Morning Prayer: Shannon Cook Choral Amen Hymn of Gratitude *Sing to the Lord of Harvest* Witness of Scripture: John 18: 33-37 & Revelation 7: 9-12 Anthem *Sing Praise to God* G.F. Handel. Chancel Choir Sermon *Essentials: Who Reigns* David Spain
Recorded on November 24, 2026
Welcome to the festival of the Reign of Christ or as it is also known Christ the King Sunday. As we know, it is always a rush to get all the food prepared and all our Reign of Christ greeting cards in the mail. You didn’t do that? Well, to be fair, again this year Hallmark did not issue a line of Christ the King greeting cards. Instead, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas cards garnered all the publicity, as they should. But, before the turkey is basted and the final touches are completed for the Christmas decorations, the church offers a little known yet critically important festival—the one we celebrate today.
As far as Christian festivals go, Reign of Christ Sunday is a relative newcomer. It was 1925 when Pope Pius XI instituted this feast day. Why, in the midst of the Roaring 20’s, was there a need for such a festival?Consider some of the movements happening at the same time—the first volume of Hitler’s Mein Kampf was published—harbinger of antisemitism and hints of his sinister plan for the Third Reich.One year later, 40,000 Klansmen marched on Washington with their torches of darkness and litanies of hatred. In the still lingering effects of the Great War (which is one of the worst of all oxymorons), nationalist sentiment and increasing secularism were becoming more pervasive globally. In response to these alarming trends, Pius XI called the church to affirm Christ’s reign over all creation. Regardless of one’s citizenship, allegiance to Christ and Christ’s way of living is to be the guide for how one lives in the world. That allegiance knows no boundaries and is never to be co-opted by any nation-state. And yet, we still might ask, “What does it mean to say Jesus is King or Lord?” For those who have never lived in a monarchy, how do we appropriate this language of reign or kingdom, which is part of the prayer we say every Sunday – “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth…” For what are we praying? What did Jesus mean when he proclaimed the “kingdom of God is at hand,” which according to several of the gospels was one of his opening lines as he began his ministry.When Jesus thought of himself embodying God’s reign come to earth, what kind of power did he have in mind? I’m all for celebrating Reign of Christ Sunday, but what does it mean?
Asking these questions may stir a memory of a long-ago conversation when these kinds of questions were in play. John’s gospel tells us that story, when Pilate and Jesus stood face to face, emblems of two very different kinds of kingdoms, two very different ways of being in the world. Jesus had been arrested, paraded in front of several courts and now lands in Pilate’s office for interrogation. Pilate was governor in Judea, Rome’s long-serving lackey in the region. There are varieties of opinions on Pilate, depending on which gospel is telling the story. In John’s telling, Pilate seems mostly disinterested in Jesus—a country preacher who has stirred up some people, but this is mostly a religious issue.Pilate has more pressing matters to consider; yet, Jesus lands at his feet. Pilate asks, “What am I to do with this guy,” still hoping to avoid the whole matter? What ensues is one of the most revealing and compelling conversations ever told in the Bible.
Here is this arrested, perhaps harassed prisoner standing before Pilate looking rather unlike royalty. “Are you the king of the Jews?” We can’t know the tone in Pilate’s voice—is he being sarcastic, ironic, irritated, confused? Jesus doesn’t look like any king that has any power by Pilate’s or Rome’s standards.Jesus, as was his habit, rather boldly responds to Pilate’s question with a question of his own. He wants to know the source of Pilate’s information—which is always a good question to ask. “What’s the source of your information?” Pilate in essence says, “this matter has landed in my court when it is really a religious issue and one I would just soon not have to deal with. I have matters of state to deal with and really don’t have time for religious squabbles.” Jesus responds, “the kind of power I have does not come from the likes of you.” What is Jesus saying—that the kingdom he proclaims is not a violent threat to Pilate (after all Jesus does not come with an armed revolt storming the castle); or is Jesus saying that life in God’s kingdom calls people to live in a very different way from the way Pilate and Rome rules and lives? Maybe it is both.
Perhaps Pilate, at this point, realizes he is in over his head. He who was to interrogate Jesus is now the one being questioned. So, he tries, once again to bail on the whole conversation because Pilate simply does not construct life the way Jesus frames life. Pilate works the kind of power that manipulates, is opportunistic, says whatever it needs to say in order to gain control, using fear, innuendo, slander, bigotry, appealing to the worst in people. His framework for life is power for domination and control. He is not to be admired, although his way of understanding power is pervasive for many. From his perspective, Pilate asks Jesus the only question he knows to ask—“So you are a king?” Jesus, again rather boldly given the circumstances, says to Pilate, “You call me that if you want to, but from the beginning my whole essence, my whole life has been to tell the truth, and anyone who is committed to the truth hears me and is part of the realm, the reign, the kingdom that I am initiating.”Something in Pilate shifts, if only for a moment. There is a pause in the conversation, and out of the silence Pilate asks, “What is truth?”
Like Pilate’s first question to Jesus, it is difficult to know exactly the tone in his voice. Perhaps he is being sarcastic and dismissive, implying that truth is whatever Pilate declares it is. But, maybe for just a split second, Pilate is intrigued, is willing to listen to this tattered and torn itinerant preacher from Galilee who has spent his whole life testifying to the truth of God’s reign come on earth as it is in heaven.Maybe Pilate senses, for all the trappings of power that are always lurking at the door and ready to pounce, that it might be worth listening to what Jesus has
to say about his kind of reign. And, whether or not Pilate is willing to listen, we who follow
Jesus can listen, gathered as we are on this unhallmarked festival of Christ the King.
On this last Sunday of the Christian calendar year, before we return to the cycle of Advent and birth, we recall that Jesus—as he did with Pilate—always spoke truth to power. He was never deceptive, never evasive about the kind of reign he came to establish in this world. Remember his first sermons—“the kingdom of God is at hand…the kingdom of God is like…blessed are the …” Remember how he described life lived God’s kind of way? Jesus proclaimed truth was not a philosophical idea but the embodiment of a particular way of being, the way Jesus taught, included, healed, loved, challenged, died, lives on. Truth, as Jesus embodied, was not a legal definition, but the way of compassion that loves what God loves and loves how God loves. God’s realm, God’s reign is when God gets what God wants for this earth as it is in heaven. How did Jesus describe God’s way? He gave us hundreds of examples in his brief few years in Galilee and Jerusalem. God’s reign is like those who hunger and thirst for what is right and just; it’s like those who care for people who are mourning and hurting; it’s like those who work with peace for all those who are denied peace because of inequity, abuse, deception; it’s like throwing a banquet for all those people on Main Street who push carts with all their worldly possessions in them because God loves them too; it’s like a love strong enough to ask ‘do you want to be well;’ it’s like stopping the religious authorities from their high-minded stoning of easy victims; it’s like seeing children as harbingers of God’s way because of their trust and willingness to believe that what is, is not all there is to life; it’s like treating others as you would like them to treat you; it’s like taking care of someone left for dead on the side of the road because neighbor is never defined by proximity or identity but by humanity and dignity; it’s like throwing the most extravagant party you could ever imagine because God celebrates when anyone who has been lost and destructive to self and to others comes clean and comes home to be with God; it’s like those who can look at the birds of the air and the flowers of the field and sense God’s care there also; it’s like those who know that public piety and showy religiosity are the exact opposite of caring for the hungry, the thirsty, the sick, the imprisoned, the naked, the stranger; it’s like being honest and trustworthy over both a little and a lot; it’s like being grateful for the gift of life itself; it’s like trusting that fairness is good and grace is better; it’s like living with the kind of courage that knows while Friday’s death is powerful and weeping may linger for the night, it is not more powerful than Sunday’s new life and the joy that comes in the morning; it’s living like the most important thing in the whole world is to love God and love neighbor.
And it is to know something else. It is to know that Jesus did not come into this world only to take us out of this world; instead, Jesus has come to proclaim that the kingdom of God at hand is a hand to be played by all of us in this world. Contrary to too much popular literature and too many religious hucksters who have abused the book of Revelation to stir fear and justify exclusivity—which could not be more opposite the life of Jesus Christ—Revelation proclaims that all the claims by Pilate and his minions to the contrary, the One who reigns now and forevermore is not only the One enthroned in heaven but also the One who comes to reign as the regal and humble, loving and courageous Messiah in our lives, the One who molds our days and shapes our love, the One who sends us into the world to be his Body on earth as it is in heaven.
One of the great gifts of this church is to be the kind of place where people of all ages can ask important questions. Not long ago someone asked, “Why do we exist?” A 7-year old asked that. This is exactly the kind of question well suited for Reign of Christ Sunday, because when we ask why we exist, we are forced to ask another essential question—who reigns? It is the question of what we worship, because what we worship tells us who reigns in our lives. Sure, it is hard to capture this on a clever Hallmark greeting card, which is why the church asks the question.