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notre dame montreal

Christ the King, last Sunday before Advent, Stir Up Sunday

Year B 2009, Liturgical Colour Red

Opening Sentence

Jesus as Pantocrator 

Christ Pantocrator (Ruler of All)

Jesus is typically depicted as teacher and philosopher. Like other teachers, he holds a book. His gaze is intent, inquiring, both open and inward. His heavenly blue outer garment and earthy red inner garment symbolize his dual nature. His unique halo is marked by a cross and lettering, roughly translatable as "I am who I am."

Collect Prayer
First Reading
Second Reading
Gospel Reading
Post Communion Sentence
Commentary
Meditation
Hymns
Prayers for Sunday and the week ahead
Intercessions from our Sunday worship
Sermons

Christ the KingIntroduction

This Sunday is a special one, and the last Sunday of the Church year. Next week we begin the church year with the four Sundays of Advent .Our collect today reminds us that it is ‘Stir Up Sunday’ a Sunday synonymous with Christmas puddings. The great cry 'stir up' was a reminder to congregations to get the Christmas pudding made in plenty of time to mature before Christmas. An important addition to the mixture is a coin, whoever gets it on their plate on Christmas Day should get worldly riches heaped upon them.
However, the prayer is actually asking God for something much more important. We are praying that God will stir up our wills, so that we might get on with doing the good works that he has planned for us to do. Then, as a consequence, we pray that we might receive our abundant reward.

In an age when so much is about how we feel, it is interesting to get another perspective. In the end, it is our will, rather than our feelings, that is the most important governor of our actions.
Real love is not about feeling it is about choosing, by our wills, to do good to others even though we may not feel good towards them. Our feelings should not dominate our wills. And so we pray that God will "stir up" our wills, so that they will be in charge of us, doing what we know is right. In this prayer we recognise that we need God’s help in order for our wills to function properly.

Today we remember that Jesus is King, Lord of all.

Opening Sentence Psalm 1:1

Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers. But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night.

Collect Prayer for the Day Before we read we pray

Eternal Father, whose Son Jesus Christ ascended to the throne of heaven that he might rule over all things as Lord and King: keep the Church in the unity of the Spirit and in the bond of peace, and bring the whole created order to worship at his feet; who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. CW

God the Father, help us to hear the call of Christ the King and to follow in his service, whose kingdom has no end; for he reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, one glory. All Amen

First Bible Reading Daniel Chapter 7:9-10,13-14

As I watched, thrones were set in place, and an Ancient One took his throne; his clothing was white as snow, and the hair of his head like pure wool; his throne was fiery flames, and its wheels were burning fire.
A stream of fire issued and flowed out from his presence. A thousand thousand served him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood attending him. The court sat in judgement, and the books were opened. As I watched in the night visions, I saw one like a human being coming with the clouds of heaven. And he came to the Ancient One and was presented before him. To him was given dominion and glory and kingship,
that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that shall not pass away, and his kingship is one that shall never be destroyed. NRSV

Second Reading Revelation Chapter 1: 4b-8

Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, 5and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us to be a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.
Look! He is coming with the clouds; every eye will see him, even those who pierced him; and on his account all the tribes of the earth will wail. So it is to be. Amen.‘I am the Alpha and the Omega’, says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty. NRSV

Gospel Reading John 18:33-37

Pilate asked Jesus, ‘Are you the King of the Jews?’ Jesus answered, ‘Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?’ Pilate replied, ‘I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done?’ Jesus answered, ‘My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.’ Pilate asked him, ‘So you are a king?’ Jesus answered, ‘You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.’ NRSV


Post Communion Sentence

Stir up, O Lord, the wills of your faithful people; that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works, may by you be plenteously rewarded; through Jesus Christ our Lord. CW

Commentary

The Christian year of worship has been progressing through the Sundays we know as Ordinary Time all through the summer until now with the colour of green. These are the Sundays after Pentecost and Trinity Sunday all the way back in May. For all of that time every Sunday we have been reading bible passages about ordinary Christian living which challenge us to live extraordinary Christian lives. Today we come to a special Sunday the Sunday of Christ the King which lands us on the threshold of the great season of Advent when we prepare for the coming of Jesus at Christmas. From next week Advent 1, we are going to enter into a time of watching and waiting a reflective time of purple before the razzmatazz of Christmas itself.

