King of Love

In the particularly uncertain times in which we live, we don’t welcome the idea of more change. We want things that we can hold on to, count on, rely upon. But of course, as the old adage goes, the only constant is change. How then do we understand the celebration of Christ the King Sunday, imagined some 95 years ago in response to rising secularism in the West? Clearly, declaring Christ is the King on the last Sunday of our liturgical year has not made it so. The world is ever more secular, particularly in North America.

But Henry Williams Baker offers us a lens into this Sunday celebration with lyrics he wrote in 1868. He writes, “The King of Love My Shepherd is, Whose goodness faileth never, I lack nothing if I’m his, And he is mine forever.’

We take these lyrics as our starting point today, looking with the eyes of love towards the one who has shown us the power of love. We gather at his table, in a place of humility. We listen to his parable of the separation of the sheep and the goats as with his final teaching in the book of Mathew, he directs his disciples to the healing power of compassion.

We listen. We learn. We love. For that is what is needed now.

Call to Worship, Adapted from J Philip Newell, Celtic Benediction, Sunday Morning Prayer

Watch in the morning for the light that the darkness cannot overcome

Watch for the fire that was in the beginning

And that burns still in the brilliance of the rising sun

Watch for the glow of life that gleams in the growing earth and glistens in sea and sky. 

Watch for the light

In the eyes of every living creature

And in the ever-living flame or your own soul. 

If the grace of seeing were ours this day, 

We would glimpse the divine in all that lives, 

We would glimpse the Christ spirit in all that looks in our direction this day, 

We would yearn to embody Christ as our king, allowing him to direct all our ways, all our thoughts, all our actions.

Oh, grant this seeing, this day…

Oh, grant this seeing this day…..