Daily Reading for November 22 • The Last Sunday after Pentecost: Christ the King

What in fact is Christ’s kingdom? It is simply those who believe in him, those to whom he said, “You are not of this world, even as I am not of this world.” He willed, nevertheless, that they should be in the world, which is why he prayed to the Father, “I ask you not to take them out of the world but to protect them from the evil one.” So here also he did not say, “My kingdom is not” in this world but “is not of this world.” . . .

Indeed, his kingdom is here until the end of time, and until the harvest it will contain weeds. . . . Everyone who is reborn in Christ becomes the kingdom that is no longer of the world. For God has snatched us from the powers of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of his beloved Son. This is that kingdom of which he said, “My kingdom is not of this world; my kingly power does not come from here.”

From Tractates on the Gospel of John 115.2, quoted in Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture: New Testament IVb, John 11-21, edited by Joel C. Elowsky (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2007).