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The calendar we Christians follow is not random. It begins with the longing of Advent, that season of holy desire for the world at its best. Then Christmas, incarnation, God alive in the world. Epiphany follows, it is the dark season lit by Christ’s light, guiding our actions in the face of suffering and tyranny. Lent comes next and draws us inward to consider the shape of our souls. Then Easter erupts, proving the bad thing is never the last thing. Finally, comes Ordinary Time, where the work of our eternal souls unfolds week by week, until today, the final Sunday in the Christian year, the Feast of Christ the King. It is a holy day instituted by Pope Pius XI in 1925.
It’s easy to imagine Pius woke up one morning, and as he was lying there in bed, staring up at the ceiling, scenes of the world were rumbling through his mind. In this world where nations were again exalting themselves, Pius could feel the rising tide of nationalism; he could see the storm clouds of totalitarianism forming on the horizon. Secular power was consolidating behind particular earthly rulers with messianic ambitions.
It all sprang from the events of World War I, the Great War, and its ruinous treaties and callous victors. Europe could not shake the memories: the trenches, the gas, the mass death, and the ensuing poverty. As he lay there, Pius was doing what we normally think memory does: reaching backward, rehearsing what went wrong so humanity might avoid repeating it. And from that backward memory, from watching leaders who lacked wisdom and relationship, Pius created a holy day to remind the world that Jesus, and Jesus alone, is King.
Here is the interesting thing, and indeed the point of today’s sermon: though Christ the King was created from backward memory, it points us forward toward hope. Because remembering in the Kingdom of God works differently than we expect. I’ll give you an example. Not long ago I saw a college friend I hadn’t spent real time with in years. We sat down, and instantly the stories came: laughter, shared history, teasing about who we were and what we survived. On the surface, it looked like nostalgia.
But it wasn’t. Not really. What was happening beneath the stories and the laughter was something much more profound, more real: the remembering was pulling us into the present, establishing again the connection that had always been there. We weren’t going back; we were being drawn in. It was not memory as time travel; it was memory as relational re-constitution. And in that moment, in that grounding, that presence, that mutual recognition, we were, in a beautiful way, two guys just hanging out in the Kingdom of God.
This insight comes from the Gospel reading: Jesus nailed on the cross. Not as triumph, but a coronation of suffering surrounded by low rank soldiers mocking Him, sneering bureaucrats, and criminals hanging on either side. It is here, in this most unlikely of places, that the sovereignty of Jesus emerges: where power is love, where weapon is mercy, where throne is cross, and where victory is resurrection.
And at the foot of that throne, or rather, hanging beside Him, are two thieves. One mocks Him: If you’re really the Messiah, save yourself and us. That thief speaks the language of the world, the world that prizes coercion, conquest, and survival. But the other thief, the good thief, sees something different. He turns toward Jesus and says, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” Jesus, remember me. Jesus replies: “Today you will be with me in Paradise.”
That exchange explains memory in the Kingdom of God. While the thief asks for the usual kind of remembering, someday, in the future, look back and think kindly of me, Jesus reorients. Jesus collapses time. He reorients the man toward the future. He doesn’t say, “I will remember you.” He says, “Today.” Today you will step into the future God has been preparing. Today, relationship is reconstituted. Today hope arrives… for all of us. With Jesus, it is always coming home.
We remember backward; God remembers forward. The thief asks for memory; Jesus gives him a future. In the kingdom of God memory is anticipatory. It is not chronological. It is relational. It brings us into the present moment, re-establishing the connection that has always been there, while simultaneously turning us together toward the future, toward hope, toward Paradise.
Theologian Ilia Delio captures this beautifully when she says: “So too, the God who is calling us into the fullness of life is ahead, not behind us. The Christian life is meant to be a forward-moving life.” (Ilia Delio, Interview with Llei Delio (SSJG), 2021.)
This is precisely what I experienced with my buddy from college. We weren’t rummaging around in a scrapbook. We were being drawn into presence, sitting together, side by side, facing forward even if the words were describing the past. This was the experience of Pope Pius as well, looking backward, he sanctified a holy day which now casts our collective eyes forward toward the victory of our God, toward hope, toward Paradise.
When we remember Jesus, we reveal God’s intended future. This is why every Sunday, at the altar, we say: “Do this in remembrance of me” – his presence in me right now. “Do this in remembrance of me” – his vitality in me right now. This is not nostalgia. This is not looking back at Jesus who lived 2,000 years ago. This is future memory. This is the kingdom opening. This is the church saying, with the good thief, “Remember us,” and Jesus replying, “I do so right here, right now.”
Pius instituted Christ the King Sunday not as triumphalism, but as resistance; as a protest against the idolatry, the nationalism, the violence, the meanness weaponized around him by new kings trying to rewrite history by twisting the past in an effort to twist the way people remembered, all so they could accumulate power. This was what Pius was responding to through the institution of Christ the King, a holy day to recast memory forward toward the hope of Jesus.
The battle Pius (and us) are fighting is epic because human memory is so fragile, it is so vulnerable, it is so personally particular and unique. Which is why looking backward rarely unifies. Ask any old married couple to recall the same event, and you’ll get two stories. And so, we might wonder, what keeps them together?
I think it is as simple as the power of side by side. Sitting together. Facing forward, sharing the couch in the present moment. As a guy who has been with his wife for 40 years, I can assure you that digging into the details of a past event rarely puts anyone on the same page. Remembering plays out better by taking walks together; or sitting on the couch watching TV; or watching her cook dinner together. It is about presence together in the moment with eyes cast forward, side by side, toward hope.
Because future memory is hope. Future memory is truth that cannot be edited. Future memory is the unstoppable force of love. So, if we want to be united in this fractured world, we remember not backward, but forward. Remembering the hope Jesus tugs us towards. Remembering the future God is unveiling. Remembering Christ the King, and reaching out to Him like the good thief.
And when we do, when we ask Him to remember us, He draws us into the present, toward the Paradise that is breaking forth, into the kingdom as God designed it to be; a kingdom not of fear, not of war, not of money, or nationalism, or politics or of shiny gold filigrees hung on the wall.
King Jesus reigns over a kingdom where remembering is leaping forward, not looking backward. “Do this,” Jesus says, “in remembrance of me.” He is pulling us into the future, into re-constituted relationship, into love, into the kingdom of hope that is arriving. This is Christ the King. This is the feast that punctuates the cycle of our Christian calendar. This is the memory that restores hope to the world. Do this… Do this in remembrance of me.