So on this Christ the King Sunday,
Let us sit,
Let us sit here and arrive fully in this moment,
Giving God thanks for this year that started with the Advent.
This year that started with the birth of Christ and navigating through the Epiphany and through the Lenten season,
Monday,
Thursday and Good Friday,
Holy Saturday where the world fell silent and on Easter Sunday,
The sun rising and being reminded that an empty tomb is not the end of the story but the very beginning.
And as after the resurrection it's an opportunity for us to be reminded that disciples respond with holy yeses along the way until on that Pentecost Sunday,
On that Pentecost Sunday where there was a gathering of the faithful who were reminded that they were now the embodiment of Christ's teachings,
Christ's Word and Christ's life for themselves and for the world.
Let's arrive and be thankful in this moment for the year that we have had,
For the year that we've been shaped by,
For the year that Christ has offered for us.
So I invite you now to take this moment of gratitude to close your eyes if you're comfortable or rest your gaze away from a screen and find yourself in this moment,
Maybe seated on a pillow or in your most comfortable chair or lying down or just standing still.
Opening your hands if you're seated on the tops of your thighs,
Open your hands if you're standing outwardly to receive the grace that God has for you in this moment.
Arrive fully in this place discovering once again that you have been surrounded,
That you have been inspired by a love that is deep within you.
Come into this place with gratitude.
I invite you now to take three deep breaths.
If you are attuned to it,
You can sense your cells being oxygenated all over again,
A renewal of yourself even at the cellular level as you breathe deeply in and exhale.
That even in these precious moments of inhalation and exhalation that Christ is made manifest here in this space.
That with your hands open represents your heart open as well and your mind open and your life open to the possibilities from the cellular level to the universal level.
The recognition that Christ is king for your life and that the kingship of Christ is really about transformation.
Just as your in breath and your out breath transforms us to the very essence of who we are at the cellular level,
That we too breathe with all creation.
We breathe with the entirety of the universe.
Recognizing that the love that Christ has for us is at the molecular level and at the intergalactic level.
Opening our lives and possibility to this very moment helps us to seek the potential of saying yes all over again to the love of Jesus Christ in our life.
To the kingship of Christ who claims for himself our very lives.
Whose protection and care,
Whose compassion and peace,
Whose accountability and encouragement shape the very essence of who we are.
With open hands,
Open hearts,
Open minds,
Open lives,
Let us now pray together.
Receiving once again on this Christ the King Sunday,
Christ the King for our lives.
One who is reminding us that the very heart of who we are and how we are shaped is evidenced in the person and work of Jesus Christ.
The one who ate with the outcast,
Who healed those who were untouchable,
Who lifted up the marginalized and the oppressed.
And who sought in those who are religious and those who were spiritual.
Their very best selves.
Holding up a mirror,
Holding up a mirror to those,
Well everyone,
Who needed to see just how much God's love was evident in their lives and in our lives.
We pray knowing that it is God who ultimately liberates us and shapes the world around us.
So let us in this moment be shaped by the prayer that Jesus taught his disciples to pray.
A prayer that reminds us of what authority really looks like.
Of what accountability can really mean.
And what a life to live as disciples in light of Christ our King.
Let us pray these words together.
Our Father who art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come,
Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.
Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.
Amen.
