Christ is King

As we approach the first Sunday of Advent on November 30 we must first negotiate this coming Sunday November 23rd, which by tradition is celebrated as Christ the King. We can easily assume that this is just another ancient tradition of the church; but in fact it was only initiated in 1925 – pretty ancient for some – by Pope Pius XI who recognised a need to focus on Christ the king of all creation. So it is celebrated on the last Sunday of the Church calendar just before Advent.

When I first came to faith in my mid 30’s I was greatly influenced by a man who I had first come across more than twenty years earlier. This man was Billy Graham. Billy is still around having just clocked up his 90th birthday and despite poor health continues to influence evangelical thinking across the world.

Through this influence I began a life long study of Billy and in those early days of faith even dreamed that one day I might be like Billy and be known far and wide as a great evangelist for Australia! We all know that some of our biggest dreams don’t often see the light of day and I have come to accept that fame is now unlikely to come my way.

I get worried by people who ‘know that they know’ what the future holds for them. They are King or Queen of their life and everything will be as they bequeath it to be. Well, good luck with that. So many times I have wanted God to write his will for me up on the wall so that I had a sense of control over this whole thing and so many times I have felt a still small voice whisper, ‘John, who do you think you are? You already know God’s will for your life – all of your life. Simply follow Jesus all of your days.’ Christ is king.

Christ is King and I am not in a position to argue the point and what’s more he doesn’t owe me an explanation! When I began this journey I was in an excellent job, well paid and well treated and then God called! Christ the King began to nudge me around. From the comfort of an assured career and the support of a great church I found myself on the north coast of New South Wales looking after a small congregation and with a brief to teach people about evangelism. I was afraid to tell people that I didn’t actually know that much about evangelism until I realised that compared to many I was in the Rhodes Scholar category!

God was good to us and over a number of years we saw some very exciting times, but we also struggled through some very hard times. During our Sawtell period we saw two of our children’s marriages break up while our third one went off to a year in the USA. We lost four very dearly loved family members over those eleven and a half years along with a great deal of local pain within our local congregation. Christ is King.

When it was clear that out time was running out at Sawtell I began to listen for God’s will for the next step. We had come through a hard but blessed gig and surely now was a time for something a little more comfortable. I was offered a position at a large congregation in Queensland but all was silent from God. A congregation on the south coast chased for months but I felt no sense of call. After all Christ is King.

About seven years ago I was approached to establish a new congregation in North West Sydney. Now that was funny! I had no experience in church planting and the whole thing looked way too big for JT. However, over several months I was reminded again that Christ is King and like it or not his nudging was pushing me in this direction.

So, in September 2002 we loaded up again and headed south to another unknown ministry. I would like to say that over the past six years it has become a little easier but it hasn’t really. Yet Christ is King and he has provided some stunning people to share the journey with.

It is nice to know who is in charge yet disconcerting when you realise that it isn’t you!

Cheers - John