Sunday, November 23, 2003

 
Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servatns fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews; but now is my kingdom not from hence.”

Pilate therefore said unto him, “Art thou a king then?”

Jesus answered, “Thous sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear wtiness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice.”

Today is the Solemnity of Christ the King, the last Sunday of the Liturgical Year before the solemn and joyous penitential season of Advent.

Penitential? Advent leads us to Christmas, does it not? Don’t we get excited as the annual celebration of Our Lord’s birth approaches? Aren’t our spirits supposed to lift, aren’t we supposed to have a smile on our face, a song on our lips as we shop on our way to Christmas parties?

More of that in a moment. It all makes sense if we pause to consider the solemn celebration that takes place today.

The Church Year has been developed over time as a way to keep our minds on the full Gospel, not just the parts we like. Our tendency is to focus on just those aspects of the Gospel which give us comfort. When we are suffering, we look to scenes of suffering in Christ’s life and the promises of redemption. When things are going well, we look to verses that match our feeling that “all’s right with the world.”

But the Gospel is one unified whole, as Jesus is one person. Particular moments in His life, certain verses, certain doctrines, reveal aspects of His Person. The stages of our life help us see parts that we may have missed or forgotten, or did not understand in the first palce. But He is One, One Person, who must be worshiped in His entirety.

No aspect of His person clashes with our modern sensibilty more than His Kingship. But King is what He is, right now, as expressed so clearly at the beginning of St. Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians: “...he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come: and hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all.”
We may like the idea of all that power, but we don’t like the word “king,” and so it is worth taking a look at what the Church has taught about that over the centuries.

The Church has always proclaimed the “Threefold Office” of Christ, as Prophet, Priest, and King. A prophet is a popular thing these days, so we may not squirm at that one. Still, it implies telling people they are wrong. Priest is a bigger problem, as a number of Protestant churches, and a number of individual Catholics, are far more comfortable with the notion of Christ as “pastor” rather than priest. Indeed, the notion of hierarchy is so obvious in the traditional formulation that people, with the very best of intentions, sometimes use the words “teacher, pastor, and leader,” or some other substitution.

So it is not just the idea of “king” that upsets our democratic instincts, but surely it is the hardest for us to swallow.

Yet Jesus was not born in Philadelphia, and the words used to describe Him—however restricted by the limits of human language—must reflect as much of His Person as they can. “Prophet, priest, and king” do so as well as any we can come up with.

I am not so sure that is so very hard for us to understand these concepts, but we must strip ourselves of the demand to hear only words we like. Millions of youngsters and quite a few adults over the years have been lost in the great Lord of the Rings. J.R.R. Tolkein did not intend to write an allegory, where each character obviously represents someone or something else. But he did mean for the book to offer illustrations of deeper truths. And, according to him, the three offices of Christ are represented by prophet (Gandalf, who guides), priest (Frodo, who offers himself as a sacrifice), and king (Aragorn, who leads the faithful into the battle against evil.)

Returning to Scripture, the office Christ occupies in the final vision of the Apocalypse is King. It is to Christ's kingship that the whole Gospel points.

And it is exactly that which gives us the most trouble.

It is not just our democratic sensibilities that get offended, is it? We are offended personally that someone should control us. We may pray, “Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done, on earth as it is in heaven,” but we do not mean it. We want someone to comfort us, to help us, to guide us, but on our terms.

Maybe we do want a King, just not the kind of King Jesus is. We want someone who will fight for us, someone who will take care of our problems, someone who will give us the authority to beat up on our adversaries.

We do not want to pray “lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” We want to pray, “save us from the time of trouble.”

But the peace that Jesus offers is not trouble free. “In the world ye shall have tribulation.” That does not seem like much comfort, but it is, “for I have overcome the world.”

But it is a pearl of great price. We must sell all that we have, and follow him. We must imitate Him, even in His Kingship.
And what kind of King is He?

One who did not count equality with God as something to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant. In that final vision of Revelation, John sees the "Throne of Godand of the Lamb." The Lamb that was slain.

We must, in short, take up our cross and follow him. Every step we take during the year points us towards this day, when we focus our feeble vision on Christ as King, just as every step of our lives points us toward that day when we shall see Him revealed as King, and we shall be as he is, for we shall see Him face to face.

Which brings us back to Advent. It is indeed a penitential season, when our churches are decked in purple. We must turn our faces toward Bethlehem, and empty ourselves in preparation for that glorious moment when He came to us in human form.

But today our churches are decked in white, as a symbol of a purity that we have not yet attained, and we must look to where we cannot see, into heaven, and worship Christ the King.

Come, let us adore Him!



posted by A Mind That Suits 4:16 PM