Just for this Sunday we have an opportunity to reflect on Jesus and what it means to think of him as ‘king.’ It is interesting that when many people think of the Kingship of Jesus they imagine a kind of worldly power and authority. The language of some of our hymns and prayers is not very helpful and encourages this because it tends to show Jesus as a King like an earthly king or a powerful ruler. Of course the kingship of Jesus is nothing like that and Jesus stressed that his kingdom was not of this world. A person coming into a Christian church today might think that we have all gone quite mad by choosing to proclaim Jesus as King and use a passage from the Bible which is probably one of the most humiliating passages available, Jesus is arrested and will be beaten and killed. However this is what is most important about the type of king Jesus is, he is the exact opposite of what we normally think of when we imagine kings. With Jesus there are no power systems, no room for triumphalism when we think of the majesty of Jesus, we should look to the humiliation and apparent failure cross.

Crucifixion was an execution for common criminals - It was for enemies of Rome, people who they wanted to make examples of as a warning to anybody who was guilty of challenging the power of Rome. As a body was left to decay on a cross it was an example and warning to anybody out there ‘don’t even think about it.’ The cross reminds us that Jesus turns human values upside down. This does not mean that in any way Jesus is less of king. The first words spoken by Jesus in the Gospel of Mark are by Jesus who proclaims
‘The time has come….The Kingdom of God has come near..’
There is no doubting what is going on, in the Magnificat Mary the mother of Jesus cries out
‘He has brought down rulers from their thrones’

It is not that Jesus isn’t a king, he is the King of Kings, it is just that his kingship is of such a completely different kind that Jesus can say that his kingdom ‘is not of this world.’
.
The reason why we choose to look to the cross as the central and most significant and obvious place to see Jesus for who he really was, is because it is no accident that Jesus is there. Jesus had set himself to live a life of different values which put him on a collision course which meant that it was inevitable that he would end up on the cross. Jesus challenged the system, he exposed and challenged the leaders, and their corruption. He used every means at his disposal from clever stories to miraculous healings to demonstrate that the rules which governed society were ridiculous and loaded in favour of the powerful whilst they crushed the poor and vulnerable.

Jesus did everything in his power to show that God loved the poor and the weak ones and that those at the top had to come down from their high and mighty perches. As Sam reminded us last week he literally turned the tables and challenged the authority of the temple itself by proclaiming that not one stone would be left standing. The Jewish leaders, the religious authorities, were determined that he would die and they were determined to find a way to kill him.

So to be a part of the Kingdom of God is not to join in with triumphant crowds claiming that we have power and the victory. Joining Jesus is not like throwing in our lot with the winning side. Joining Jesus does not leave any room for triumphalism. Whilst we know that the cross was a victory over sin and death, that resurrection morning lies in our future. For now we live alongside people who are no different than those Jesus lived and died with to show his love.

Jesus calls those who would be a part of his kingdom to join him and work to extend his justice and peace in our world. As we share in this work we are a part of his kingdom, we share in paradise.

So we are to join Jesus in a new kind of kingdom as we seek to show the values which marked out the Kingship and kingdom of Jesus. His compassion, justice, truth, sacrifice and love. So that
Hungry ones are fed in our community are fed ands food banks are supported
The homeless have places like Clarence House to care for them and are visited on the street to discover their names and what their needs are.
The sick find people who care for them and are not forgotten about.
People are not persecuted for the way they were born because of the colour of their skin, gender, their sexuality, their creed
Our children are not vulnerable and trapped into gangs and lives of drugs and crime such as we have seen in the streets of Brickhill recently.

All of this is about the kingship of Jesus and we know that if he walked the streets of Bedford these are the sorts of things that he would care about. Christians recognise that if we want to see God and understand what he was doing in Jesus most clearly, then the place we look is the cross. What Jesus does on the cross is the most dramatic things ever to happen in human history. God in Jesus takes upon himself the sins of the world and against all the odds and human expectation, God proclaims forgiveness.

Jesus is a different kind of leader,
He refuses power but appears rather in vulnerability.
Jesus does not stand with the powerful but alongside all of those who suffer injustice and oppression, the poor and the vulnerable.
He does not vow retribution on even those who crucify him but instead offers forgiveness.
He does not come down off his cross to prove his kingly status but instead remains on that instrument of torture and humiliation, the representative of all who suffer unjustly.
He does not promise that he will give a better tomorrow but rather that today immediately we can know the paradise of his love and forgiveness.

