For Christ the King Sunday (Nov. 19 this year) I again share this poem:
Worthy to Receive Glory
Made to honor, we give fealty,
We seek true north like a needle.
But to look for your king
in a pulpit, disappoints;
in a government, fails;
in the mirror, distorts.
Look instead with the eyes of your heart
to the Wounded who heals;
to the Throne that is true;
to the Lamb who was slain,
Christ the King.
–Catherine Lawton
(Excerpted from the book Glimpsing Glory)
In Revelation Chapter 5, Christ the King is depicted as a Lamb who has been slaughtered. All the magnificence of Heaven bows down and worships this Lamb.
In Isaiah 53 we are told “he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.”
Then why do we continually seek the pretty, the popular, the powerful, the polished to emulate, venerate, and follow?
More questions: Have we ever given thanks to God for entering into our humanity and suffering with us and for us? Have we given thanks for the privilege of suffering with him and for him? Are we giving our hearts, our allegiance, our lives to the slaughtered Lamb who lives? the wounded one who heals? Are we willing to bring our wounds to the Lamb for healing? to transform us into wounded healers?
This Thanksgiving I want to join my thanks giving and praise with the angels and those who “fell down and worshiped” the lamb as they held aloft bowls filled with “the prayers of the saints” and as they sang a “new song”:
You are worthy …
for you were slaughtered
and by your blood you ransomed,
for God,
saints from every tribe and language
and people and nation….
To the one seated on the throne
and to the Lamb
be blessing and honor and glory
and might forever and ever!
(Rev. 5:9-13, NRSV)
Giving thanks,
Photo: Photo: “Thanksgiving” Stained-Glass Windows used by permission of Library of Congress