Today’s Readings
Psalm 95: 1-7, Ezekiel 34: 11-16,20-24, Ephesians 1: 15-end, Matthew 25: 31-end
“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.”
If there is one good thing that has come out of this present Pandemic, it is the care that so many people have shown to those in need. Doctors, nurses, carers, those who work in food banks and other charitable organizations; even neighbours who for the first time have perhaps got to know who lives next door or in their street; often these acts of care or kindness are carried out without the knowledge of the recipient.
It is true that often out of trouble and adversity there is a very human and basic response of kindness, charity and dare I say even love. We have again just had “Children in Need”, and one cannot but be struck by the plight of so many children in this country alone, without looking at the desperate situation of children in so many parts of the rest of our world. Yet, year after year there is a very heart-warming response from the British public as a whole.
Today, ‘Christ the King’ Sunday, celebrates the all-embracing authority of Christ as King and Lord of all things. Instituted by Pope Pius XI in 1925, this Feast Day is now celebrated on the final Sunday of Ordinary Time in the Church’s calendar, that is, the Sunday before the beginning of Advent, which of course, leads us up to Christmas.
In 1925 Pope Pius XI, and the rest of the Christian world, was witnessing the rise of non-Christian dictatorships in Europe, which saw Catholics being ‘taken in’ by these earthly leaders, dictators who often attempted to assert authority over the Church. The Feast of ‘Christ the King’ was instituted during this time, when respect for Christ and the Church was waning; the ‘feast day’ was seen to be needed to reverse this decline.
Today of course many of our churches are closed, as with St. Luke’s and the Barn apart from being open for private prayer, and I know our church leaders are trying very hard to reverse that Government decree, as I believe many reading and hearing this would also wish. It is though in my opinion the strength of the Christian faith, that it lives in its believers, we are the ‘body of Christ’, the church.
This allows us to function outside the four walls of a building, in fact Christ began to build his church on a ‘rock’ called Peter, and this ‘church’ was taken on and grown by the Apostle Paul and his followers in the peoples of present day Turkey and Greece.
How much of that teaching of Christ, as we heard in our Gospel reading, is being carried out, day after day, in these present times, and by those who do not ask or seek for any reward or recognition. Who so often go unnoticed, without praise or thanks, other than knowing in themselves that they have done a good turn for a fellow human being less fortunate than themselves.
“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.”
We are never in isolation, never completely alone, never just one set of footprints in the sand, for God sees and knows all, even if so often we doubt or forget that He is with us always.
As Paul wrote in his letter to the Ephesians:
“God put this power to work in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come.”
A king who rode on a donkey, and ruled not by the sword, or by false promises, or by offering power and prestige to others, but by love and care and commitment to those who were hungry, thirsty, strangers, unclothed and unloved, those who even today are the most forgotten or rejected by our society. It is as Christians, as Christ’s Church here on earth that we, you and me, must continue to grow His Kingdom, and show ourselves worthy of being with Him in the ever-lasting kingdom at the end of time.
So as we celebrate this ‘Christ the King’ Sunday let us do so in the knowledge that Kings, Queens, Dictators and even Presidents will come and go, but there is only one true King with ‘power and dominion’, who will be with us and care for us as long as we praise His name.
Amen.
Michael Tonkin
Cover image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay