Getting Ready for November 23, The Feast of Christ the King

This coming Sunday is a really big day because on November 23, many Christians—especially those who live within the commemorative rhythms of the Church Year--will be worshipping Jesus on the Feast of Christ the King, the last Sunday of the liturgical year.

As June and I have been reading the appointed lections for the final two or three weeks in this Church Year, we've noticed that the Church is now deliberating thinking, praying, and acting eschatologically; that is, we're moving toward the Final Act while at the same time learning to make present everything that is to come. Living eschastologically means that we live not only with a hope for the “Eschaton” (from the Greek ἐσχάτου = last, final), but that we also wake up each morning already living well within the Ending. Biblically, the End began with birth of Christ, as St. Peter reminds us, "[Christ] was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but has appeared in these last times for your sake" (I Peter 1.20). Ever since the Incarnation, we are already living within God's trajectory toward the great Summing-Up, within what will be God's climaxing of the world. We're like surfers riding within the curl of a Great Wave, God's work in Christ.

As Chrstiains, to put it another way, we're really pilgrims going to the "Great Cathedral." God has started us out on our pilgrimage with Holy Baptism, and now we’re tramping along as people who have set out but not quite yet arrived at our goal. We live “inbetween,” betwixt the Starting Out and the Getting There. This means that we have entered the tension between what is already given and what is not yet given. As a consequence, our experience of salvation is interestingly ambiguous; paradoxically, we already have it and nevertheless we still don't have it yet. We have been saved, but we have been saved in hope. We already live--in Christ, in the Spirit--but we don't yet live fully. By living eschatologically we pray and work by “living inbetween,” inbetween the First Step and the Final Arrival.

So we have a clear orientation in life, even if it does not give us all the answers ready made. God has given us a basic stance or direction, like iron filings in a magnetic field. The future is set; liberated, we are moving toward wonderful freedom. Whatever we are confronted with and engaged by in life, we will always look beyond it to God, from whom and for whom we exist. We live in “the energy field of the future." We do our Scripture reading and lectio divina with “a hermeneutic of hope”; we allow the sacraments to establish and confirm us in “a praxis of hope,” and trusting that God is able to bring to completion “what God in his infinite wisdom and unfathomable grace, has begun,” as Christian Mostert describes us in Hope: Challenging the Culture of Despair (Australian Theological Forum Press, Adelaide, 2004).

Last Sunday as we prayed the collect for the 27th Sunday after Pentecost, the Church reminded us that before the Beginning and after the End, God is the One we may count on:

Almighty and ever-living God, before the earth was form and even after it ceases, you are God. Break into our short span of life and let us see the signs of your final will and purpose, through your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

During the Eucharist on the Feast of Christ the King, we will hear Jesus tell us one story about the Great Summing-up as Matthew has remembered it in Chapter 25. We want to look at it now as we ask ourselves about our standing in the Summing-up:

34 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; 35f or 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, 36 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.' 37 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? 38 And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? 39 And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?' 40 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 (Greek: adelphon mou –– my brothers), you did it to me.'

Now living "in-between" and moving toward the Great Summation, you may also wish to pray the collect for the Feast of Christ the King:

Almighty and everlasting God, whose will it is to restore all things to your beloved Son, whom you anointed priest forever and king of all creation: Grant that all the people of the earth now divided by the power of sin, may be united under the glorious and gentle rule of your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

Image: James B. Janknegt, Cast Our Crowns