Sermon for “The Reign of Christ” Sunday, November 23rd 2025
Preached by the Revd Dr Trevor Jamison
at Saint Columba’s United Reformed Church, North Shields
Luke 23:33-43; Colossians 1:11-20
Watch the whole service on YouTube
Then the criminal hanging on the cross next to him said, ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.’ (23:42)
And from the Apostle Paul’s letter to the church in the town of Colossae,: God ‘has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son [Jesus Christ]. (1:13)
If you think that the facts are the only thing that matter then you need to think again. Facts do matter, because truth matters, but it’s the story providing the framework for facts that has the capacity to move people’s hearts and minds, to influence and direct their actions – either for good or for ill.
This is what scientists discovered when they began to sound the alarm about significant changes to our planet’s climate. Just tell people the facts, they thought, and we will all change our ways accordingly, but it has not worked out that way, as the outcome from the recent international conference in Brazil has demonstrated.
Or consider the story of human migration to the UK. Last year (2024), the net migration figure – people coming into the UK over the number leaving the UK for whatever reason – was around 345 000, which sounds like a lot to me, even though that was only about one third of the figure for either of the two previous years.[1] But this wider migration situation is being told to us as a frightening story about a whole fleet crossing the English channel, bearing that third of a million people, when it’s actually about 38 000 people[2] arriving in those small boats, the majority of them coming from five nations: Afghanistan, Syria, Eritrea, Iran and Sudan.
Simply reciting the facts, though, won’t change how people feel about the story they hear and inhabit. They need a better, more hopeful story that will make them see and respond to the facts in a more positive way. Provide people with a better, alternative story, about enjoying cheaper, dependable, clean energy, which reduces planetary suffering, and offers our children and our children’s children an even better future than the one we enjoy, then there might be some movement.
Listen to the stories of those who come to our shores and the big migration story might seem somewhat different. Last month, at the family fun day we ran at this church we had international participants. One church member got into conversation with a woman who is from Afghanistan. She had been a science teacher there in a nation where the government isn’t keen on any female education. And of course, the UK’s a nation with a shortage of science teachers. How might that story work out for good?
All of which brings me to the Christian story that many of us here today try to live out and to share with others; the story that should influence how we interpret the facts of life and act upon them.
The best known part of the Christian story is marked in a mere thirty two days’ time: Christmas Day! But that birth of the baby – Jesus – is only one part of the Christian story. Focus upon it in isolation from the rest of the story and it becomes sentimental, wishful thinking that the birth of one human baby of itself changes the world. The birth needs to be part of a bigger, better story for such change to happen; the story of God’s sovereignty; the story of God’s kingship over everything, everywhere and for all time.
And so before we enter into Advent next week, and the accompanying Christmas celebrations, we’re invited and urged to think about Christ as King, about God as Sovereign. And then what does the Christian story look like?
Well, first off, it’s a BIG story; the biggest story you could tell or be part of, because it’s about the relationship between God and the whole universe. The Apostle Paul, writing about how God works in this world through Jesus Christ puts it this way: ‘in him all things in heaven and earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers — all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together … through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things.’ (1:16, 17, 20) God is at work through Jesus in all things – ALL THINGS – in the Church, yes, but also in every other aspect of human life and the rest of the universe.
Not only is this a BIG story it’s a JESUS story. ‘He [Jesus Christ] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation’ (1:15), writes Saint Paul. The Jesus story neither starts nor concludes with his childhood, which we mark each Christmas. It’s also the story of his teaching about love for others, even those we regard as our enemies. It’s the story not just of his cradle, but of his cross; and not just of his death but of his resurrection, with the prospect of a future even for the lowliest – like a criminal hanging on a cross, acknowledging his own guilt, and pleading, ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom’ (23:42), and receiving the response, ‘today you will be with me in paradise.’ (23:43)
So then, not only are we caught up in the BIG story of God’s dealings with the universe, ourselves included; not only is this a whole-of-the-life-of-Christ story, from creation to the cross, and beyond; this is also a good-news rescue story. So many of the rescue stories we tell involve handing out violence to others. You know the sort of thing – the SAS or some other elite military group leap into action and sort out the bad guys, whoever the bad guys might be on this occasion. God’s rescue story is very different.
Yes, as Saint Paul puts is, God has ‘rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son’ (1:13); God has been pleased to ‘reconcile to God’s self all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.’ (1:20) But this is the story of a rescue mission in which the rescuer rescues us by dying for us without anyone else having to die in the process. What a story! How shall we respond to it? To put it poetically, in words from Isaac Watts which we shall sing presently, ‘People and realms of every tongue dwell on his love with sweetest song; and infant voices shall proclaim their early blessings on his name.’[3]
I wonder then how we might interpret the facts of climate change, or of human migration, or of being a church in a local community, if we place them within the big story of God’s Jesus-centred dealings with the whole of reality, including the earth’s thrones, dominions, rulers and powers? (1:16) How should I feel, and what ought I to do about the impact of climate change, when I recognise that we’re talking about this from the perspective that through Christ ‘all things in heaven and earth were created’? (1:16)
How do I respond to the facts about migration in the light of the story that God is seeking to ‘rescue us from the power of darkness’? (1:13) How do we go on being church in the local setting within the Christian story where ‘He [Christ] is the head of the body, the church … the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything’? (1:18) I don’t have complete answers to such complex questions – you can ask the next minister! What I do know is that we all have to try to respond to the facts – climate change, migration, church life, and all the business of life – from the big-story perspective of God at work in Jesus Christ to reconcile all things to God’s self.
And in doing that ‘may you be made strong with all the strength that comes from God’s glorious power, and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully giving thanks to the One who has enabled you to share’ (1:11) in that story. Amen.
[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cm2emzjre62o
[2] https://www.refugeecouncil.org.uk/stay-informed/explainers/top-facts-from-the-latest-statistics-on-refugees-and-people-seeking-asylum/
[3] From “Jesus shall reign wher’er the sun” by Isaac Watts (1674-1748) Rejoice & Sing 269