On my recent European adventure, castles punctuated the landscape. Some are in ruin; some are now restored as expensive hotels; and some serve as government buildings. Generally, however, the days of thrones, kings and queens are over.
On Nov 26, 2023 the last day of the yearly Christian calendar, the church refreshed again “Christ the King” Sunday. To be sure growing up in the Pentecostal tradition I knew little about the Christian calendar. And I can say with reasonable confidence the church(es) of my childhood never celebrated Christ the King Sunday. I knew about Christmas and Easter, and I knew that Advent and Lent were a thing for many traditional Christians, but as for the rest of the calendar the only other date that would come to mind was the rapture and somehow it is not on the Christian calendar.
Granted that did not prevent some from announcing the specific day when Christ would return, presumably in a King like fashion. But you had to be good at rapturenomics - when a process would be set in motion that would lead to a great final accounting Judgment. The story goes, the first time Jesus came it was as a meek, vulnerable child but when he comes back a second time it will be as mighty King with not a little vengeance on his mind. As a teen I read about Matthew 24, As in the days of Noah,… I sang, "I wish we had all been ready." I watched, "A Thief in the night[1] and so on. The message was “Be ready.” No one knows the hour when Christ will return for his people and whisk them away. Never mind in "the days of Noah," Noah and his family were the ones left behind. But I digress.
This year the gospel lectionary reading for Christ the King Sunday was Matthew’s parable of the Sheep and the Goats (Matthew 25:31-45). On first reading it may seem an unusual text for an emphasis on Christ the King. It portrays a very subversive portrait of Christ the King. The King if you like comes as one who is hungry, thirsty, a stranger, someone naked, sick and/or a prisoner. Before this passage we might have thought Kings belong in a castle not in a prison.
Three things to note here. First, the parable of sheep and goats should not be read with a moral lens per se. Neither the sheep nor the goats knew what they were doing was right or was wrong. “When Lord” they asked, “did we do any of those things you said?”
Second, if the Son of Man is indeed a reference to Jesus, then either Christ never really left or at least he has been returning frequently back and forth for the past two millennium.
And third we have a difficult time recognizing his returning because Christ the subversive King does not come in ways we generally identify. He likes coming in disguise. This should not surprise us. Mary at the tomb did not recognize him as a gardener, followers of Jesus did not recognize him on the road to Emmaus as a traveller. Maybe the times of his coming are so difficult to observe because we do not recognize the guise of his comings. Even as King it is in the guise of the vulnerable, and the outcast. He still prefers the donkey over the stallion.
Christ as King Sunday ended the Christian calendar year. This Sunday the calendar starts again with Advent. This is the story of God incarnated coming to earth in the most vulnerable of all forms – an infant. The child becomes a man, the God-man incarnate goes the way of the cross. The resurrected Jesus, as Christ the King, continues his journey seeking out the lost, the poor, and the afflicted as one who prefers showing up as the vulnerable to the exalted one. Or perhaps that is what it means to be exalted.
For much of my Christian life I interpreted the return of Christ as the culmination of the ministry of Christ’s mission for the world. I no longer wait for that final chapter. I wonder with anticipation where he is going to show up next. All I know is it will be among the least likely of people or places.
[1] Oh the memories!
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