Scriptures: Jeremiah 23:1-6; Psalm 46; Colossians 1:11-20; Luke 23:33-43
November 23, 2025
Kit Allgood-Mellema
23 November 2025, Last Sunday after Pentecost, Christ the King Sunday Year C
We have a lot to celebrate on our liturgical calendar today! First, this is the 24th Sunday after the Day of Pentecost. The season of Pentecost, also known as Ordinary Time (because we count off the weeks on the calendar, not because there is anything ordinary about this season!) is that long season when the vestments are green and the readings guide us along the paths Jesus took during his time on earth with the disciples. Think of that – 24 weeks! That means we’ve spent almost half the liturgical year walking side-by-side with Jesus, listening to his teachings and stories, as we’ve heard him interact with the people he met and loved on his travels. During this time, have you felt comforted, or have you been challenged by what you’ve heard? Maybe you’ve felt fatigued, confused and dusty, as if you’ve been on a road for a very long time? Or perhaps you’ve been lifted up, given hope? Maybe your eyes have been opened as the ears of your heart have heard familiar words in a new way?
But that’s not all we commemorate today. Today is also the Last Sunday after Pentecost. That means next Saturday night, we will softly turn the liturgical calendar page from Year C to the first Sunday in Advent, Year A – a new year, a new way of hearing the story of Jesus’s time on earth, a new opportunity to focus ourselves and our lives on the Kingdom of God here on Earth.
If that’s not enough, today is also Christ the King Sunday, a feast day first proposed by Pope Pius XI in 1925, as a counter to the post-World War I tensions brought about by social and political unrest and change world-wide. As Bishop Mark Lattime noted in his weekly dispatch, it was a reminder to ‘Christians that our deepest allegiance is to Christ – His way of Love; His example of a selfless life of servanthood; His Kingdom of peace and love for ALL human beings.’ Our gospel reading today reminds us that Jesus was an unlikely king; it also shows us that Jesus is one full of compassion and love and hope. Bishop Mark also noted, ‘Jesus is no king. He does not seek subjects like the kings of this world. Rather, Jesus is the absolute reality of the love and will of God for all people.’
This week, as I prepared my reflection, my mind pulled me back to last Sunday – to Deacon Kathryn’s wonderful sermon about the scriptures being God’s love letter to all of humanity and all of creation, but also to the words of a hymn we sang during the service. That hymn is one that rests deeply in me, with a tune and lyrics that began settling in my soul as a youngster in Sunday School and later as a member of St. Cecelia’s Choir, beginning as a 10 year old. It was the first hymn I remember using as a prayer. The tune of the hymn is called Munich; its origins probably date to the late 1500’s; it was adapted by Felix Mendelssohn probably in the 1830’s or 1840’s. The lyrics were written in 1866 by William Walsham How, an English Anglican bishop who was a prolific hymn writer. A few of the lyrics were lightly revised in the transition from the 1940 hymnal to the one we use now, but I love and celebrate those changes.
The words of the first verse of Hymn 632 came to me as I pondered our transition from the end of our 6-month journey through Pentecost into the new year, and as we acknowledge that Christ is the one guiding us to God’s Kingdom on Earth. The hymn begins, ‘O Christ, the Word Incarnate, O Wisdom from on high,’ as we acknowledge that Jesus is the very Word of God who has come down to earth in human form to bring us the knowledge and love of God. The next line – ‘O Truth, unchanged, unchanging, O Light of our dark sky;’ reminds us that God – and Jesus – are always present and ready to help us, to guide us, to love and protect us, even in the darkest times of our lives. The verse closes with, ‘we praise thee for the radiance that from the scripture’s page, a lantern to our footsteps, shines on from age to age.’ – a reassurance that the light we seek, the help we need, the love we want to share can be found in the words that Jesus shared with his disciples two thousand years ago, words still waiting to shine for us.
However you wish to remember this day – the last steps of a months’ long journey, a transition to a new year, a celebration of a king who is not the kind of king the world expects, or as a day like any other, remember that this day is a gift of Love from God to us and to all creation, a gift that asks us to shine the light of God and the way of Love throughout the world – this Kingdom of God - in as many ways as we possibly can.
Thanks be to God! Amen!