Readings: Jeremiah 23.1-6, Psalm 46, Colossians 1.11-20 & Luke 23.33-43
There’s something ever so slightly awkward about the title “Christ the King.” It arrives at the end of the liturgical year like a royal trumpeter in full regalia, blowing a fanfare across a church full of people who’ve lived through another year of political pantomime. Kingship is not an uncomplicated idea for us. We know too much about human rulers—how their crowns tilt, how their tempers flare, how quickly the pomp becomes pomposity. By the time we’ve read the headlines, the idea of Christ the King sounds almost like a category error. Why would Jesus want to be associated with all that?
And yet here it is, this feast that dares to reclaim the language of monarchy and plant it firmly on the head of the one who was crucified between criminals. Jeremiah gives us the hint of what sort of king we’re dealing with. He rails against shepherds who scatter instead of gathering, who fatten themselves while the flock starves. “Woe to them,” he thunders. It’s one of those passages in which the prophet looks suspiciously like he’s been reading this morning’s news. Corrupt leaders? Misused authority? A sense that the ones in charge are not, in fact, looking after the people they’re meant to serve? Remarkable how these ancient texts keep accidentally being contemporary.
But Jeremiah doesn’t stop at “Woe.” He looks forward to a shepherd-king to come… one who will “execute justice and righteousness.” Not execute dissenters. Not execute a five-year plan. Execute justice. Righteousness. Compassion. That’s the picture Jeremiah sketches of God’s king: a leader who puts things right because he is right.
Psalm 46 picks up the same thread with its own kind of thunder. “God is our refuge and strength.” Not the markets. Not the courts. Not the increasingly optimistic promises of political manifestos. The psalmist imagines a world where mountains wobble, nations roar, and the waters rage—yet God remains in the middle of it all, an unshakeable presence. It’s not a hymn to stability for its own sake. It’s a hymn to God’s stability, which is not the same thing at all. Human stability usually means “don’t rock the boat.” Divine stability says, “When the boat does rock—and it will—I’ll be with you.”
And then, on this day of kingship, we reach the Gospel… and find Jesus nailed to a cross, labelled “King of the Jews” by someone who wanted to weaponise irony. Luke’s account is almost painfully gentle in places. The leaders scoff. The soldiers mock. One criminal jeers. And yet it’s the other criminal—the man with absolutely no theological training, no baptism certificate, no well-thumbed Bible—who sees what’s really going on. “Jesus, remember me,” he says. Not “If you are the Christ.” Not “Prove yourself.” Just “Remember me.” And Jesus, with the kind of authority that no human crown can bestow, simply replies, “Today you will be with me in paradise.” No caveats. No conditions. No doctrinal exam. Just grace.
If this is kingship, it is nothing like the kingship we are used to. It is vulnerable. It is self-giving. It is powerful, yes, but only in the way love is powerful—soft enough to be ignored, strong enough to change the world.
Paul’s hymn in Colossians takes that crucified king and places him at the centre of the cosmos. It’s a dizzying vision. “He is the image of the invisible God… the firstborn of all creation… in him all things hold together.” All things. Not just the religious bits. Not just the Sunday-morning emotions. All things: politics, economies, broken families, depleted foodbanks, climate anxieties, those late-night moments when we wonder whether the world has gone completely mad. Colossians dares to say that Christ is not merely a comforting presence near these things; he is the one in whom they cohere. The glue of reality, hiding behind the curtain of everything.
Which makes Christ the King a deeply subversive feast. It overturns all our usual assumptions about power. When worldly rulers falter or fail—when leadership becomes self-preservation, when truth bends under the weight of expediency, when compassion is dismissed as weakness—this feast whispers, “This is not the final story. This is not the true template.” The true template is a crucified man speaking forgiveness; a righteous shepherd gathering the scattered; a cosmic Christ holding all things together even as nails hold him to the wood.
But if we dare to honour Christ as king, it isn’t merely a theological statement. It’s also a personal challenge—sometimes an uncomfortable one. Because the moment we say “Christ is King,” we’ve made a claim about every other king, ruler, influencer, political project, and personal ambition. The claim is: none of them—not a single one—is ultimate. Not even the ones we like. Not even the ones we vote for. Their power is on loan. Their authority is at best provisional. Their wisdom is always partial. Christ the King relativises all other rulers, which is perhaps why rulers have so often hated the Gospel.
And if his kingship is the measure of all leadership, then it is also the measure of ours. We are, after all, citizens of that kingdom. Called to the same work. Called to feed the flock, not scatter it. Called to be places of refuge like the river in Psalm 46. Called to ordinary, everyday acts of justice in a culture that’s rather fond of “woe to them” but not always so keen on doing better.
Christ the King is not an invitation to worship power. It’s an invitation to follow a king who redefines power by giving it away. A king who reigns from a cross, rules through forgiveness, remembers the forgotten, and gathers the lost. A king who dismantles fear, resists cruelty, and builds a kingdom marked by justice and righteousness.
And that—thanks be to God—is the king we follow. Amen.
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