Our King

November 23, 2025, Saint Barnabas Lutheran Church, Howard Beach, Queens, N.Y.

This is Christ the King Sunday.

Somewhere along the way, church wordsmiths renamed it “Reign of Christ” Sunday. All kings are dudes, they reasoned, and it seemed chauvinistic to refer to Jesus as a King.

It is also difficult for us dwellers of the 21st century to identify with kings, kingdoms. 

The monarch most of us can name is the fondly remembered Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain, but we fully understand she was merely glitter on the ordinariness of a pinstriped parliamentary democracy. She had no power and even the most miscreant members of her court know they can safely misbehave without losing their heads.

It has been a long time since there were monarchs around we could look up to as metaphors to help us comprehend the ascendant royalty of Jesus. 

But when have kings and kingdoms ever been a useful analogy to help people understand Jesus? 

Even those who first heard the comparison might have thought immediately of King Herod or the Emperor Tiberius, both known for their brutality and debauchery.

Or, if the more scripturally literate chose to reflect on Kings David or Solomon, it would be instantly clear that neither one of them was Christlike. David was an adulterer who consummated his enamors by having Bathsheba’s husband neatly dispatched, and Solomon was an enthusiastic polygamist whose wives led him down the path to serial to idolatry (I Kings 11:9-13).

Has there ever been a monarch whose reign reminded us of God’s reign? It is, in fact, very difficult to survey the monarchies of Europe, Asia, or Africa without reaching the conclusion the kings and queens were, with few exceptions, murderously megalomaniacal and calculatingly cruel. 

Even the greatest rulers – Henry VIII, Catherine the Great, Shaka Zulu, Emperor Jai Jing – survived by killing, jailing, or torturing their challengers. 

Even so, it’s obvious that peoples over the centuries tended to revere their kings, especially if the king kept the peace, made it possible for the surfs to live without starving, and kept pogroms to a minimum. 

Many of us like to think standards of good kinging were established in the legends of King Arthur and popularized by librettist Alan Jay Lerner and composer Frederick Loewe in Camelot:

Camelot! Camelot! 

I know it gives a person pause,

But in Camelot, Camelot

Those are the legal laws.

The snow may never slush upon the hillside.

By nine p.m. the moonlight must appear.

In short, there's simply not

A more congenial spot

For happily-ever-aftering than here

In Camelot.

Camelot might tempt us to compare it to the reign of God, but as we English majors know, the realm eventually collapsed in seduction and treachery.

In Shalom Aleichem’s Fiddler on the Roof, we detect a more realistic picture of how people revere their monarchs. When the rabbi is asked if there is a prayer for the Tsar, he replies, “May the Lord bless and keep the Tsar – far away from us.” No doubt that was a familiar prayer in all cultures.

But if kings and queens were never good models for Christ the King, they became even less so after the First World War when most of the monarchies of Europe were wiped away, and the monarchs who survived became empty fronts for democratically elected prime ministers. 

So when we think of “Christ the King,” what is it, exactly, that we are supposed to imagine?

When I was in college, I occasionally worshipped in a Mennonite living room church pastored by Dr. John L. Ruth, professor of English at Eastern Baptist College. John wore the traditional Mennonite plain coat, which made him look distinctly unworldly (unless one mistook his garb for a Nehru jacket). 

In fact, he had a Ph.D. from Harvard and he was an important mentor for me during my undergraduate years.

John never stopped being a Mennonite pastor, and worship services in his small house were quietly spiritual and occasionally unpredictable. 

One Sunday the sermon was provided by a vinyl LP record: Jesus Christ, Superstar.

I don’t recall ever hearing of the popular musical before then. As he put the disc on his ancient turntable, John said, “It probably doesn’t mean anything to us when we talk about Christ the King. What other metaphors would give us a clearer idea of who Jesus is and the kind of impact he has on society and our individual lives?”

As the needle began to hiss on the record, John said: “How about, ‘Superstar’?”

Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ

Who are you? What have you sacrificed?

Jesus Christ Superstar

Do you think you're what they say you are?

Tell me what you think about your friends at the top

Who'd you think besides yourself's the pick of the crop

Buddha was he where it's at? Is he where you are?

Could Mahomet move a mountain or was that just PR?

Did you mean to die like that? Was that a mistake or

Did you know your messy death would be a record-breaker?

Don't you get me wrong - I only wanna know

Jesus as superstar was an interesting idea in the late sixties. Mass media shined klieg lights on certain individuals and raised them far above mere mortals. Back then it was Elvis, not one of the Windsors, who was King. The Beatles attracted more people to their concerts than any church. John Lennon didn’t lie when he said, fully realizing the irony, “We’re more popular than Jesus.”

On Christ the King Sunday, are there any regal models we can point to as examples of what the reign of Christ is like?

That seems hardly likely. Jesus gave us a large hint about those who would be models of Christ’s reign when the mother of James and John came to Jesus and asked him to make her sons superstars. 

Jesus replied, whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave; just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.” Matthew 20:20-28

There was certainly no one lowlier or more obscure than the thief who found himself crucified next to Jesus, and no one can say this man lived a virtuous life. But he recognized God’s marvelous light when so many around him were blind to it. And by using his last agonized breaths to declare his faith, Jesus welcomed him into the royal priesthood of the reign of Christ.

Kendra A. Mohn, lead pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church in Fort Worth, Texas, notes that it is in this moment of humiliation and connection on the cross that Jesus embodies the ultimate act of love and forgiveness. Using his power to grant mercy to others, even those actively hurting him, underscores how deeply grace is indicative of the reign of Christ. And it compels those who follow Jesus to take this call seriously in their own lives and relationships. 

Are we ready to extend grace to those around us, even when it is difficult? 

What if they actively work against our best interests? 

Are we willing to embrace the radical love that Jesus exemplifies? 

Honesty with these questions will mean seeing ourselves in an unflattering mirror. Our resistance to these questions signifies our limitations and our need for Jesus’ forgiveness. We begin to see that it is only God’s action that can move us to acts of true selflessness, participating in the reign of Christ. 

Christ the King Sunday invites us to see who our king really is, in contrast to the glittery, jewel adorned, gold plated kings of our human experience.

Our king is a carpenter with dirty fingernails.

Our king is a sweaty, working class laborer.

Our king does not have guards protecting him from the unruly crowds but walks among them, responding to their needs, preaching and healing until he is too tired to stand.

Oue king is love, compassion, a refuge for strangers, and a drum major for justice.

Our king, “though he existed in the form of God,

    did not regard equality with God

    as something to be grasped,

but emptied himself,

    taking the form of a slave,

    assuming human likeness.

And being found in appearance as a human,

he humbled himself

    and became obedient to the point of death—

    even death on a cross. (Philippians 2:6-8)

Come, Thou Almighty King.

Amen.