by Edward Flynn

Created on: November 24, 2007   Last Updated: November 25, 2007

When you consider how much the scripture has to say about the kingship of Christ, it is surprising that the feast of Christ the King is a relatively new addition to the church year. Nonetheless, in 1925 the Roman Catholic church decided that there should be such a day which I think was originally near the end of October, and was moved to the Sunday before Advent in 1970. It was initiated by Pope Pius X1 as a reaction to the increasing secularization of society and it has also been adopted by the Anglican Church..

Christ the king. In the New Testament we have two completely contrasting images of what that means.

On the one hand we have the Christ that Paul, in his letter to the Colossians tells us of who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation' and that he is before all things, creator of all things, ruler of all things. What kind of king is this?

All this is a huge contrast to what we read about in the crucifixion accounts from the gospels; the shame and the humility of the cross, the mockery of the crowds and the soldiers as his life seeped away. If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!' they said. and there was also an inscription over him this is the King of the Jews'
What kind of king is this?

The ills of our society are a frequent topic of conversation. We often hear people grumbling about the youth of today', and as much as we are willing to accept that the problem element is a small minority, we still find our newspapers filled with alarming reports of some of the things that happen. Even more alarming when it appears on your own doorstep! Yesterday morning, for example, I awoke to find our local newspaper headlines declaring that a young man had been stabbed to death on the streets of my home town the previous evening.

Many of the problems have been attributed to a lack of respect for authority, and that may well be the case in at least some instances.

The thing is, everybody needs to be accountable to somebody otherwise, we end up with anarchy and sometimes, it seems as though that's what we are moving towards. At least it does if you spend too much time reading the newspapers!

In the history of the people of Israel, there was a period when the people were without a ruler. In fact it was before anyone had been appointed king; the idea being that the people should be under God's authority. Human nature being what it is, many people rejected the law of God, and there was a situation which the bible in the book of Judges describes

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