Christ is King (How in the world did that phrase become political?)

There is an old story about a village that hung a sign over its gate reading, “This is the King’s Road.” Everyone who passed beneath it agreed the sign was true. But over time, some of the villagers began to hang smaller signs of their own beneath it: signs advertising their shops, their political parties, their grievances against neighbors. Travelers who came from far away would look up at the gate and see the great sign about the King, but their eyes would drift down to all the smaller signs, and they would leave confused about what kind of kingdom lay within.

The words Christus Vincit. Christus Regnat. Christus Imperat.—“Christ conquers. Christ reigns. Christ commands”—are among the most ancient and glorious acclamations of Christian faith. They were sung in the coronation liturgies of medieval kings, chanted at the crowning of popes, engraved on coins and church bells.

If you want to hear something truly beautiful, check out this rendition of it in song from the Benedictines of Mary (these sisters are a little over an hour from where I live and I've met a few of them on occasion). They truly sing like angels.

And these words are true. They are beautiful. And in our present moment, they are being hung beneath sign after sign that has nothing to do with the Lamb who was slain.

To confess that Christ is King is not a slogan for a movement, a codeword for a tribe, or a rebuke aimed at any single group of people. And if it's being used as an antisemitic slur, well, those who use it that way have completely lost its meaning.

But I won't forfeit this truth just because it's been misused.

It is the deepest confession a Christian can make. And because it is so deep, it demands that we understand what kind of King we are talking about, lest we accidentally proclaim a king of our own imagining while imagining we are proclaiming Him.

 

A Kingdom Not of This World

When Pilate stood face to face with the bound and beaten Galilean from Nazareth, he asked the question that every generation must ask: ”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” (John 18:37).

Jesus does not deny His kingship. He does not soften it, or try to turn it into some kind of metaphor. But He defines it in a way Pilate never expected. Just moments before, He had said, "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" (John 18:36).

The Greek phrase here is hē basileia hē emē ouk estin ek tou kosmou toutou, “my kingdom is not out of this world.”

The preposition ek denotes origin, source. Jesus is not saying His kingdom has nothing to do with this world; He came to redeem this world, and He commanded His disciples to make disciples of all nations. What He is saying is that His kingdom does not arise from the world. It does not run on the world’s fuel. It does not employ the world’s methods. It does not measure victory by the scales of military might, wealth, or political gain.

This is why the phrase "Christ is King" is so often misunderstood and misused.

Every earthly kingdom, every political movement, every ideology in human history has operated by a simple mechanism: identify enemies, gather allies, seize power, punish opponents, reward friends. The kingdom of Christ operates by another mechanism entirely. Its King wins His crown by being crucified. Its throne is a cross. Its scepter is a reed pressed into a bleeding hand. Its royal proclamation is "Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing" (Luke 23:34).

Any time we invoke the kingship of Christ in a way that would have made Pilate nod in recognition, as a claim of political dominance, as a threat against a rival group, as a boast of our own team’s victory, we have not proclaimed the kingship of Jesus.

We have proclaimed the kingship of Caesar and stuck the name of Jesus on top of it.

 

The Coronation We Missed

The Gospel of John especially presents the crucifixion as a coronation. Jesus is dressed in a purple robe. A crown is placed on His head. He is presented to the people with the words "Behold the man!" and then "Behold your King!" (John 19:5, 14). An inscription is written above Him in three languages, so that no one will miss it: Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum.

The soldiers meant it as mockery. Pilate meant it as political theater. The Holy Spirit meant it as truth.

If you want to know what it means that Christ is King, you must go to Calvary before you go anywhere else. Not to a battlefield. Not to a rally. Not to a chamber of government. To the hill where a naked man forgives His murderers while His mother watches Him die.

Saint Paul understood this. Writing to the Philippians, he takes what may be one of the earliest Christian hymns and places it at the center of his letter: "He humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father" (Philippians 2:8-11).

The sequence matters. The exaltation flows not as the opposite of His humiliation, but in some sense His humiliation actually becomes the beginning of His exaltation. These aren't two completely opposite movements. It is a redefinition of exaltation that comes not through the terms whereby worldly kings are exalted, but through the suffering of the King of the Universe.

The universal kingship of Jesus is inseparable from His self-emptying love. You cannot claim the exalted Christ apart from the humiliated Christ. You cannot demand that every knee bend to a Christ whom you have refashioned in the image of your political preferences.

 

When the Name Becomes a Weapon

There is a peculiar temptation that has haunted the Church at various times in history, and it is haunting parts of the Church in our own day. It is the temptation to use the name of Christ as a banner for causes that Christ Himself would not recognize. To invoke His kingship as a way of dismissing, humiliating, or threatening those we consider our enemies.

To turn Christus Vincit into “our side wins.”

When the acclamation “Christ is King” is chanted not in awe before the Blessed Sacrament, not in wonder at the empty tomb, not in humble surrender before the Judge of the living and the dead, but as a taunt directed at Jewish people, or as a partisan slogan, or as a way of saying “and therefore you should shut up”—something terrible has happened.

