A sermon preached at St. Jude's Church on Sunday, November 13, 2025, The Reign of Christ, by Adedayo Olomodosi, Student Minister.
Today we celebrate The Reign of Christ or Christ the King. Like all feast days, it celebrates an aspect of our faith that Christian tradition has understood to be important and beneficial for us to both be reminded of and reflect on, on a yearly basis. It holds a unique place among the various feast days we recognise, as it is a relatively modern creation compared to Easter, Christmas, or Epiphany, whose celebrations date back to as early as the 2nd century.
Pope Pius XI instituted this feast in 1925 as a response to the growing prevalence of secularism and atheism in the West. He recognized that attempting to take Jesus Christ out of public life would result in continuing friction among people and nations. This day thus reminds us that governments and powerful people rise and fall, Christ forever reigns as King. Although the intentions of Pope Pius XI were good and rooted in scripture, there is an undercurrent of a church that was trying to grapple with societal shifts that threatened to tear the Western world apart again.
World War I and the decades after were a tumultuous time for the Western World as it rebuilt itself after the war and faced a disillusioned and secular society. I can imagine that Pope Pius XI thought that reminding people that ultimately all earthly power and rule is under God’s rule and that society is doomed without it. It was, hard times. Well time went on, new wars and conflicts happened, economies collapsed and new ones rose up, and the world still stayed chaotic. The hard times came and went. Today, we live in hard times again.
With this feast day being such a modern invention, it’s safe for us to imagine how we might name it today keeping with the attempt to remind the world where power lies. Plus, it’s safe to say not many people today are familiar with what rule under a monarch entails. Perhaps we’d call today, Christ the Billionaire Sunday? Christ the politician? Maybe even, Christ the oligarch?
These imaginative names conjure up odd images of Jesus when held in contrast with what we know and understand of him today as a historical figure, a character in the gospel stories, and as our Lord and Saviour. These, human made and defined titles don’t work because Christ’s purpose and reign is so different from what monarchs, politicians, oligarchs, or any powerful human represents and does.
Across our readings this morning, we are given hopeful glimpses as to what Jesus’ reign as king looks like in our world. Jeremiah’s oracle promises the people of Israel of a just and wise shepherd who would guide and protect them, who will bring restoration to them following the destruction brought on by corrupt and oppressive leaders. In his letter to the Colossians, Paul describes Jesus as the one who reconciled all things back to God and brings us into union with God, and that everything in heaven and on Earth are for and come from Jesus and that through him, we are given strength and endurance to face the challenges of our world. And in our gospel, we are at the scene of Jesus' crucifixion with the two thieves being executed alongside Jesus and we see that amid his own suffering, Jesus extends mercy and grace as he intercedes on behalf of the penitent thief showing that nobody is beyond the reach of God’s mercy.
The Reign of Christ is about a world where our relationship to God and our relationships to one another are the fundamental building blocks for how we navigate the world that we live in. Each of these three readings share a common backdrop of a chaotic society in the lives of the figures in their stories, the authors of the texts, and the audiences receiving and hearing these texts in their earliest forms. Jeremiah, the people of Israel have been in a state of disarray after the Babylonians have ransacked Jerusalem and put the people into exile. It was, hard times. Paul, the church in Colossi, and the early church were facing persecution from Jewish leaders and living under the powerful spectre of Imperial Rome. Jesus and the two thieves are facing the final moments of their lives. It was, hard times.
Yet in each of these hard times, there is hope that is offered to us. Amidst the chaotic backdrop of our own hard times, what is it then that the reign of Christ looks like? The Reign of Christ is a way of living that asks of us to be in service to one another. It is a way of living that calls for us to act wisely and seek out justice. It is a way of living that challenges us to offer grace and mercy to everyone that we meet. Living and participating in the Reign of Christ is to live our lives in a way that prioritizes and emphasizes relationships. The relationship that we have with God gives us confidence and patience to live through hard times because we have a God who has made all things new and continues to make all things new. We have a God who has come to dispel our fear and bring us together in his light through Jesus. The relationships that we have with one another are the visible and tangible reflection of our relationship to God. Because Christ is our righteousness, we live out righteous lives empowered by God’s spirit. Because Christ is our justice and mercy, we act with justice and mercy. Because Christ is gracious, we act with grace. Because Christ is our peace, we are peacemakers.
The images of kingship that we are given in our readings is one that is hopeful and liberating. Jesus’ kingship is not measured by how much power, wealth, or prestige is accumulated under it. Instead, its measure is how much love, mercy, grace, and reconciliation is dispersed and given out. That’s why Christ the Billionaire or Christ the Oligarch sound so jarring. The reign of Christ is not for the elevation of a single person; it is for the elevation of every person. True power is in self-giving love.
Building and maintaining relationships with one another and our communities is how we make it through hard times. The writers of our readings today understood that, and I think the people who first heard these stories thought to preserve them because they gave them hope in their hard times. In times like this it is so, so easy to isolate ourselves and focus on our individual needs and concerns but that’s not how we’ll get through it. We must be even more loving and gracious, unafraid to call out injustice, and use our voices to speak for those who are voiceless. That is how we get through hard times. It sucks to go through hard things alone, so let’s love one another as Christ loves us.
Amen.
