I find Christ the King to be a most difficult challenge. I have a difficult time with the very idea of kingship in a democratic society. I dislike its sense of hierarchy. Calling the day of reign of Christ is scarcely an improvement, as reign seems to me to mean reign over, not with. I do not work well with the humble Jesus Christ being transformed into a cosmic czar with the ascension. Further, if that reign is active, it pushes me yet again to ask why then is suffering so rampant? So, I seize on a text that could be fruitful, including a difficult one such as Col. 1:11-20

The Interpreter’s Bible is quite good on our passage for Sunday. For me, the McDonald commentary in Sacra Pagina series on Col and Ephesians is superb. See also New Onmterreter’s-The new Outlook piece is excellent and please consider looking at working preacher for commentaries on all of the readings for this Sunday and going back a few years in the reading cycle as well

V.11-strengthened could be empowered, I would think,as God’s presence/energy infuses us

endurance/perseverance/ keep on keepin on  are good translations for hyponome, and makrothumia has the sense of longsuffering, of enduring suffering-more forcefully-give me your best shot-bearing up under suffering gets at it-both words are often translated as patience and run us into trouble often, both in distinguishing them and having a sense of “patience.”

V.12 Giving thanks is a nice link to the upcoming holiday.It is the last of four participles in the set.

Made fit/qualified to share is an unusual word  I suppose a legitimate sharer could work, especially with the following notion of inheriting a share.

Saints in the light takes us back to All Saints Day and a sense of being in the reign of Christ

V.13 here we are in a change of citizenship or being ruled from the power of darkness-we are liberated from one power to live in freedom and light in another. (see similar thought on light in the Qumran DSS)-the thought continues in the sense of being transferred to a different reime. Note well-that process is current-it is not for heaven alone.

V.14 Deliverance-redemption, as in release, liberated from bondage/imprisonment is the semantic field here

15-20 is thought by many to be a Christ Hymn-For me, the ley is Christ holding things together, and yes, that includes our thoughts and feelings in difficult times, I would think.

v.15-I don;t know if we should refer to Genesis 1 here or not. I am not sure if it helps or hurts the iconoclastic strain in Reformed thought. At any rate, we now overuse the word, icon, but its use may well be helpful in speaking of Christ this Sunday.

First born of all creation-This is a minefield, but I do think it helpful to made a linkage to the view of Wisdom in Prov. 8. It also helps with  later notion of being “before all things.” Still, I think that the emphasis is one of importance, at the top of a hierarchy, perhaps. The one of Bethlehem and Nazareth is above the rulers of Rome.

V.16- the little phrase in him is a deep one-I read it as prehensile, of grasping a reality, of being a participant and agent of it. 

We get invisible again. As Carrie Newcomer says, just because we don;t see something at work doesn't mean that  energy of change is not at work.

V.17 I am not sure if before is temporal or spatial. I stress the hold together (sunistemi) sun is a prefix emphasizing together. It had a sense of the coherence of the cosmos, or perhaps less formally, the connections , the networks of the universe.

head=can mean at the head of the class, but it can mean source as well, headwaters, say. The previous meaning is strengthened by the next phrase first place. Again, the rejected one is transformed here, as in the last shall be first.

V.19 pleroma, fullness could be a sermon in itself. Its emanations are featured in Gnostic speculations of its many leveled divine world. To me it is clear that the incarnation carried with it the gravitas of divinity.

V.20 Reconciliation of course is the theme of the Conf. of ‘67. Here it seems to be relating to the healing of something that has been ruptured, a bridging of a chasm, a bringing together that which has been separated or alienated.

Make peace strikes me as a long way from the criminal law image we use for atonement and reconciliation. If we insist on a legal metaphor, it sounds a lot more like the civil realm than the criminal.With the cross we are in a subversive mode for the images of ruling that we would associate with Christ the king.