During my years in the Church, and through many conversations with both clergy and lay people, one of the things I’ve found that many people really struggle with about the Christian faith is the idea of judgement. I’ve heard so many people, both clergy and lay people, say that they simply can’t get their heads around the idea that God, the loving God of Jesus’ teaching, and whom we proclaim as Christians, will condemn people to hell, to eternal punishment. But, whether we like it or not and whether we want to accept it or not, judgement is both an inescapable part of scripture and an undeniable aspect of Jesus’ teaching. Jesus speaks quite plainly about judgement in this morning’s Gospel, for example. So whether we like it or not or whether we want to accept it or not, I think it would be a very wise thing to do if we were all to live our lives in expectation of judgement, in expectation that, at the end of our lives, we will be judged on how well we’ve conformed to the teaching of Christ and our ultimate fate – eternal life, or eternal punishment, will depend on that judgement.
Today we celebrate the feast of Christ the King. It’s the day in the Church’s year when we acclaim Christ as the King of all creation, but I think part of the problem people have with the idea of judgement is tied up with a problem in thinking of Christ as King. We acclaim him as the King of all creation but we ourselves are part of creation, that’s why we’re called creatures, we are created beings, so Christ is our King too. But do we actually treat him as our King? I think, in many ways, we don’t.
Perhaps that has something to do with the kingdom we live in, the United Kingdom. As we all know, we have a king who, in constitutional terms at least, is our ruler. I’m sure it won’t have escaped anyone’s notice that in law trials, the two parties are often described as ‘the Crown’ versus whoever the defendant may be and that’s because our laws, whilst they’re proposed, voted on and passed in Parliament, have to be given the royal seal of approval before they become law. So whilst in theory we all have to obey the king, because he’s represented in and through the law of the land, in practice, what the king says makes little difference to us and to the way we live because the king doesn’t actually make the law, but only approves it. So whatever King Charles himself may say, we don’t have to take any notice of him, or do as he tells us we should. And because that’s what we’re used to in our everyday lives, I think we can easily treat Jesus’ Kingship in the same way.
But Jesus isn’t that sort of king. Jesus isn’t a constitutional monarch. He doesn’t simply ‘rubber stamp’ what human beings think is right. He is the King through whom the ultimate law of the universe, God’s law, is given and through whom ultimate justice, God’s justice, is administered. So when we get into a dispute with God, when we do what God’s law forbids, the Crown we’re going up against is God’s Crown as represented by God’s law given to us in and through Jesus’ teaching and commandments. And the one who will judge us is the whom God, the ultimate authority in the universe, has appointed as King, Jesus.
But in addition to our lack of familiarity with a King who must be obeyed, I think we also have a problem with judgement because of some of the imagery we associate with Jesus, and for many of us, perhaps with the way we were brought up to think about him.
I’m sure we all know the hymn, How sweet the name of Jesus sounds, and if we know it well, we’ll probably remember that the fourth verse of that hymn goes like this;
Jesus! my Shepherd, Brother, Friend,
my Prophet, Priest and King,
my Lord, my Life, my Way, my End,
accept the praise I bring.
Those are lovely words, very comforting words in fact which in many ways is what the hymn is all about, the sweetness and comfort the name of Jesus brings to a believer. But I think we can focus so much on Jesus as shepherd, brother, and friend, as one who cares for us as one of our family and as a friend, that we can forget the meaning of those other titles and attributes the hymn ascribes to him. Our prophet, the one who calls us to obey God’s law. Our priest, the one who offered himself on the Cross to atone for our sins and who still intercedes for us with the Father because we don’t obey God’s law. Our King, the one who rules over us because God has appointed him as our King. And we forget too that as subjects of Christ our King he is our Lord, the one we must obey. He’s our life because our lives must be like his life. He’s our Way because his Way must be our way. And he is our End both because we want to be with him in heaven at our end and because he is the one who, in the end, will decide whether we can be with him in heaven or not.
I think both through our unfamiliarity with what in earthly terms is called absolute monarchy, kings and queens who must be obeyed because they do hold ultimate authority over our lives and giving so much of our focus to the kindly images and attributes of Jesus, that we can’t imagine that someone so loving and so good and kind and gentle as Jesus could or would possibly judge us harshly and deny us entry into heaven. And yet, this is exactly what Jesus says will happen if we don’t obey him. We know too that Jesus told us that God does not desire anyone’s death, much rather that they repent, turn from their sinful ways, return to his ways, and live. But nevertheless, judgement and the punishment that awaits those who don’t repent and obey Christ the King is so much a part of Jesus’ teaching that it can’t be left out or ignored.
I’m sure some of you will have seen the Kenneth Branagh version of Shakespeare’s Henry V. In that film there’s a scene in which King Henry is happy and smiling because he’s received good news about a battle in which his troops have held a bridge and in which there has been only one casualty, and that a man who was to be executed for robbing a church. Looting was expressly forbidden under pain of death, and to rob a church was the most heinous form of looting. So the king’s mood is not changed by the news until he’s given the name of the man who is to be executed – Bardolph. And then the king’s smiles disappear because Bardolph, though he was and is a dissolute fellow and thief, is an old friend. And as the king looks at Bardolph standing, beaten and bloodied and a noose about to be put around his neck, he recalls happier times when he was Prince Hal rather than King Henry, and the two were drinking and laughing together amongst other friends. And amid the smiles and laughter, Bardolph says to the Prince,
“Do not, when thou art king, hang a thief.”
The Prince’s smiles slowly disappear, and he replies,
“No, thou shalt.”
The scene returns to the present and the two men look at each other without a word, Bardolph with a pitiful, pleading look on his face, the king with tears in his eyes. But nevertheless, through the tears he gives a nod to the executioner to proceed.
This scene isn’t strictly true to Shakespeare’s play, but it is nevertheless, one of the most powerful scenes in the film and it works both to show Henry’s transition from playboy prince to sovereign Lord and King, and to show that to be a king, Henry must do what is right regardless of personal feelings and loyalties. That he must be impartial in upholding the law and administering judgement and justice. It also implies that, although Henry gives the order for the executioner to proceed, the fault lies not with the king, but with Bardolph himself, the thief who’d wilfully disobeyed the king’s law. And as we think about this scene, it’s not so very different from what we read in the Gospels is it? This, for example:
And when Jesus drew near Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade round you and surround you and hem you in on every side and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation.”
Or this;
For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.
And as we read in this morning’s Gospel, believing in the Son of God is not simply a matter of calling him Lord and King, but of living as his loyal subjects and doing as he commands us to do.
If we struggle with the idea of judgement, of a loving God and of Jesus, gentle Jesus, meek and mild, Jesus our shepherd, brother and friend, sentencing us to eternal punishment, perhaps we can imagine it in this way. As something Jesus doesn’t want to do, as something that, if he had to do it, would bring tears to his eyes, but as something that, if he had to do it, he would because he must, as our judge, and our King. So let’s not make it necessary for him to judge us worthy of condemnation. If we love Jesus as we say we do, let’s not do anything to bring tears to his eyes but treat him as our Shepherd, Brother and Friend, our Prophet, Priest and King, our Lord, or Life our Way and our End so that he might not only accept the praise we bring him now but, at our end, judge us worthy to be accepted into his Father’s heavenly kingdom.
Amen.
Propers for Christ the King 26th November 2023
Entrance Antiphon
The Lamb who was slain is worthy to receive strength and divinity, wisdom, power and honour; to him be glory and power for ever.
The Collect
Eternal Father,
whose Son Jesus Christ ascended to the throne of heaven,
that he might rule over all things as Lord and King:
keep the Church in the unity of the Spirit and in the bond of peace,
and bring the whole created order to worship at his feet;
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Amen.
The Readings
Missal (St Mark’s)
Ezekiel 34:11-12, 15-17
Psalm 23:1-3, 5-6
1 Corinthians 15:20-26, 28
Matthew 25:31-46
RCL (St Gabriel’s)
Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24
Psalm 95:1-7
Ephesians 1:15-23
Matthew 25:31-46
Parish Church of St Mark Chadderton 