Earlier this week, I travelled through the Channel Tunnel to France. You will have to wait until Christmas to know why I did this but it’s got something to do with the space under the Lady Chapel altar.

Before going into the tunnel I had to show my Passport to customs officials and one of the perks of being in the European Union is that generally, those with UK passports are waved through without so much of a glance.  It’s a bit different on journeys taken outside the EU.

Memorable moments of other journeys are being attacked by a sniffer dog in San Francisco because I foolishly brought a banana skin off the plane to discard it in the rubbish bin – not realising that this was almost as serious as trying to smuggle in drugs; and a middle of the night encounter with armed customs guards on a train travelling between Prague and Poland.

On those occasions I took a strange comfort  from the words in my Passport which say that:

Her Britannic Majesty’s Secretary of State requests and requires in the Name of Her Majesty all those whom it may concern to allow the bearer to pass freely without let our hindrance and to afford such bearer such assistance and protection as may be necessary.

I always know, in the back of my mind, that if the officials cause me any hassle, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw will be on the first plane out of England as he comes personally to my rescue. It is something that guarantees my safety and gives me great confidence.

A Passport  indicates that I am a citizen of the United Kingdom, a  subject of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth.  But,  like most of you here, I am also very fortunate because I have dual Nationality which makes me a subject of a different Monarch and a Citizen of a different Kingdom.  My proof of this is my Baptism Certificate.

This dual Nationality is described in a famous 2nd Century letter written by Diognetus.  He said that Christians are not distinguished from the rest of mankind by country, speech or dress. They do not dwell in cities of their own and they follow the customs of whatever country they live in, as far as clothes, language, food and other matters of daily life. Yet, they are different. They live in countries and yet as strangers who are journeying through.

Diognetus went on to say:

They exist in the flesh but they live not after the flesh. They spend their existence upon earth, but their citizenship is in heaven. They obey the established laws, and in their own lives they surpass the laws. They love all; [...] they are poor, and make many rich; they lack everything and in everything they abound. They are dishonoured and their dishonour becomes their glory [...] they are abused and they bless; they are insulted and repay insult with honour. They do good and are punished as evil-doers. Christians dwell in the world but they are not of the world.

Another 2nd Century writer, Aristeides, in another commentary on Christians says that following the Lord Jesus Christ they acknowledge God the Creator and Maker of all things  and worship no other God but Him. They have the commandments of the Lord Jesus Christ himself engraved on their hearts, and these they observe, looking for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come… they keep his (Christ’s)  commandments faithfully, living righteous and holy lives.

Neither of these commentators were Christians but both observed that followers of Jesus Christ were people with dual Citizenship.  Today, as we keep again, the Feast of Christ the King, we think of what it means to claim Christ’s Kingship over our own lives and it seems to me that these early commentators on the Christian Way offer us a description of what it means.  What makes us different is Baptism and the commitment it brings to serve not an earthly monarch but the High King of Heaven.

In our Gospel this morning we are given a picture of our King which is rather different from the pomp and majesty we expect of Monarchs.  To celebrate the Feast of Christ the King we are taken not to the throne room of a great Palace but to a hillside outside Jerusalem where Jesus is strung up on a Cross beside two common criminals.  The only acknowledgement that he has any Kingship comes  first in the taunts of the crowd that if He is truly a King he should save himself and secondly, in an inscription above his Cross that He is King of the Jews.  To understand that inscription we have to go back to the encounter which Jesus had with Pontius Pilate and which John’s Gospel account describes vividly.

Pilate asked him if he was King of the Jews and seems genuinely puzzled to know the answer.  Jesus answered him in an enigmatic way and talked of a kingdom that is not of this world. Where it of this world, he said, then his followers would have been fighting for his release. Then Jesus repeated that His Kingdom was not from here.  Pilate seized on this and said, “So you are a King, then.” Jesus didn’t give him a direct answer, at least not in the way Pilate would understand. He talked instead of being born to testify to the Truth and this left Pilate wondering what he meant by Truth.

It seems to me that in this encounter, Pilate is genuinely seeking to know just who Jesus was and there is nothing of the entrapment language which is to be found when Jesus appeared before the Jewish leaders. Pilate is genuinely perplexed.  In much the same way as the same way as the 2nd century commentators on Christians saw something very different in the way they behaved, so Pilate sensed that he was in the presence of one who, despite appearances, was behaving as if He belonged to another world – and it disturbed him.

Immediately after the encounter, Pilate returns to the crowd and in what he said, it seems he had decided his own view of who Jesus was.  After saying that he found no case against Jesus he asked the crowd if they wanted him to release the ‘King of the Jews’

It seems odd, doesn’t it, that Pilate, a Roman who had a loyalty to Caesar as his Emperor, was not only unthreatened by the claims of Kingship surrounding Jesus but actually acclaimed him as a king – and a king of  another realm which he didn’t fully understand but did not deny either.

When he ordered the inscription for the top of the Cross the Jewish leaders objected and wanted it changed to ‘ He claimed to be King of the Jews’ to which Pilate retorted, “What I have written, I have written.”

It fell then to a pagan to recognise the Kingship of Jesus and, as this morning’s Gospel continues, it fell to a thief to claim the Kingdom as its first citizen.  The story of Christianity ever since has been the story of people recognising the Kingship of Christ and as a result,  claimed citizenship of the Kingdom.  And, like those 2nd century Christians who attracted the attention of Diognetus and Aristeides, those who claim Christ as King have something different about them.

First and foremost, of course, the difference is that we accept a different set of values by which to live our lives – we have, as Aristeides said, the commandments of Christ engraved on their hearts.

We have something else too; I said that our Passports are proof that we are citizens of the United Kingdom.  The proof that we are citizens of heaven is the indelible sign of the Cross that is traced on our foreheads at Baptism; this is what marks us out as Christ’s subjects.

We live in the power of that Cross to transform our lives just as on the cross Christ transformed the life of the Penitent Thief.  Jesus didn’t have to say anything to Him. He just saw that there was something different about the man next to Him and his heart did the rest. He recognised Jesus for who He was – and is.  The darkness of the moment is transformed by the light radiating from the soul of Christ.  The Cross became no longer an instrument of terrible pain but a throne on which the King of Heaven reigned with love and there claimed citizens for His Kingdom.  And that is the secret of its transforming power.

God so loved the world – God so loves you and me – God so pours out that love to us from the Cross that all that is dark and bad in life is burned up until only Love reigns. 

I have mentioned before the young Russian priest who was arrested at the beginning of the Communist Revolution. He was thrown into prison, tortured, beaten and humiliated. When he was eventually released he was asked what was left of him. "Nothing" he replied, "they have taken everything away.  Only Love remains."  But it is enough – and it is enough to recognise that Love is what makes the difference and why Christ makes a difference.

Why can we claim dual Nationality? – Why can we say we are citizens of Heaven and Companions of the High King?    Because we are ruled by love.  That is what Diognetus and Aristeides really saw that was different about the Christians they met.  That is what is different about us.

When, in a few minutes Alison and Karen re-affirm their baptismal vows they will be claiming that love anew for their own lives – and as we share their moment of re-commitment to live within it – we should pray that we may pass freely without let or hindrance, and in its power and under its protection travel through life to the Kingdom of Heaven and to the throne of our High King which is Christ’s heart and whose Kingship of Love we celebrate today.