Christchurch Parish News, November 2018
What does Christ’s Kingship mean for us today?
At the end of November, we celebrate the final feast day of the church year, that of Christ the King. To prepare us for this joyful occasion, we are invited during the Eucharist on the Sundays prior to listen to passages from the Letter to the Hebrews, which help deepen our understanding of the identity of Jesus Christ.
At least, that’s the idea. But they’re not the easiest of readings to understand, as the letter has a very particular audience in mind. One that is, at least outwardly, quite removed in cultural terms from our own.
Written several years after Jesus’ resurrection but before the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem in 70AD, the letter was addressed primarily to Jewish Christians who, having come to believe that Jesus was the promised messiah, were facing opposition in the world around them. As a consequence, some were returning to their former beliefs about God with the overall consequence that Jesus was no longer the absolute centre of their faith. The purpose of the letter was to persuade them to remain loyal to Christ.
Outwardly their world was a very different one from that which surrounds us today. But inwardly, the letter is highlighting the same dynamic that all Christians face, no matter their cultural context. Specifically, when things get tough at home or at work for those who have previously declared their allegiance to Christ, the thought of returning to old ways of understanding things can become increasingly appealing.
The reason for this is simple: our earlier set of beliefs about life, including whether or not God exists, will have been shaped by the broader culture around us, including our family, our friends and our work colleagues. It is this broader culture which establishes what is and what isn’t considered reasonable to believe at any given time. Accordingly, as followers of Jesus, when times are hard, we can start to reckon that if we were to go back to our old ways, even just a little, things would become easier for us, as we would be able to fit in more comfortably with the way the rest of the world was carrying on around us.
In our own culture, there are many ways that we might do this. But what underpins them all is a thinning out of the central orthodox belief regarding the unique divinity of Jesus.
Today, to claim that Jesus is God incarnate, and that his life, death, resurrection and ascension have fundamentally altered the course of the cosmos, might be something we find ourselves feeling increasingly embarrassed about. We may have proclaimed it with a passion when we were younger, but over time, we’ve come to find it more credible—and less socially awkward—to think of Jesus in other ways. Ways that sit less starkly in contrast to the dominant worldview of those around us. We start to focus on Jesus being a great teacher. Or a great moral example. And, of course, he is indeed both these things.
But by contrast, to make claims about his divinity, that he is the Son of God—let alone to declare that he is Christ the King, the king of the kingdom of God—and that his resurrection is the first fruits of the resurrection of all creation that is to come… well, that can be hard, when living with those who hold very different beliefs about God.
Out of a desire not to offend or face confrontation, we dial it down. And sure enough, over time, we find ourselves slowly returning to a position of faith barely distinguishable in practice from those around us who proclaim no such allegiance to Christ.
Such slipping back into the broader culture is also a temptation for those of us who have grown up in Christian families, gone to church from a young age, attended a church school etc.. Whenthe broader culture around us is dismissive of Jesus Christ, it’s easier by far to put our faith on mute. Instead of Christ being the foundation of our lives, we slowly move him to the periphery, reducing him bit by bit to a lifestyle bolt-on, who brings us comfort when we need it but never has much to say about how we live day to day.
It is against this marginalisation of Jesus, that Pope Pius XI in 1925 instituted the feast day of Christ the King. He saw the drift away from Christianity across Europe and wanted to create a focus for ordinary people to draw their attention to the kingship of Christ. It was a bold move, especially in the wake of the First World War, which had left the continent reeling. But his call for a new feast day was swiftly heeded, not only in the Catholic Church but soon across the other main denominations.
In our own time, we, too, are reeling from profound cultural shocks—economic, political and social—all of which make it ever more tempting to downplay the lordship of Christ.
But, as the writer of the Letter to the Hebrews makes clear, to do so is to deprive ourselves of the hope we have in Jesus Christ. When we make him less than the Bible declares him to be—God incarnate and King of kings, our Great High Priest, interceding for us moment by moment—then we’re condemning ourselves to lives of repressed despair. Ones in which we frenetically distract ourselves to avoid facing the fear that, as Nietzsche believed, our existence (and that of our loved ones) is of no significance beyond a fleeting moment of consciousness within a universe blind to our existence.
But we’re not condemned to such a nihilistic existence. The feast of Christ the King marks the occasion when we’re all invited to rejoice in the lordship of Christ.
For our king is not a coercive tyrant but a servant King, who has in love died to set us free from all that ensnares us. A King who now calls us to play our part as we acknowledge and anticipate his kingdom on earth, empowered by the Holy Spirit, living in the light of his resurrection, and trusting in his ultimate lordship over all of time and space.