Advent, the beginning of which we celebrate next Sunday, marks the beginning of a journey that we undertake each year as we travel through the Church Year. That also means that this Sunday we have come to the end of that journey, as we celebrate the Feast of Christ the King.
At the beginning of the Church Year we celebrate Christ’s coming into our world and all the ways in which he comes to us again. At the end of the Church Year, we celebrate Christ as past, present, and future King over all the earth, at the same time that we express our faith in a coming Kingdom where the world will once again fully reflect its creator.
On our journey through the Church Year, we follow in the steps of Jesus as he is born, ministers in Galilee, is crucified, and rises again. On that journey we also celebrate the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost and reflect both on the mission of the Church and what it means to be a disciple. By making this journey we remind ourselves who we are and whose we are.
We are reminded that God is with us, in Christ, throughout the year and through all the seasons of life. We are here because of Christ. We journey through the Church calendar because of him. We gather, ‘neither Jew nor Greek, male or female, slave or free’, because we are one in Christ. It is Christ who presides over his kingdom, his Church, our journey and the table where we share his supper – the Eucharist. Here, throughout the Church Year, we can all come freely week by week to experience and participate in the means of grace that visibly exhibit to us the heart and mind of Christ the King.
Revd Jonathan Evens