Our King is a Crucified King and as his chest is pierced with a spear his last breaths are used to speak words of comfort to the lost and the lonely, to one who would die with him and those he would leave behind. As we follow Christ as our King may he give us grace and strength to follow in his way.

Meditation

We are now reaching the end of the Church’s year. With the beginning of Advent, we begin again the cycle of the birth of Jesus, his ministry, his death, Passion and resurrection. 

The ending of a year is a good time to assess where we have been, what has been achieved, and perhaps most importantly, where we are going with our journey of faith. 

If, when we look at our spiritual lives, we feel that we have made no real progress, perhaps it is time to embark on more regular Bible study. Perhaps joining a house group would give you the support you need for growth? Perhaps you would like to put your faith into some kind of action, helping missionary work or community projects. 

New beginnings are always exciting, offering us the challenge of new spiritual adventures and development.

Hymns and Psalms

  1. Rejoice the Lord is King
  2. Jesus is coming

 

Prayers for Sunday and the week ahead

 

Additional Material

Stir up Sunday puddingToday is the last Sunday of the church year, next week the year begins with the first Sunday in Advent, four Sundays before Christmas. Our collect today reminds us that it is ‘Stir Up Sunday’ a Sunday synonymous with Christmas puddings. The great cry 'stir up' was a reminder to congregations to get the Christmas pudding made in plenty of time to mature before Christmas. An important addition to the mixture is a coin, whoever gets it on their plate on Christmas Day should get worldly riches heaped upon them.

However, the Stir Up prayer is actually asking God for something much more important. We are praying that God will stir up our wills, so that we might get on with doing the good works that he has planned for us to do. Then, as a consequence, we pray that we might receive our abundant reward.
In an age when so much is about how we feel, it is interesting to get another perspective. In the end, it is our will, rather than our feelings, that is the most important governor of our actions. Real love is not about feeling it is about choosing, by our wills, to do good to others even though we may not feel good towards them. Our feelings should not dominate our wills. And so we pray that God will "stir up" our wills, so that they will be in charge of us, doing what we know is right. In this prayer we recognise that we need God’s help in order for our wills to function properly.

 

Commentary

On this special Sunday we are reminded that Christ is King, yet we should not be a people who fear his coming.

I would like to bring to your attention the 'sator rotas' word square. Remember this as we look at it,—it was compiled at a time when persecution of Christians was real and a present danger, they were thrown to the lions, tortured etc. Whilst the papers are being given out a joke.....

The Christian is being thrown to the lions and about to be eaten. He prays, God make the lion a Christian. The lion stops as it is about to bite his head off and says 'for what we are about to receive'.

The 'SATOR ROTAS' word square

R O T A S
O P E R A
T E N E T
A R E P O
S A T O R

This has been found from early centuries to modern times all over the world, from Europe to Africa. In 1868 a copy was found on a Roman wall plaster in Cirencester. In 1933 four copies were discovered in Dura Europos. A partial copy was unearthed in Pompeii in 1925 and in 1936 a complete one was discovered in the same city in a building near the ampitheatre.

1—SATOR or 'sower' is an early name for Jesus

2—The letters add up to a double PATERNOSTER with an extra Alpha and Omega, first and last letter of the Greek alphabet. Illustrated here—

A
P
A
T
E
R
A P A T E R N O S T E R 0
O
S
T
E
R
0

3—The central letter in each side is a T which in ancient times was written as a cross

4—The cross is flanked on all sides by the A and O representing the Alpha and Omega

5—In the centre comes the repeated word TENET which means 'he holds'

Alpha and Omega were the first and last letters of the alphabet, to say Alpha and Omega would be like us saying 'A to Z'. For the early Christians enduring persecutions, the message was that Jesus was the beginning and end of all things, he was with them. He who had been through it himself would hold and sustain them. The significance of the square is in its embodiment of the faith that he who is the Alpha and Omega of all things has been revealed as 'our Father' in the Christ who died on the cross. Remember that Pompeii was destroyed by Versvius in AD 79. The Christians clearly adopted the cross and its symbol from an early date.

We do not know what the future holds; but we do know who holds the future. Our future belongs to him. That is why we are able to live today with confidence and not with fear. We do not have confidence because we know exactly what tomorrow will look like, we have confidence because we know what Christ is like. Christ is the source of all things and the end of all things. We know this—we need not fear for the future is his.