Christ the King Sunday

Yesterday we celebrated Christ the King Sunday as we walked through the Christian Liturgical Year. Several people have commented that they enjoyed hearing some of those facts.  So I have decided to post below the script that Carole and I read from.  These descriptions were written by Dennis Bratcher and published on the website, The Voice Institute. As you read through them I pray you will be moved and to a deeper understanding of our risen Lord and Savior!
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Introduction
Christ the King Sunday is celebrated on the Sunday before the beginning of Advent that starts the new Church Year. As the last Sunday of the Christian Church Year, Christ the King Sunday is the climax and conclusion of the Church’s liturgical journey through the life of Christ and the Gospel message. Its purpose is to celebrate the coming reign of Christ as King of the Earth and his completion of the renewed creation that marks the fullness of the Kingdom of God. That hope is born from the entire life of Christ and his teachings that have been celebrated in the seasons of the Church Year during the past twelve months. In celebrating the Reign of Christ the King, this Sunday also provides an appropriate bridge to the new Church Year that begins next week on the first Sunday of Advent with an emphasis on hope and expectation, the longing for the coming of the Kingdom of God amid the darkness of a sinful world.

So today we will look back at this past year’s journey with Jesus. But we are also looking forward to our journey this coming year, as we express each week our faith in the transforming power of God at work in our world, and in our Church, and in our lives to restore all of creation to his purposes.

Advent 

The royal color of purple begins the Church Year in Advent, a word that means "coming". We pace this season of four Sundays hearing again the silence of the prophets, experiencing the breathless waiting of the Israelites hoping for a Messiah. We sing the song "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel" with longing, not because we seek a Messiah yet to come to the world, but because the Christ has come and we long for him to come to us again. The quiet pace of Advent is in direct contrast to the bustling commercialism of the secular holidays. And so we begin our new year in Advent, reminding ourselves that in the midst of the worldliness of our lives we need to renew our relationship to this King who has come.

Christmas

In the season of Christmas we change the sanctuary colors to White and Gold, a celebration of the purity of the infant who was born in a manger, and yet a King with all the splendor of God come to dwell with his people. Christmas Day is both the culmination of the waiting of the Advent season, and the beginning of twelve days of celebration as we rejoice in the gift of our Savior and the daily rebirth of grace in our own lives.

Epiphany 

Epiphany means "to make known," and in the season of Epiphany we remember the ways and events through which God revealed himself through Jesus Christ. The colors, white and gold, the colors of celebration, newness, and hope mark these sacred days of the church year. In traditions that only observe a single day for Epiphany, the colors are often changed after Epiphany to the colors of green. Transfiguration Sunday, the last Sunday before the beginning of Lent, is once again marked by the colors White and Gold.

As with most aspects of the Christian liturgical calendar, Epiphany has significance as a teaching tool in the church. The Wise Men or Magi who brought gifts to the infant Jesus were the first Gentiles to acknowledge Jesus as "King" and so were the first to "show" or "reveal" Jesus to a wider world as the incarnate Christ. This act of worship by the Magi, which corresponded to Simeon’s blessing that this child Jesus would be "a light for revelation to the Gentiles" (Luke 2:32), was one of the first indications that Jesus came for all people, of all nations, of all races, and that the work of God in the world would not be limited to only a few.

The day is now observed as a time of focusing on the mission of the church in reaching others by "showing" Jesus as the Savior of all people. It is also a time of focusing on Christian brotherhood and fellowship, especially in healing the divisions of prejudice and bigotry that we all too often create between God’s children.

Lent 

With the ashes on our heads after the service of Ash Wednesday, the sanctuary colors for Lent turn to a somber Purple and to Black at the end of the Passion Week. Throughout the six weeks of Lent we pace the length of Jesus’ three years of ministry. Throughout the weeks we relearn the faces and names of people who, like you and me, were sometimes faithful and sometimes selfish; people who heard the good news and responded and others who laughed and scorned; men, women, and children who heard Jesus’ words and watched his life and came hungry and were fulfilled, or who walked away because they could not use him for their own ends.

It is a long season, a season that calls us to stop and take a look at our life in the light of Christlikeness, and humble ourselves before our God who says to us gently, "Come, let us talk this over. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool. If you are willing to obey, you shall eat the good things of the earth." (Isaiah 1:18-19 NJB)

Holy Week

The season of Lent culminates in "Passion Week," from a Latin word that means "to suffer." Starting with Palm Sunday and the joyful entry of Israel’s Messiah-King into Jerusalem, it ends with that very same crowd yelling "Crucify him, crucify him." In between these two days, the week’s events are remembered with various services that pace the Passion Week: A Seder meal, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Tenebrae, and the Holy Saturday Vigil.

Easter

Morning dawns and Mary Magdalene weeps at the tomb until she is told the good news "He is not dead! He has risen!" And that call echoes down through the centuries as Christians around the world joyfully cry out "Christ is Risen! Christ is Risen indeed!" year after year on the highest and holiest day of the Christian calendar.

Easter lilies adorn the sanctuary, the colors change to the brightness of White and Gold to portray the purity and kingliness of our Risen Savior. There is no joy compared to an Easter Sunday after the solemn pace of Lent. Three days before we buried our beloved Jesus; today He lives! We wept with Peter on the night he was crucified, and on Easter we are awed anew by the great news that He Lives!

And the fifty days of Easter ring jubilantly with the new life and new hope that the Risen Savior brings to us, to our world, and to all peoples who open their hearts to him. We listen in on the conversations of the disciples as they struggle to wrap their human hearts and minds around this new revelation. We watch as those who previously had persecuted the people of God now fall on their knees in awe and wonder. We experience anew for ourselves in this season the freedom and joy and the power, strength, and life that is our heritage as the people of God.

Pentecost

The Red of flames is the sanctuary color of Pentecost as we remember the great rushing wind and the dancing flames like fire, and the words of Jesus, baptizing his disciples with the Holy Fire of the Spirit. The disciples and followers of Jesus were one moment huddled in fear in a small upper room. Then the Holy Spirit came in power and they rushed out of the building and into the streets, telling everyone about the good news in ways that all could understand. Today? Well, one day we are ordinary people, the next we are his evangelists, and pastors, and healers, and mercy-bringers, and the Body of Christ, redeemed by his blood, one in ministry to the entire world.

Christ the King/Eucharist

It is Christ the Savior-Shepherd-King who presides over the Eucharist table. At the Eucharist table we can all gather, "neither Jew nor Greek, male or female, slave or free", but one in Christ. Here we can all come freely to experience and to participate in this means of grace that visibly exhibits the heart and mind of our Creator, our Savior, and our Sustainer.

On this "Christ the King" Sunday we are reminded that God is with us through all the seasons of life as the writer of Ecclesiastes so poignantly reminds us. Next time you gather around the table may you feel the freedom, the joy, the strength of Jesus’ presence in your spirit. Remember his words, "Look, I am with you always; yes, to the end of time." (Matthew 28:20 NJB)