Christ the King (B)
(Daniel 7:13-14; Apocalypse 1:5-8; John
18:33-37)
In our readings today we are given a magnificent portrait
of Him Who is our Lord and Saviour, Jesus the Christ, Son of God become Son of Man:
As the visions during the night
continued, I saw One like a son of man coming on the clouds of heaven; when he
reached the Ancient One and was presented before him, the One like a Son of Man
received dominion, glory, and kingship; nations and peoples of every language
serve him. His dominion is an
everlasting dominion that shall not be taken away, His kingship shall not be
destroyed.
Behold, He is coming amid the
clouds, and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him. And all the peoples of the earth will lament
Him. Yes. Amen.
And, in answer to Pilate’s question, Jesus pictured Himself
as follows:
I am a king. For this I was born,
and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs
to the truth listens to My voice.
Jesus is, therefore, most worthily our King, and today we gratefully
celebrate His kingship and rule. As He
tells us, He came, as King, to bear witness to -- that is to proclaim in word
and deed, by His death as through His life – the ultimate truth about God and
His plan of salvation for us:
Father, the hour has come;
glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him
authority over all people, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. (John 17:2)
He came as King because His proclamation of the truth had
to be both authoritative and unambiguous, it could know neither frustration nor
failure; and His sublime witness of love and forgiveness had to be seen and
experienced in all the fullness of its beauty and power:
And this is eternal life, that
they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. (John 17:3)
As King, therefore, He not only proclaimed the ultimate Truth,
He also manifested that Truth in all its sublime reality, because He Personally
was and is, the eternal Truth:
I am the Way, the
Truth, and the Life.
But did not St. John also tell us that, God is love? Indeed he did, and
this is just how he put it:
We have known and believed the
love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God,
and God in him. (1 John
4:16)
That means that those who have known and believed the love
that God has for us, that is, those who have believed in Christ’s proclamation of
and witness to, the only true God, have God -- Who is love
-- abiding in them. Therefore, God is
Truth in the Church’s proclamation of the Gospel and He is Love in the hearts
of those who receive that Gospel of Good News and Hope.
And so we can appreciate that truth is not just to be heard
and acknowledged, it has to be lovingly believed and responded to, in order to fulfil
God’s purpose as Isaiah prophesied (Isa. 55:11; 61:11):
My word that goes forth from My
mouth shall not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, and
it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it;
The Lord GOD cause(s)
righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations.
Those prophecies are rightly fulfilled when God’s word is
both proclaimed in truth and received in love; for then, and then only, does God
loved in the Word become God ‘lived’ in our heart, a fulfilment which the
Psalmist (Ps 85:10) celebrates with the words:
Mercy and truth have met
together; righteousness and peace have kissed.
It was strange, however, to hear the author of the book of
Revelation so emphatically assuring us that, when our Lord and Saviour will
come in His glory:
Every eye will see Him, even those
who pierced Him. And all the peoples of
the earth will lament Him. Yes. Amen.
His coming will cause all
the tribes of the earth to mourn, every
eye to lament? Obviously, it would seem
to us, all those who killed Him might mourn at His return in glory; but why
will it be that all will lament,
even those who loved Him?
This will be because of the Truth; since it is, indeed, Gospel
truth that all, each and every one of
us on earth, have sinned:
There is none righteous, no, not
one; none seeks after God. All have
turned aside; there is none who does good, no, not one. (Romans
3:10-12)
Those who receive the truth proclaimed by the Lord’s
coming, will see Him and lament the evil that was done Him; above all, they will
lament their own part in that evil: that is, they will lament and mourn out of
love, out of sympathy, for Him, and out of regret for and displeasure with
their own behaviour. Consequently, in
their case, those words of Scripture will be fulfilled:
You have turned for me my
mourning into dancing; You have put off my sackcloth and clothed me with
gladness, that my glory (soul) may sing praise to You and not be silent. O LORD my God, I will give thanks to You
forever. (Ps 30:11-12)
On the other hand, those who did not receive, will not
embrace, that Truth made manifest, will mourn simply and solely because of His return.
There will be no love for, nor sympathy
with, Him; nothing other than continuing rejection of Him and concern for self.
The kingdom of God, Jesus once said, is among you. And so, today as everyday, the question --
the drama -- of truth and its reception is going on around us in society, within
us as a community, and in the secret depths of our own, individual,
hearts. How do we, can we, should we, respond
to God’s truth revealed to and treasured in Mother Church?
There are those, who seem to think that truth is above all to
be known with our minds, hopefully, as extensively and as accurately as
possible; and, at the other extreme, there are others who think that love is
all that matters. Let us consider these
two attitudes a little more closely.
Many Catholics are perfectly content with themselves when
they go to Mass and receive the Sacraments on the appointed days, just as they
have always done: they say they know the faith; they were taught it at school
or received it in the instruction given them by a priest, say at conversion and
baptism, or when they were preparing for marriage. Thereafter, they merely fulfil the
obligations they originally accepted as part and parcel of the faith. Here we have an example of the truth
proclaimed being received with but a minimum of heart commitment: believers doing
what they have been taught, but no longer fulfilling with love that which they
themselves had, perhaps, originally sought and embraced with love. At the head of such disciples can be found
clerics of all levels who will ‘say’ Mass and give the Sacraments in double-quick
time; they will present Catholic doctrine and spirituality with words that are
nothing more than bloodless transcripts of Jesus’ words of life or of the
experience of saints revered throughout the Church: too often, that is, mere abstract
truths or cold mental concepts, apparently standing upright and firm only because
they are backed by ‘authority’.
On the other hand, those of the contrary inclination are
most content when they can give themselves exclusively to devotions or charity,
to social involvement or emotional prayers: these have a full heart, indeed,
but not infrequently, are somewhat dismissive of the idea that they might have any
true need for better appreciation or greater understanding of their faith. These Catholics rarely have any doubts about
themselves, they do not experience any need to ask about, search for, a deeper
understanding and appreciation of what they think they already know and most
firmly believe. They are totally
satisfied with their own warm heart, and fully approve of and uphold the
sincerity of their own intentions. And
yet, Jesus, early on in His public ministry, had lovingly yet unhesitatingly
declared of Samaritans encountered in His travels:
You worship what you do not know,
we worship what we know. (Jn. 4:21)
How many sects, originally enthusiastic disciples of Jesus,
have separated themselves from Mother Church over subsequent centuries because
of like ignorance of the will of God and
of the fullness of the maturity of Christ!
People of God, Jesus is come to bear witness to the truth
for us, and He tells us:
Everyone who is of the
truth hears My voice.
For Jesus’ disciples, His truth is ever a living and loving
issue whose beauty is to be unceasingly and increasingly admired, not just a
memory from the past, however firmly
fixed; nor can worship in His name ever be just ritual, no matter how
beautiful, but is essentially, a total and vital commitment with Him to the
Father and for the brethren, by the Holy Spirit.
So, People of God, on this feast of Christ the King of
Truth let us open both our minds and our hearts to Him in His Gospel
proclamation, that proclamation which continues to this very day to be made for
us and offered to us in and through Mother Church. It is not just to be remembered as ammunition
for argument; we have to increasingly appreciate and love it, by committing ourselves
to live for it and grow in it. Only thus
will we allow it to fulfil God’s purpose in our lives.
Jesus assures us that with God, Truth and Love are one; let
us also recall those other words of His to the effect that, what God has joined
together none of us should ever separate.
