SOLEMNITY OF CHRIST THE KING – YEAR C
After a week of riveting testimony before the House Intelligence Committee, Americans are still divided in their opinion of whether or not Articles of Impeachment will be issued against President Trump and even more profoundly divided over whether or not the President should be convicted in the Senate and removed from office. Neither the accusers of the president nor his defenders have a clear victory as yet.
The liturgy for this final Sunday in Ordinary Time, the final Sunday of our Year of Grace, has no such reservations about pointing out a victory, and a decisive one at that. From its very title to its concluding prayer, today’s feast proclaims clearly, unambiguously, and without hesitation that Jesus is the victor. He has conquered the forces of malice, darkness, and division to establish a kingdom of grace and mercy, of justice, love, and peace. Not only has Jesus fulfilled the dreams of his distant ancestor, David, who united a loosely confederated group of nomadic tribes into a stable unit, he has parlayed David’s modest kingdom into a body politic having cosmic dimensions.
To listen to St. Paul talk about it, as he does in his magnificent Letter to the Colossians, you would think that Jesus’ Mission is already accomplished. For the empire that Paul views as Jesus’ legacy, is indeed cosmic – one that is eternal, boundless, invulnerable to attack from without or from within. And Jesus has set his capitol, not on Mt. Zion like David before him, but in heaven, itself, where the saints, our fellow citizens, surround him in glory. If we had Paul as our only commentator on Jesus’ victory and its implications, we would take the locks off our doors, stop paying taxes, forget about our IRA’s, and sit down to feast as though each and every day were Thanksgiving Day.
But let’s move on from Paul, and look at the way in which St. Luke portrays Jesus’ victory. For one thing, its scale is far more human. Paul thrills that all things in heaven and on earth: thrones, dominations, etc. are subject to Jesus’ rule. But Luke also tells us how Jesus came to win the heart of one wretched young man, who, in a brief exchange with Jesus, found himself promised a place with the King in paradise rather than a pauper’s grave and eternal ruin. For another thing, Christ the King, as St. Luke portrays him, is not enthroned on a distant cloud, but affixed to a cross where crowds can jeer at him, or a criminal can beg to be remembered. Jesus attains his rule by suffering, and maintains it by love alone. “Jesus, remember me,” we, ourselves, are inclined to cry out to this king, so different from earthly kings. He is close to us, sufficiently wracked with pain to extend to us pitch-perfect empathy, and yet so free of self-absorption that we can easily lay a claim to his complete attention. Clearly, this Lucan depiction of Christ the King does not invite us to be swept immediately up into the clouds in a rapture that distances us from the travails of life on earth. Instead, this king beckons us to carry our crosses in imitation of him, especially the crosses that compassion for our suffering brothers and sisters imposes on us.
Looked at side by side, these two portrayals of Jesus Christ the King convey a few important truths that can sustain us in challenging times. The first and most important of these truths is the simple declaration, “Jesus is Lord.” The victory is his. No hearing or public opinion poll can challenge that truth. And because Jesus became one of us, flesh of our flesh, and bone of our bones, the victory will be ours as well, if we remain faithful to him. While Jesus’ kingdom embraces all of creation, and will be a realm of universal peace, it reaches us individually and personally. And no one is excluded on principle, no one is excluded because of race or religion, or gender, or sexual orientation. All that it takes, even for the most abandoned sinner to be included is the simple plea, “Jesus, remember me.”
We can overlook the presence of this king’s rule here and now, because he comes to us in the guise of a reviled man who is jeered by many. Yet, for those who appeal to him, victory is assured. And that victory often takes place in the hearts of men like the criminal begging for remembrance. A former inmate in Canada, for example, credits volunteers and staff members working in prison ministry in the Archdiocese of Vancouver with helping to transform his life – helping him find sobriety and a relationship with Christ. “The Catholic prison ministry helped me stay faithful to the Lord and to trust fully in Jesus as he was refining me in the furnace,” said Ryan Prasad. “It happens occasionally — that Ah ha! moment when it is obvious that a person has been touched by the Holy Spirit, and it’s enough for the men and women involved in prison ministry to keep going back,” a prison chaplain testified.
The Kingdom of God is a kingdom built on such “Ah ha moments” when the Holy Spirit touches hearts. We declare our solidarity with all who have begged to be remembered, and have been answered with “Ah ha moments” of conversion. In turn, we remember Jesus even as we celebrate his victory in this deceptively simple ritual of breaking bread and pouring wine, so that we become ever more flesh of Jesus’ flesh, and bone of his bones.