The Sunday before Thanksgiving invited us to look at the community and the family that surrounds us. We celebrated our church volunteers who are key components of any ministry. We asked God to strengthen and sustain all those who volunteer in our church; that with patience and understanding they may love and care for God’s people; and grant that together they may follow Jesus Christ, offering cheerfully and freely their gifts, talents, and treasure.
Christ the King Sunday encourages us to look up to the Christ as we give thanks for the Kingdom, Jesus asks us to see and to lean into.
This week hurls us back over the journey we have made with Christ from Advent 2022 to today, Christ the King Sunday 2023 We anticipated his coming – the first time and the promised return to bring the new heavens and the new earth. We heard the voice pronounce God’s blessing at his baptism by John at the river Jordan; we fasted with him in the desert and saw him tempted to take the easy route.
We heard him reject that temptation and then saw the results as he walked the way of sorrows through suffering to death on a cross. We rejoiced with incredible joy when Easter morning dawned with a risen Son and a promise of eternity within our grasp. We heard his commissioning to go into all the world and make disciples, and we saw him rising to his proper place, to his enthronement in the very presence of God.
We felt the gift of his Spirit blow through us like wind and fire as we sought to be the church at work in the world. And now we bow before the one who loved us, who claimed us and redeemed us; and we sing praise and thanksgiving for that blessing and that hope.
To the Power and Glory of our Merciful God, amen.