Faith from Nicaea (II): “The King We Confess; Christ Reigns in Majesty and Mercy”

Sermon preached by Fr Christopher Woods, Vicar on Sunday 23 November 2025, the Feast of Christ the King

Last week we touched on the 1700th anniversary of the First Council of Nicaea: a gathering of bishops from across the known world who met in 325 to wrestle with the question of the nature of Jesus Christ, as a way of uniting Christians, and as an attempt to avoid heresy. As a result of this Ecumenical Council, and a couple of others since, we have the Nicene Creed, a framework of faith which we say week by week. Today, as we come to the Feast of Christ the King, the question of who Jesus is grows sharper still.

Our readings draw us into a tension. From 2 Samuel we hear a scene of political alliance: the tribes come to King David at Hebron, pledging loyalty, recognising in him a ruler who can unite, protect, shepherd. This is monarchy in its ancient, earthy form: anointing, public acclaim, covenant, promise.

But then we turn to the Gospel, and the contrast could not be more striking. Here we see a man lifted not on a throne but on a cross. Above him, a bitter joke has been nailed in place -“This is the King of the Jews”- a title meant to mock, not honour. Instead of crowds clamouring for his leadership, we hear voices of ridicule. And instead of courtiers, he is flanked by criminals.

If this is a king, he is nothing like David. And that is precisely the point.

On this feast, and in this anniversary year of the Council of Nicaea, the Church invites us to reconsider our instincts about power, truth, and glory; to see Christ not only as a teacher, or a healer, or a moral example, but as the One in whom all things hold together—the King whose crown is woven from suffering love.

Our second reading, from Colossians, is one of the earliest Christian hymns, already on the lips of worshippers, decades before Nicaea:

“He is the image of the invisible God…
in him all things were created…
he is before all things,
and in him all things hold together.”

When the bishops gathered at Nicaea, this is the kind of language they held as essential for the faith: they lived with the conviction that in Jesus they had encountered God himself; not a reflection, not a delegate, not a prophet, but God’s very self: poured out into human flesh.

And so at Nicaea they affirmed that the Son is “of one being with the Father”—homo-ousios—a term chosen not to elevate Jesus beyond reach but to safeguard what the Church had always known: that the God who created the stars is the same God who walked the dusty roads of Galilee and stretched out his arms on Calvary to gather the world into mercy.

Why does that matter for us now? Why linger over a 4th-century Council, Creedal clauses, and very specialised vocabulary?

It matters because the shape of our faith depends on the kind of Christ we believe in. A Christ who is less than God cannot save; a Christ who is not truly human cannot heal. And a Christ who is king in name only, who rules like the rulers of this world cannot offer anything new.

But the Christ we meet in our daily lives, through prayer and fellowship, through Word and Sacrament, is a king whose power is a power to forgive, whose throne is the cross, whose victory is won not by crushing enemies but by opening paradise to a dying thief.

There are two criminals crucified with Jesus. One joins the mockery, seeing only failure and weakness. The other sees royalty. “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”

We ask ourselves, what made him say that?

Perhaps he glimpsed in Jesus the depth of divine compassion, something so different from the hard, reactive power of the world.

And Jesus answers him not with conditions or ceremony, but with immediacy and tenderness: “Today you will be with me in paradise.” Jesus, then, is the king whose first act is to bring the lost home.

This is a vision of kingship the world still finds difficult. It is not triumphant nationalism, not religious dominance, not the triumph of one tribe over another. It is the kingship of reconciliation of peace stronger than violence and of hope stronger than despair.

We are invited to find in Christ patience to forgive when forgiveness feels costly.

We are invited to find in our neighbour (not just the agreeable neighbour), but the awkward, difficult, or hurting neighbour, the face of someone beloved of God.

We are invited to resist the subtle idolatries of our age: the idol of self-sufficiency, the idol of status, the idol of being right at all costs.

And we are invited to hold firmly to hope even when the world feels splintered, remembering the promise from Colossians, that “in him all things hold together”, even when we cannot see it.

This is not an easy calling. But it is the heart of God made visible in Christ, and it is exactly what the Council of Nicaea sought to protect. The bishops at Nicaea were not naïve however. Many had been persecuted, tortured, scarred for their faith. They had seen what happens when earthly power runs wild. And still they gathered to confess that above every emperor, above every earthly authority, above every storm of history, Christ is King.

The Kingdom of God is not a utopia we construct by any power of our own; nor is it a spiritual escape from real life. God’s kingdom comes whenever the pattern of his life is embraced: whenever mercy is chosen over vengeance, truth over convenience, generosity over fear. And it comes, mysteriously but surely, through communities of people searching together for truth.

May his kingdom take deeper root in our hearts, in our lives and in our imaginations as we continue our journey of faith.

Amen.