Why the world and the church needs Christ the King

There was a commercial a few years ago by the copier company SHARP. They said in business you don’t get what you deserve, you get what you negotiate. Actually our salvation is much the same, we don’t get what we deserve (what we deserved was death according to St. Paul-Romans 6:23). Instead we get what Christ negotiated for us. Have you ever really thought about what all the praying was about in Gethsemane? Christ knew the cup was not going to be passed, but if he was going to drink it, he was going to get something for it, namely our salvation and vicarious atonement.

How does this all fit into the celebration of Christ the King? Well, there are only really 2 logical points of viewing Jesus Christ either he was the greatest conman the world has ever seen or he was who he said he was.

If Christ is the world’s biggest conman that truly leads to a very lonely place. How so? What would you say to the children who lost a parent on 9/11, or a wife who lost her husband of 18 years on his 40th birth day? How to comfort a mother whose son was mistaken for a gang member and gunned down while riding in a car? I will never forget her words, “they killed my baby, he did nothing wrong!” Her son was 17 when he died, and he was never was in any trouble.

It all is so very senseless if there is no final authority bigger than humanity. It is all random events. If life only has meaning by the value we assign to it, then things bigger than ourselves have no answer or they are random and chaotic.

Contrast this with the idea of a personal loving caring God. The very idea gives hope for at least an explanation for some of the above events, but the biblical view is so much more. This personal God who loved us so much he died for us is also the same God who sits upon the Great White Throne.


Many years ago now the actor Tom Cruise made a movie called A Few Good Men. At one point the antagonist said “You want answers,” to which Cruise (the hero of the story) replied “I want the truth!” For those seeking answers to life most profound questions, this loving personal God is more than just a sympathetic friend, he is the King of the universe and he will one day judge all men according to their works. So often evil people get away with doing evil things, at least it seems that way to us, but that is because we humans live so much in the now and near future. God being eternal operates in a different time scale nor does he judge the same way we do. He looks in the heart. If you trust that there is a loving compassionate caring God, who is the king of the universe, and that he is your friend, then you know that some day-life’s unanswerable questions will be answered, truthfully answered.

And that my friend is the reason why the feast of Christ the king is so very vital and why the idea of Christ the king is so very important.

Someday a powerful and all knowing God will divvy up some true justice. For those of us who are his friends that is a very comforting thought.

Time to drop this one into the internet ocean. We will speak again.

D