But royalty connotes loyalty.  If we acknowledge Our Lord as our King it means that we are only true to that acknowledgement if we ourselves are his loyal subjects.  There are many loyalties – loyalty to one’s family; to one’s friends; to the group or community to which one belongs; and when natural disasters occur, such as earthquakes or floods, a common human loyalty comes to the surface which transcends divisions of race and nationality, and help is sent or brought by people from all over the world.

But what of our loyalty to Christ our King?  We profess and call ourselves Christians, that is, we claim to belong to Christ, to believe in him and to follow him.  Yet too often one has to make the humbling admission that one’s loyalty to him is not always firm and resolute.

In what, then, should our loyalty to Christ consist?  First, in our defence of the Christian Faith and Christian moral standards, both of which are under attack today.  When Christ stood before Pilate he defined his Kingship by declaring that he came to bear witness to the truth and we cannot be loyal to him if we fail to do likewise without regard to any opposition or ridicule we may incur.