Sermon for November 23, 2025
Christ the King Sunday
Colossians 1:11-20
Rev. Karl-John N. Stone
Last weekend I was back in New York, celebrating the 50th birthday of one of my oldest friends, which was a lot of fun. But before that I had a free day, which I decided to spend in Manhattan, and I visited the museum of the New York Historical Society, where they tell the stories of the past 400 years through artifacts and artwork.
I explored a gallery full of Tiffany lampshades and windows; these are exquisite stained-glass designs, developed 125 years ago to highlight what was then a new invention—the electric lightbulb! From graceful daffodils to the intricate patterns of dragonfly wings, to a gorgeous five-panel portrait of Jesus as the Good Shepherd leading his flock through the valley—it was one masterpiece of artistry and craftsmanship after another.
The beauty of it all made me think of what theologian N.T. Wright calls “echoes of a voice, but not the voice itself”. For in these beautiful things, inspired by the beauty of the earth, we hear echoes from the voice of God who speaks a good creation into being. When we find something beautiful in the world, however, it is never permanent; it either fades away, or we must move on with our lives and simply live with the memory—and the memory is pleasant, but never quite as good as the real thing. Still, these beautiful things move us to feelings of awe, wonder, gratitude, reverence—and they become signposts; signs pointing beyond themselves to someone or something who allows such beauty to exist in the first place: “Beauty points away from itself to a different world altogether.” [Simply Christian by N.T. Wright, chapter 4]
As much as we admire, honor, and care for these things of beauty, St. Paul reminds us in his letter to the Colossians that Christ is the One who is most deserving of our worship. Paul writes that “Christ is the visible image of the invisible God. He is the firstborn of all creation, for through him God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth. He made the things we can see and the things we can’t see” (Colossians 1:15-16). Through faith, we come to believe that Christ is the One whom all the beautiful signposts of the world are pointing towards; and (in words of N.T. Wright again) “the present world of space, time, and matter always was and still is the good creation of a good God.” Or put another way, it’s what we sing during the Holy Communion liturgy “holy, holy, holy are you, O Lord…heaven and earth are filled with your glory! Hosanna in the highest!”
Even so, we know—we can see it and feel it every day—that the good and beautiful things of God’s creation often fall into bad shape. After the Tiffany glass gallery, I continued my tour of the museum, entering a room with the name “Objects Tell Stories”. Each display case held artifacts, and each one had stories to tell. A wampum belt had been lovingly recreated a few years ago, based on a 400-year-old design, and threaded together with tiny beads hand made from clam shells. The belt was two feet long, with two parallel lines of purple beads on a background made from white beads. It told the story of the first agreement between Dutch traders and Native Americans in the year 1613. The purple lines represented how the two cultures pledged to travel “side by side in a spirit of peace, friendship, and non-interference” [https://www.nyhistory.org/blogs/magic-of-wampum-new-acquisition]. I was struck by how much time and effort someone must have put into making these beads, and crafting a beautiful emblem of what the original makers hoped would be a lasting agreement with the newcomers to their land. But as I looked I also felt sad, knowing that the first agreement also became one of the first broken agreements in our shared history with Native peoples in America.
Further down the room where examples of early firefighting safety equipment, such as the hard-shell leather helmet, developed after the Great Fire of 1835 destroyed much of lower Manhattan. And in the display next to that, there were arranged many items collected from the same area 166 years later, on 9/11/2001—prayer cards and candles, fliers identifying missing persons, American flags, teddy bears, flowers. All of them cries of anguish and prayers for help after the Twin Towers fell.
Another display showcased the cot that George Washington slept on during the Revolutionary War. It was built big and strong enough to fit all 6 feet 2 inches and 225 pounds of the big General, and while it didn’t look very comfortable, I’m sure it was better than sleeping on the ground! It was a stirring reminder of the struggle for freedom and self-determination, and that even the greatest leaders had to endure hardships to get there.
But then, just a few more steps away, I saw a display about slavery in New York, which was legal until 1827. While most people held in slavery have had their stories lost to time, I was able to see, mounted at eye-level, a pair of shackles which had clasped the wrists of who knows how many suffering souls during the slave trade—a chilling reminder that the struggle for freedom and human dignity for all of God’s children was not completed in the Revolution. That struggle continued (mostly by people unknown to us), and it continues still today.
It goes to show, things that are beautiful and inspiring exist in tension with things that are ugly and painful—and all of them are necessary for us to see the full picture of God’s activity in the world. The good things of God’s creation fall into bad shape—even so, God’s presence is in them all. St. Paul knew this all too well himself. He wrote his letter to the Colossians from prison. Today he’d be called a prisoner of conscience, imprisoned not because he harmed anyone, but simply for who he was and what he believed. Yet the faith he was imprisoned for was a precious gift; even in prison he felt the presence of God. “For God in all his fullness was pleased to live in Christ,” Paul wrote, “and through him God reconciled everything to himself. He made peace with everything in heaven and earth by means of Christ’s blood on the cross.”
Paul is trying to tell us that you don’t find God by escaping from the world, or by ignoring the struggles and suffering and pain and sin that make even good and beautiful things fall into bad shape. In fact, we don’t have to go anywhere to find God because God has already found us! In Christ, God has chosen to come down into the world—the world as it is, the world we live in. The world with the intricate beauty of Tiffany glass; and the world where the beauty we once knew fades away. The world of a wampum belt lovingly re-created in a spirit of peace and friendship; and the world where those ideals were not lived up to. The world where terrible fires resulted in teamwork, unity, rebuilding, and new advances in safety equipment; and the world where civilians are attacked, tall buildings crash to the ground, and even heroes wearing safety equipment lose their lives. The world where people risk everything in the struggle for freedom and self-determination; and the world where those who struggle on behalf of their own human dignity as children of God are held in shackles.
God is in the beauty and in the pain, and that is why we proclaim that Christ is King— because “he holds all creation together” and “he made peace with everything through his blood on the cross”. Anywhere and everywhere you go, the presence of Christ is there. The cross is God’s promise that even in pain, struggle, suffering, death—when the good things of God’s creation fall into bad shape, we can expect a time when they will be repaired, rescued, redeemed through Christ. And Christ calls us to walk with him on his way of forgiveness, grace and mercy, which are the means he uses to begin putting things right. Amen.