Christ our King
"Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise." As we sit here today, we are at a turning point in our year. As we approach the end of our secular calendar year, we also have come to the end of our church calendar year. This is the last Sunday after Pentecost and next week we will celebrate the first Sunday of Advent, which begins a new church year. In our lectionary calendar, we have come to the end of our journey with the gospel of Luke, and so we hear today the climax of Luke's great story, the story of the crucifixion. This may seem like an odd gospel passage to hear on this Sunday, however there is good narrative sense in hearing this story today. Sometimes we may question what the lectionary committee was thinking when they put together the cycle of readings, but as a group of seasoned priests and lay people of the church, we can trust that they had a reason for this choice. In my own study and sitting with this passage this week, I have come to the ...