The throne of our King does not look like a throne. It is a cross planted outside the city, with a crude sign nailed above his head and a handful of people watching while the crowd mocks and walks away. The rulers scoff, the soldiers make jokes, even a dying criminal joins in. It looks like weakness and failure.
Yet this is the moment when the true King of the Universe is revealed. The eternal Son of the Father has emptied himself, born of a woman, obedient even to this shameful death. And precisely here, when every earthly measure says he has lost, he begins to reign. One man sees it. One man, condemned justly by his own admission, looks at the crucified Jesus and recognizes a King. He turns and says, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”
That sentence is the whole feast of Christ the King in one breath. Jesus has a kingdom. It is real, it is to come, it is already breaking in at the very place where the world thinks it has crushed him. No election can give him that kingdom, and no empire can take it away. His crown is not granted by popularity, and his power does not depend on votes or headlines. Christ is King. There is no other contender for the throne.
If that is true, then our daily lives should look very different. If Christ is King, we do not have to live in fear of the next crisis. We do not have to ride the waves of outrage and anxiety that wash through our screens and our conversations. The games of the powerful, the constant struggle for control, the shifting tides of political power—these are not ultimate. Christ already reigns. Our task is not to rescue his throne, but to submit to it, to let his Kingdom claim every part of us.
That means asking some hard questions. Do I know more about the latest election than I know about the people who live next door? Do I follow the intrigues of the White House more closely than I notice the homeless man at the street corner? Do I get more passionate about defending a border on a map than about showing mercy to a suffering family? If so, then my heart has not yet fully bowed to Christ the King.
Because the King we will meet as Judge is the same King we see on the cross. He is the one who, in his dying agony, opens paradise to a thief. He is the one who intercedes for those who are killing him. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and the standard will not be our excuses, our anger, or our tribe. The standard will be his own life of mercy and obedience. There will be no appeal beyond him.
So something has to change. Turn off the endless news. Stop obsessing over people you will never meet and arguments you cannot control. Lift your eyes to the crucified King. Ask him where he wants to reign more fully—in your family, your habits, your schedule. Learn the names of your neighbors. Notice and embrace the poor. Offer forgiveness where you have been nursing a grudge. Let his Kingdom start there.
Christ is King. His victory is accomplished. The only question left is whether we will live as his subjects and, like that repentant thief, let him remember us in his Kingdom that will not pass away.