Of all festivals in the liturgical year, I find this one to be the most…provocative…
First, it’s the most recent addition to the church calendar, being instituted by Pope Pius XI in 1925 in the midst of Mussolini’s rise to power—Mussolini had become prime minister of Italy in 1922, and by early 1925 had asserted himself as dictator and turned Italy into a police state. Pius XI established the feast of Christ the King in a letter on December 11 that year, and on Christmas Eve, Parliament passed a law declaring Mussolini no longer prime minister but “head of the government” and accountable only to the King.
Second, though originally observed on the last Sunday of October (immediately before All Saints), in 1969 Pope Paul VI relocated it to the last Sunday of the liturgical year, falling in late November. Liturgically speaking, this locates in the midst of a series of Sundays with a strong eschatological focus (Advent included). But I cannot fail to notice the coincidence that, in American churches, this locates a feast about the sovereignty of Christ right around election time, creating prime fodder for sermons about where our loyalties as American Christians must ultimately be, and it also is an opportunity to wrestle with your congregation about those ubiquitous American flags in our sanctuaries…
Provocative as it is for me, I find plenty of musical material for it, unlike some other days of the calendar. Better still, the texts for this day lend themselves very well to many contemporary songs, due in large part to the contemporary worship movement’s ties to evangelical Christianity, and evangelical Christianity’s strong theological themes of Christ as victor and conqueror. Songs such as “Ancient of Days,” “Mighty to Save,” “You Are My KIng (Amazing Love),” and “Lord, Reign in Me” are all excellent choices thematically for this Sunday, and they are also among the more congregationally appropriate of the genre.
What are your favorite hymns/songs that proclaim Christ’s kingship?
1 comments:
Thanks for the post -- it was useful to keep in mind as I picked songs for this morning's pre-worship CD. (We're playing 1/2 hr of contemporary music recordings prior to Sunday worship.) The songs I ended up choosing were Lord Reign in Me, Amazing Love, Days of Elijah, You Are Holy / Prince of Peace, King of Glory and Awesome God. I used "In Christ Alone" for the organ prelude.
Although not contemporary, Wednesday morning it'd hit me that Hallelujah Chorus would be great for Christ the King considering that in the song is "King of Kings, Lord of Lord, and he shall reign forever." If I'd been better at maintaining repertoire I might have played it, but it wasn't coming back to me fast enough when I tried to go through it. Also, there was an abbreviated version of Widor's Toccata that I planning to use as Christ the King postlude and did play since it seemed very fitting to have something really energetic. Hallelujah Chorus and Widor's Toccata all in one Sunday might have been too much.
Which songs did you end up choosing?
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