The words remain true. But the mouth speaking them has ceased to follow the very King they think they're proclaiming.

Saint Augustine, preaching on the psalms, once observed that the wicked can say true things and thereby make those true things sound like lies to the ears of those who hear them. The devils in the Gospels confessed that Jesus was the Holy One of God (Mark 1:24). Their confession was orthodox. Their hearts were not.

There is a sober warning here. It is possible to say “Christ is King” in a way that dishonors the King. It is possible to shout the truth in such a manner that our neighbors flee from it. And when that happens, the fault lies not with the truth but with us.

 

What Christ’s Kingship Actually Means

So what does it mean, really, that Christ is King?

It means, first, that He is King of me. Before He is King of any nation, any culture, any political order, He is King of the small kingdom of my own heart. And this is the kingdom I am least willing to hand over. It is easy to demand that others submit to Christ. It is agonizing to admit that my anger, my resentments, my hidden ambitions, my prejudices, my careful little idols must all be laid at His feet.

Saint Teresa of Ávila, in The Interior Castle, describes the soul as a great crystal palace with many rooms, and in the innermost chamber, the King dwells. Most of us, she says, spend our lives in the outer rooms, occasionally waving toward the center but never actually approaching the throne. To confess Christ as King is to begin the long journey inward, room by room, surrendering each chamber to His gentle authority.

It means, second, that His reign looks like His life, and even His death. When we ask what a world under Christ’s kingship would look like, we do not need to speculate. He showed us. It looks like the hungry being fed, the sick being healed, sinners being forgiven, the poor hearing good news, the proud being humbled, and the humble being lifted up. It looks like the Beatitudes. Any political program, any social vision, any Christian movement that produces the opposite of these fruits has not been planted by the King, whatever words it might co-opt as its own.

It means, third, that His victory is already accomplished and yet still unfolding. Christus Vincit. Christ has conquered. On the cross. In the empty tomb. Forever. We do not need to secure His victory for Him by our shouting, our voting, our arguing, our threatening. He has won. Our task is not to conquer for Him but to bear witness to a conquest already achieved.

 

Practical Ways to Live Under the True King

How, then, do we live under this King as worthy citizens?

Begin each morning with a small act of surrender. Whenever you're tempted to sell yourself out to a political agenda, or get wrapped up in arguments over this-worldly concerns, pray something like Jesus, you are King. Reign in me today.” It is a tiny prayer, but it reorients the entire day. It reminds you that you are not the sovereign of your own life. You have a Lord, and He is good.

Examine the language you use, especially online. When you invoke the name of Christ or the language of His kingdom, ask yourself honestly: would this sound like good news to someone who is suffering? Would it make a wounded person want to know the King, or would it make them run? The Gospel is called euangelion—good news—for a reason. If our proclamation of Christ’s kingship consistently comes across as bad news to those who hear it, we may be proclaiming something other than the Gospel.

Practice the works of mercy in small, ordinary ways. Feed someone hungry. Visit someone lonely. Forgive someone who has wronged you. Ask your pastor who some of the shut-ins are who belong to the congregation but can't often attend. Visit them, and offer to help them with tasks around their homes. Even though they might not be able to attend every Sunday, make sure they know they are still valuable citizens of the Kingdom, and members of the Body of Christ. If they need assistance to get to Church, well, maybe you can leave for church fifteen minutes earlier to help them get there. These are the acts by which the kingdom becomes visible in the world. They are more powerful than any slogan.

Refuse to let the name of Christ be used as a weapon against your neighbors. If you hear the acclamation “Christ is King” or any other truth of our faith being used to demean, threaten, or dismiss any group of people made in the image of God, gently but firmly reclaim its meaning.

Christ is not the mascot of a political faction. He is the crucified Lord of all.

Spend time before the Blessed Sacrament, if that's a part of your tradition, or in silent prayer, simply adoring your Lord. This is where the truest coronation happens. Not in the noise of the world, but in the silence of a heart that has learned to say, with the thief on the cross, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom" (Luke 23:42).

 

The Sign Above the Gate

Return with me to the village where we began, and to that great sign hanging over the gate: This is the King’s Road. The temptation of every generation of Christians is to add smaller signs beneath it, signs that direct people to our own shops and causes. But the King’s road is the King’s road. It leads only to Him. It cannot be redirected.

Christus Vincit. Christus Regnat. Christus Imperat.

May we say these words with trembling hearts and open hands. May we say them not as a boast but as a prayer. May we say them at the foot of the cross, before we say them anywhere else. And may our lives, more than our voices, make it clear what kind of King we serve.

For He is the King who washes feet. He is the King who weeps at tombs. He is the King who forgives from a cross. He is the King who comes to us hidden in bread, in the poor, in the stranger, in the neighbor that the world has taught to hate.

He is the King. Long may He reign—first of all, in us.

 

 

P.S. You can find today's message posted HERE>>