We’ve come to end of Christian liturgical year. Today marks the final feast day of “ordinary time” (technically speaking this year the calendar ends with the Feast of St. Andrew). Next Sunday the year begins anew with the beginning of Advent. Yet before our eyes gaze forward to the wonderful celebration of Advent and Christmastide, let us fix our gaze on this final feast day, The Feast Day of Christ the King. What a fitting day to mark the end of the liturgical year, then a reminder that Jesus sits enthroned at the right hand of the Father. He is the King of kings, and Lord of lords. And that’s the point of it all, throughout the year through various fasts and feasts our attention has been fixed on the person and work of Jesus. It’s all about Jesus!
Fittingly, this feast day is always on a Sunday. Thus we are called to gather together and worship Christ the King together through the liturgy of the Word and Sacrament. As we gather to worship this day, let us prepare our hearts and minds to adore our Lord and King Jesus Christ. We encourage you to use the collect (prayer) of the day below and the Bible reading selection in your devotional time today.
Collect (Prayer) for the Feast Day of Christ the King
Almighty and everlasting God, whose will it is to restore all things in your well-beloved Son, the King of kings and Lord of lords: Mercifully grant that the peoples of the earth, divided and
enslaved by sin, may be freed and brought together under his most gracious rule; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. (taken from the ACNA Book of Common Prayer, 2019).
Bible Reading
Revelation 4 (ESV)
After this I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven! And the first voice, which I had heard speaking to me like a trumpet, said, “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.” At once I was in the Spirit, and behold, a throne stood in heaven, with one seated on the throne. And he who sat there had the appearance of jasper and carnelian, and around the throne was a rainbow that had the appearance of an emerald. Around the throne were twenty-four thrones, and seated on the thrones were twenty-four elders, clothed in white garments, with golden crowns on their heads. From the throne came flashes of lightning, and rumblings and peals of thunder, and before the throne were burning seven torches of fire, which are the seven spirits of God, and before the throne there was as it were a sea of glass, like crystal.
And around the throne, on each side of the throne, are four living creatures, full of eyes in front and behind: the first living creature like a lion, the second living creature like an ox, the third living creature with the face of a man, and the fourth living creature like an eagle in flight. And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and within, and day and night they never cease to say, “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!” And whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to him who is seated on the throne, who lives forever and ever, the twenty-four elders fall down before him who is seated on the throne and worship him who lives forever and ever. They cast their crowns before the throne, saying, “Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.”
Photo: Christ Pantocrator from Saint Catherine’s Monastery in Sinai
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