Dear Beloved of Trinity Church,
This Sunday, we celebrate Christ the King Sunday, the final feast of the liturgical year. It is a day that proclaims Christ’s cosmic reign and gently ushers us toward the season of Advent—a time of longing, expectation, and hopeful preparation for the coming of the King.
Yet our human imagination often struggles with kingship. We picture power wrapped in grandeur: thrones and jeweled crowns, palaces and pageantry, subjects bowing before a distant ruler. We imagine hierarchy, dominance, and the wide gap between those who reign and those who serve.
But Christ the King redefines kingship entirely. This feast—also called The Reign of Christ Sunday—invites us to consider the day when God’s world is set right, when divine order and justice are restored. In Christ, power is never about coercion or control. It is always about freedom, healing, and liberation. As Rowan Williams reminds us, “Christ reigns not by taking power, but by giving it away; not by domination, but by self-offering.” His is a kingship shaped by humility, mercy, and sacrificial love.
Fleming Rutledge adds, “The day Christ comes in glory will not be a day of triumph for the powerful, but liberation for the captive.” It will be a day when the last are lifted up, the broken are restored, and the forgotten are brought home.
Christ the King Sunday invites us to look beyond the crowns and kingdoms of this world and to imagine a different kind of rule—one where love is the law, service is strength, and every captive heart is set free. May this vision prepare us as we enter Advent with renewed hope and holy expectation.
Peace and Blessings,
Paul+