The Sunday before the First Sunday of Advent is recognised in some churches as the Feast of Christ the King. We might sing ‘King of Kings, Majesty’. But what a strange King, his crown, a crown of thorns…Luke 23: 33-43. 1 A carpenter hung on a cross, a rough-hewn cross of wood, while people satisfied by rage had never understood. This man had met the arguments of those who sought to rule with kindness, gentleness and love: they marked him as a fool. 2 He challenged values, long held rites, that bound the world they knew, he sought to point them back to God. For this they'd curse and sue. The trumped up charges that they brought, designed to bring him down, resulted in this spectacle, this cross and thorny crown. 3 And through the centuries that passed the ones who called him 'good', have tried to make some sense of this, have rarely understood. And now we stand again to mark the passing of this day, to struggle still to understand, love's sacrificial way. Andrew E Pratt (born 1948) Words © 2016 Stainer & Bell Ltd, London, England copyright@stainer.co.uk . Please include any reproduction for local church use on your CCL Licence returns. All wider and any commercial use requires prior application to Stainer & Bell Ltd CMD 8 6 8 6 D Tune: SOLLS SEIN As published in Seedresources http://www.theworshipcloud.com . Art: iPad Art © Andrew Pratt 2022
hymnsandbooks 