This week we celebrate the Solemnity of Jesus Christ, King of the Universe.
When Charles was crowned King of the United Kingdom, I compared his title to what Jesus would be named and this is kinda close: “Jesus, by the Grace of God of the Universe, King. Head of the Church, Savior of the World.” This week we Lectio the Liturgy with the Collect for this great Feast of Christ the King.
Almighty ever-living God, whose will is to restore all things in your beloved Son, the King of the Universe, grant, we pray, that the whole creation, set free from slavery, may render your majesty service and ceaselessly proclaim your praise. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.
The opening phrase of the prayer tells us that all things being restored isn’t just God’s desire, it is His will. I find it interesting that the tense of the verb of this sentence isn’t past tense, it is present tense. It IS His will. The Father has and continues to accomplish His will, which is our freedom from slavery, through Jesus.
Being restored means that we are brought back to the human condition before the fall in the Garden of Eden. We are brand new creatures with no worries, we are completely taken care of, we are in complete freedom and in communion with the Father.
It is from this position that we ask for two things: to render His majesty service and to proclaim His praise.
We pray that we would render, or zealously serve, His majesty. It is easy to say, “Serve God? That’s easy, I do that every day. Who else would I serve?” but then out of the blue, Matthew 6:24 came to me. In this verse, Jesus warns us about who we serve, “No one can serve two masters. He will either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.”
Mammon is an interesting concept. We often hear it described as money, or the love of money. However, mammon has a deeper meaning. In Greek, it is a Jewish word that means something you trust in, or it is the treasure a person places his trust in to take care of all his needs.
Mammon is slavery. Mammon wants us to live in self-reliance, control, and scarcity. It tells us that we are secure when we accumulate enough and that we need to make ourselves valuable enough. Mammon demands that we need to be better and to have more than the next person. Mammon makes us slaves to needing more and doing more to be successful.
Have you noticed that no matter how good those things sound, none of them are about serving God, but serving ourselves instead? Mammon promises freedom, but instead we become slaves, the very condition that God wants us to be free from.
Also in the prayer, we ask that we ceaselessly proclaim God’s praise. I believe that the power of praise is underestimated. We thank God for what He has done but we praise Him for who He is.
Praise of God changes atmospheres. Psalm 22:3 tells us that the Lord inhabits the praise of His people. When we call out His Name, He is present. When we praise Him as Jesus, the King of the Universe, we hear ourselves say that there is no other ruler on earth greater than Him and what a wonderful King we have.