Shakespeare on Kingship

"For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground
And tell sad stories of the death of kings;
How some have been deposed; some slain in war,
Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed;
Some poison'd by their wives: some sleeping kill'd;
All murder'd: for within the hollow crown
That rounds the mortal temples of a king
Keeps Death his court and there the antic sits,
Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp,
Allowing him a breath, a little scene,
To monarchize, be fear'd and kill with looks,
Infusing him with self and vain conceit,
As if this flesh which walls about our life,
Were brass impregnable, and humour'd thus
Comes at the last and with a little pin
Bores through his castle wall, and farewell king!
Cover your heads and mock not flesh and blood
With solemn reverence: throw away respect,
Tradition, form and ceremonious duty,
For you have but mistook me all this while:
I live with bread like you, feel want,
Taste grief, need friends: subjected thus,
How can you say to me, I am a king?"


Quote from Richard 2nd


In light of that litany of political disasters, what are we to say on the Festival of Christ the King. As much as comparing Jesus Christ to Henry VIII or the future King Charles or William makes me cringe, Christ the President, Christ the Prime Minister, and Christ the Premier I struggle with as well. But the assertion that Christ is King was never meant to be a comparison to the secular images of power. It was meant to be a stinging critique of empires and governments.

One of the reasons Christians were so viciously persecuted by the Roman empire was because their assertion that Christ is Lord and King was understood very clearly to imply that Caesar was not worthy of such titles. The festival of Christ the King was only added to the church calendar in 1925, and part of the impetus for it was that Mussolini had been ruling Italy for three years, Hitler's Nazi Party was on the rise and the western world was gripped by the great depression. In the face of the rise of dictatorships, in the face of the pushing of religion out of the social sphere and into the private, Pius IX called on the church to assert that nevertheless Jesus Christ is King of the Universe and reigns for ever and ever.