Another Year ... and Christ is Still King
The last few years have, for many, driven home the notion that most things change. Youth fades, maturity comes on. Jobs go ... and come ... and go. Home sweet home may have been destroyed and our new living quarters have definitely been downsized. Income from the work-a-day world is halved by retirement and our medical expenses increase (and if consumer goods seemed expensive before, they are downright luxuries now).
Seasonal weather started, more or less, by a certain date. In this zone the first snow could be in late November or most certainly in December. Each Christmas it snowed (or there was already some snow on the ground). Heat waves were begrudgingly expected in late July and August ... but NEVER in May.
Presidents, dictators, regimes ... many have seemed impervious to change but, as time has shown, that belief is an illusion. Wars rarely lasted more than five years. Things change.
Today marks the end of Pentecost and the end of the Church year. Every Church year ends with a celebration known as Christ the King Sunday. Christ - the King that will not be toppled, the Ruler whose being is Love itself.
Other forces may dictate our limitations in this earthly life. Christ the King, sovereign of our souls, has destroyed our conventional limitations in life here and beyond. Through the love of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit, we have been gifted with the thirst for truth, compassion, love, vulnerability, community, wisdom.
Who do we look to for help and strength? Who do we use as our ultimate role model? Whose values do we strive to make our own? None other than Jesus Christ, King of Heaven, Earth and Creation.
Give us the courage to strive to be your children, your brothers and sisters, your consecrated people in this world!
We manner in which Christ the King rules is described in Hymn 488 of the Hymnal:
Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart! all else be nought to me, save that thou art -- thou my best thought, by day or by night, waking or sleeping, thy presence my light.
Be thou my wisdom, and thou my true word; I ever with thee and thou with me, Lord; thou my great Father thine own may I be; thou in me dwelling, and I one with thee.
High King of heaven, when victory is won, may I reach heaven's joys, bright heaven's Sun! Heart of my heart, what ever befall, still be my vision, O Ruler of all.
Seasonal weather started, more or less, by a certain date. In this zone the first snow could be in late November or most certainly in December. Each Christmas it snowed (or there was already some snow on the ground). Heat waves were begrudgingly expected in late July and August ... but NEVER in May.
Presidents, dictators, regimes ... many have seemed impervious to change but, as time has shown, that belief is an illusion. Wars rarely lasted more than five years. Things change.
Today marks the end of Pentecost and the end of the Church year. Every Church year ends with a celebration known as Christ the King Sunday. Christ - the King that will not be toppled, the Ruler whose being is Love itself.
Other forces may dictate our limitations in this earthly life. Christ the King, sovereign of our souls, has destroyed our conventional limitations in life here and beyond. Through the love of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit, we have been gifted with the thirst for truth, compassion, love, vulnerability, community, wisdom.
Who do we look to for help and strength? Who do we use as our ultimate role model? Whose values do we strive to make our own? None other than Jesus Christ, King of Heaven, Earth and Creation.
Give us the courage to strive to be your children, your brothers and sisters, your consecrated people in this world!
We manner in which Christ the King rules is described in Hymn 488 of the Hymnal:
Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart! all else be nought to me, save that thou art -- thou my best thought, by day or by night, waking or sleeping, thy presence my light.
Be thou my wisdom, and thou my true word; I ever with thee and thou with me, Lord; thou my great Father thine own may I be; thou in me dwelling, and I one with thee.
High King of heaven, when victory is won, may I reach heaven's joys, bright heaven's Sun! Heart of my heart, what ever befall, still be my vision, O Ruler of all.
posted by Joanna Depue | 9:09 AM
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