Worship - 23 November 2025

Summary of this week's theme

IToday we celebrate the Reign of Christ, a Sunday devoted to contemplating the nature of Jesus’ kingship. In the 1966 film King of Hearts, asylum inmates briefly take over a village abandoned towards the end of World War I. Their gentle eccentricity contrasts sharply with the violence of the supposedly ‘sane’ soldiers.  By the end, the character played by Alan Bates chooses to join these unlikely subjects as their ‘King of Hearts,’ rather than return to destructive normality.

This surprising reversal offers a helpful lens for understanding Christ the King. The festival was established in 1925 to counter rising nationalism, yet it sometimes echoed the very authoritarian impulses it sought to challenge.  When we look to the Gospels, we discover that Jesus’ kingship bears little resemblance to worldly power. In fact, to his contemporaries he seemed far closer to the film’s ‘King of Hearts’ - one who joins the outcast, confounds expectations, and embraces those whom society labels foolish or unimportant.

As the church year draws to a close, we look back on the cycle that has carried us from Advent to Ordinary Time: anticipation, incarnation, revelation, passion, resurrection, the sending of the Spirit, and the steady work of discipleship.  This cyclical journey mirrors Jewish practice, which reads scripture year after year with the expectation of fresh insight.  The point is not to master the story but to return with renewed openness, discovering new questions along the way.  Scripture continues to speak because the world continues to change.

Our Gospel reading underscores that Christ’s kingship is one of vulnerability and compassion. Jesus reigns not through conquest but through service; not through imposing suffering, but through bearing it. Karl Barth once preached that the three men on the crosses - Jesus and the two criminals - formed the first Christian community.  Even the mocking criminal might be held within the wideness of God’s mercy.  This challenges us, for we often desire mercy for ourselves and harsh justice for others.

Christian hope, then, rests in God’s boundless compassion. It is active - inspiring deeds of peace, justice, and mercy. It is patient - reflecting the God who is ‘slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.’  And it is generous - offered without the limits we so easily impose.

As we honour Christ the King, we recognise him as the true ‘King of Hearts,’ inviting us into a kingdom where humility, compassion, and holy curiosity triumph over certainty and power:

What with care and toil he buildeth, / tower and temple fall to dust. / But God’s power, hour by hour, / is my temple and my tower.