The Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ
I love Christmas. I hate Christmas commercials. I hate them for many reasons. They have ruined many Christmas melodies for me. But more importantly, I hate them because they have nothing to do with Christ or Christmas. They cheapen Christmas and everything Christmas represents. This is only an analogy. What Christmas commercials do to Christ and Christmas, we can easily do to Christ the King. We can make “Christ the King” what Christ is not, and celebrate that, which he himself rejected.
This is not new. Many people of Jesus’ time fell victim to this too. Palestine was under Roman occupation. It is not that the people did not have a king. They had Herod. However, he was not of the house of David, and at best, he was a Roman stooge. Neither Herod nor the Romans cared about God’s people. In this volatile situation, everybody in Palestine expected a Messiah. There was only one problem. There was little common understanding of what the Messiah would look like. The things that they agreed on were that the Messiah would come from the house of David and accomplish what David had accomplished for their nation – freedom, security, and peace. They expected the Messiah to be the new king David who would restore Israel to its glory days. Just like a Christmas commercial, Jesus was anything but this!
1. During his lifetime, Jesus did not exhibit any of the royal traits associated with the house of David. Jesus did not show an inclination to reclaim the military glory that David exhibited. Neither did he confront the Romans, nor did he instigate Herod. Jesus did not protest even when John the Baptist was beheaded. To top it all, Jesus’ message, the disciples he chose, the company that he kept, and most of all his ignominious death made it impossible to believe that he was the long-expected messiah. He never claimed a throne, he never touched a sword, and he never ruled over a people. In fact, from Israel’s perspective, he was an utter failure. As one of the criminals said, “Are you not the Christ?” (Lk 23:39). This is the same man who today the church honors as Universal King! Often, we can be like the Israel of Jesus’ times. Too often we too are tempted to associate Christ with temporal trappings of power – nation, military, race, and opulence. Christ teaches us that it not always about being great, or about winning, or about exhibiting power, or about triumphalism. The kingdom of God is based on a very different set of virtues –of love, of mercy, of inclusiveness, of community, of our common destiny. We’ve got to stay with Jesus, folks! We’ve got be part of the Kingdom of God.
2. I find today’s Gospel reading very intriguing. In the first part of the Gospel, Jesus is hanging on the cross. At his most vulnerable moment, the soldiers jeered at him and ridiculed him. But Jesus remained silent. In the second part of the reading, Jesus is still hanging on the cross. It was the criminals crucified along with him that broke the silence. And that is what it took for Jesus to break his silence. In his most vulnerable moment, Jesus did what he had all his life – opened Paradise to the most unlikely. On the cross it happened to be a repentant criminal. Right at that moment, on a bloody Calvary, on a gruesome cross, the kingdom of God was operative. How easy it is for us to find God in the opulent, the glorious, the magnificent, the luxurious, the beautiful! But in his life, that is not where Christ was to be found. He was found outside the city, hanging from a cross, naked, bruised, and bloody, being reviled by the powerful. God was found in the most unlikely of placed reconciling humanity to heaven. He is the King of kings. Even the plaque above his head said so. I am not sure where you look for Christ. I have learnt the hard way to look for Him in those on the peripheries. I learned it the hard way to look for Christ in the most vulnerable, the most abandoned, and the most unlikely. I have learned the hard way not to turn my face from those, the world, and sometimes the church, rejects. The reason I say I learnt it the hard way is this – because there was a day I realized that I am the repentant sinner who should be hanging next to the King of kings! If you have not realized that yet – today might be the day!
3. The more I realize the real meaning of the kingship of Jesus, the more I am in awe of Christ the king. Christ chose the ugliness of the cross, the suffering of the innocent, the struggle of the righteous, and the broken-heartedness of the sinner, to reveal his true identity. Today, in this Eucharist, Christ once again embraces the broken. The broken wheat, the broken bread, the broken people! This is our King and we are his people! To him we owe our life and salvation. To him we offer him homage!
Let us do him homage, Christ the Universal King.
- Fr. