism in Italy in the 1920s. The feast spread to many other church bodies; we celebrate it now as a reminder that God reigns, not us. The Church Year begins anew four Sundays before Christmas Day (whether it occurs on a Sunday or a week day).  

And so as we reach the end of the season that culminates in the feast of Christ the King, we find the story of Jesus about to loop around itself from the end back to the beginning: from the consummation of time to the birth of a baby. "Come thou long expected Jesus" we soon will sing. And he arrives twice! First he comes to us as the infant terrorizing Herod and again as the one before whose throne all will gather. Same person. 

Herod the Great, ruler of Palestine under Roman sponsorship -- who built the great buildings whose ruin Jesus prophesies -- got the message early and he did not like it. That earthbound despot wanted no rivals, especially legitimate ones. Some more recent sovereigns have had similar inclinations.  But God prevails. 

And that is good news that we hear today : Christ forewarned his followers of the difficulties ahead of them and yet reassured them of their ultimate vindication. And so it is when we face hard times, adversity, or mortality: we are not alone. That is why the one who comes is called "Emmanuel" - God with us.

This good news comforts the comfortable and the afflicted, the desperate and the sorrowful and the joyous alike. Since sometimes that can be all of us or any of us this is good news indeed.

That reminder that God reigns came home with force within a decade or two after the feast was first proclaimed. Among those who made it stick in hearts and minds was Kaj Munk, a Danish playwright and pastor, who wrote an impolitic play during the second World War. 

What was the point, and what was the problem, was that he uniquely compared Herod to Hitler. And this did not make the occupying army happy: indeed he was soon a martyr, murdered by the Gestapo, his body found in a ditch the morning after a midnight abduction. 

Call it an arrest or call it an abduction: it was the prelude to murder. He was not the last. Not certainly the last. There have been many martyrs and prophets since his death who have stood in front of evil and proclaimed God’s reign. 

Later in the 20th century it was Janani Luwum, Archbishop in Uganda, who confronted an evil regime with the power of love. He paid with his life. One night he was summoned to the presidential palace, and he stood right in front of his country’s ruler, Idi Amin, and refused to renounce the truth. For that he was shot and killed.

These are among the known martyrs; others are known but to God. But their work continues; their truth persists; and the culmination of this year and all years is still this: God reigns. That means that whatever claims on our allegiance are offered to us, none is as important as the integrity of the faith that God keeps with us. And that we, faltering and failing and forgiven, attempt to keep with God.  

How are we to follow this one who rejected earthly titles but is 'ruler of the kings of earth' and seated at the right hand of God? Challenging questions as we anticipate the arrival of the King of Kings.

 

The book of Daniel and the book of Revelation reveal visions of what God is doing by telling us what they see God doing in the future. In some ways the prophecies of Daniel seem like visionary accounts of what was already happening in his time while revealing what is really going on in the deep currents of time. 

For example, he speaks of four kingdoms that could be the successors to Alexander the Great. 

Indeed it was one of these, Antiochus IV Epiphanes, r. 175 BCE-164 BCE, who was the immediate enemy of Israel at the time of the book’s composition. 

Nevertheless it has implications beyond that moment, for Daniel prophesies not only what is happening, or has happened, or is going to happen, but what it means. What it means is that God reigns; not Pharaoh, not Nebuchadnezzer, not Cyrus, and certainly not Antiochus IV Epiphanes. 

 

What then is the nature of that reign? Jesus refuses the label of comparative kingship, as if he were to be a head of state alongside the clients of Rome or its rival powers. No, his kingdom is not of this world: it is a heavenly kingdom. But what is that to us? What does it mean for us? 

 

It means our loyalty lies beyond the immediate present press of events; our faith is in something transcendent, someone eternal. The Ancient of Days, in fact. The one who is and was and is to come. And in the Son of Man, who is likewise the first and the last, first born of the resurrection and witness of all that is coming to pass, has come to pass, and will come to pass.

 

And we are in their hands, ultimately; the hands of God. 

 

Our God reigns. Where does he reign? Most of all, in the human heart.

Yes, first of all in the human heart. But it does not end there: it is more than that.

When Jesus speaks of truth he speaks of what is solid, reliable, real. And it implies there is something to be done. Truth that is God made known in Jesus Christ is actionable knowledge. If you know Jesus, you act upon that knowledge.

And so when you know that truth, you have a way, a life, before you: a truth that will set you free.  Free to center your life on the abundant grace of God, revealed in Jesus Christ in its fullness. 

So as the psalm says there may be a night of sorrow but it will open into a new dawn of joy.

 

That is something people of faith have held onto, from that day to this, when that night looks black.

 

And that is the sunrise into glory that we anticipate on the feast day of Christ the King.

JRL+ 

Ancient of Days

 

William Blake, Ancient of Days

As I was watching,

        thrones were raised up.

    The ancient one took his seat.

        His clothes were white like snow;

        his hair was like a lamb’s wool.

        His throne was made of flame;

        its wheels were blazing fire.

Daniel 7:9, Common English Bible

The "Ancient of Days", from the visions of the book of Daniel, is one of the most famous images by the mystical poet and printmaker William Blake (1757-1827). His apocalyptic visions have been turned into song, notably the revolutionary poem, "Jerusalem", which somehow became a triumphant hymn. (A friend used to play the version from "Chariots of Fire" on loudspeakers while he mowed his lawn). But Blake was always revolutionary, and even more so was his master, and ours, Jesus. How are we to follow this one who rejected earthly titles but is 'ruler of the kings of earth' and seated at the right hand of God? Challenging questions as we anticipate the arrival of the King of Kings.

The book of Daniel and the book of Revelation reveal visions of what God is doing by telling us what they see God doing in the future. In some ways the prophecies of Daniel seem like visionary accounts of what was already happening in his time while revealing what is really going on in the deep currents of time. For example, he speaks of four kingdoms that could be the successors to Alexander the Great. Indeed it was one of these, Antiochus IV Epiphanes, r. 175 BCE-164 BCE, who was the immediate enemy of Israel at the time of the book’s composition. Nevertheless it has implications beyond that moment, for Daniel prophesies not only what is happening, or has happened, or is going to happen, but what it means. What it means is that God reigns; not Pharaoh, not Nebuchadnezzer, not Cyrus, and certainly not Antiochus IV Epiphanes. 

What then is the nature of that reign? Jesus refuses the label of comparative kingship, as if he were to be a head of state alongside the clients of Rome or its rival powers. No, his kingdom is not of this world: it is a heavenly kingdom. But what is that to us? What does it mean for us? 

It means our loyalty lies beyond the immediate present press of events; our faith is in something transcendent, someone eternal. The Ancient of Days, in fact. The one who is and was and is to come. And in the Son of Man, who is likewise the first and the last, first born of the resurrection and witness of all that is coming to pass, has come to pass, and will come to pass.

And we are in their hands, ultimately; the hands of God. 

So as the psalm says there may be a night of sorrow but it will open into a new dawn of joy.

That is something people of faith have held onto, from that day to this, when that night looks black.

And that is the sunrise into glory that we anticipate on the feast day of Christ the King.

Our God reigns. Where does he reign? Most of all, in the human heart.

Christ the King

Keeping the Faith: Twentieth Century Martyrs

Every transition has an end, a middle, and a beginning. The Church Year ends with the feast of Christ the King, the Reign of Christ, a feast instituted by Pope Pius X during the rise of Fascism in Italy in the 1920s. The feast spread to many other church bodies; we celebrate it now as a reminder that God reigns, not us. (The Church Year begins anew four Sundays before Christmas Day (whether it occurs on a Sunday or a week day).  And so as we approach the end of the season that culminates in the feast of Christ the King, we find the story of Jesus about to loop around itself from the end back to the beginning: from the consummation of time to the birth of a baby. "Come thou long expected Jesus" we soon will sing. And he arrives twice! First he comes to us as the infant terrorizing Herod and again as the one before whose throne all will gather. Same person. Herod the Great, ruler of Palestine under Roman sponsorship -- who built the great buildings whose ruin Jesus prophesies -- got the message early and he did not like it. That earthbound despot wanted no rivals, especially legitimate ones. Some more recent sovereigns have had similar inclinations. But God prevails. And that is part of the good news that we hear today : Christ forewarns his followers of the difficulties ahead of them and yet reassures them of their ultimate vindication. And so it is when we face hard times, adversity, or mortality: we are not alone. That is why the one who comes is called "Emmanuel" - God with us.

This good news comforts the comfortable and the afflicted, the desperate and the sorrowful and the joyous alike. Since sometimes that can be all of us or any of us this is good news indeed.

That reminder that God reigns came home with force within a decade or two after the feast was first proclaimed. Among those who made it stick in hearts and minds was Kaj Munk, a Danish playwright and pastor, who wrote an impolitic play during the second World War. What was the point, and what was the problem, was that he uniquely compared Herod to Hitler. And this did not make the occupying army happy: indeed he was soon a martyr, murdered by the Gestapo, his body found in a ditch the morning after a midnight abduction. 

Call it an arrest or call it an abduction: it was the prelude to murder. He was not the last. Not certainly the last. There have been many martyrs and prophets since his death who have stood in front of evil and proclaimed God’s reign. Later in the 20th century it was Janani Luwum, Archbishop in Uganda, who confronted an evil regime with the power of love. He paid with his life. One night he was summoned to the presidential palace, and he stood right in front of his country’s ruler, Idi Amin, and refused to renounce the truth. For that he was shot and killed.

These are among the known martyrs; others are known but to God. But their work continues; their truth persists; and the culmination of this year and all years is still this: God reigns. That means that whatever claims on our allegiance are offered to us, none is as important as the integrity of the faith that God keeps with us. And that we, faltering and failing and forgiven, attempt to keep with God. [JRL+ 2021 11/15]

https://www.episcopalcommonprayer.org/uploads/1/2/3/0/123026473/lesser_feasts_and_fasts_2006.pdf

https://www.anglicannews.org/news/2016/02/ugandans-urged-to-pray-for-elections-on-archbishop-janani-luwum-day.aspx

An earlier version of this essay was published as "God keeps faith with us" in the Arizona Daily Star in the Keeping the Faith feature of the Home + Life section, November 28th 2021 page E3.