When I was a part of the Chaplaincy team at Aston University, Birmingham a frustration for me was that all of the major festivals fell outside the university terms (except Pentecost, in the middle of exams), so we could never celebrate together. But we could keep the Feat of Christ the King, and we held an ecumenical service and a lunch for all the Christian students. This sermon was writen for the event. Fr. Tom

Today on the Feast of Christ the King, the Christian Church looks ahead to that day of victory when Christ, the universal King, will have accomplished his work of redemption. When he has brought all creation under his rule, he will deliver to God the Father a kingdom that knows no bounds; a kingdom of truth and abundant life; a kingdom of holiness and mercy; a kingdom of justice, love and peace.

Monarchy for us in this country is an institution which is hereditary and privileged. In contrast, the Kingship of Jesus Christ is earned, and earned the hardest way of all. Christ is King because he is the Redeemer. He brings redemption by dying for us on the cross. We cannot separate these three things, Kingship, Redemption and the cross. And we, because we are prone to sin, and dependent on God’s mercy, need all three.

Jesus knew that this was the shape of his life. He spoke plainly of it being ‘necessary’ that he should suffer, be rejected by his people and be put to death. Then after three days he would rise triumphant from the grave. 

The news was unpalatable even to |Jesus’ nearest companions, so Jesus in another place spoke about his ministry as a shepherd. The meaning of this parable was still the same: Jesus was the one who cared for his people, his flock, so much that he was prepared to lay down his life for them. Others had claimed to lead the people of Israel like a shepherd - kings, high priests and teachers had all tried to fill this role; but they were not willing to see it through to the end. They had betrayed the people to their enemies; they had ensured that they were safe from danger, even if it meant that others went to the wall. Jesus stands like a shepherd in the middle of his scattered sheep, and he is prepared to rescue us from wherever we have been scattered, in the mist and the darkness.

He would bring us back by the only possible way, by laying down his life for us. His death alone could wipe away our sins.

Our reading from St Matthew’s Gospel is a story about the coming judgment when Christ, the Son of Man, will come again, this time with all the trappings of glory as the King of all. This is a time we should all fear, for we all fall short of what God expects from us, however well we think of ourselves. Christ will judge his world, and actions and attitudes which contradict the nature of his Kingdom will be thrown away into the abyss. We stand in peril of our eternal lives, for we too may go that way. We would only be getting what we deserve, for we are far from perfect, and in no way do we deserve, by our own merits, to enter God’s perfect Kingdom.

But we should take heart that the king who judges us is the shepherd who cares for us (it’s not for nothing that the judgement is portrayed as a shepherd separating his sheep from the wild goats) and this shepherd is also the one who is prepared to lay down his life for us, his sheep. There is room in his judgement for mercy, if we are prepared to throw ourselves upon his mercy, and acknowledge our faults in an honest way.

To be a Christian is to have recognised your own sinfulness, and to have asked God to come into your life and deal with that sin. But we cannot assume that we stop struggling with sinfulness at that point, or stop needing God’s mercy. The Gospel reading makes that point. Jesus. The judge condemns those who thought they were OK because they didn’t recognise his presence in the poor and the hungry. This is a frightening standard of perfection which we will always fail in unless we are saints. Our response to the Kingship of the Shepherd Redeemer of God’s people is to lay aside our feelings of being in the right, and to claim instead a share in his redeeming sacrifice, made once for all upon the cross. Amen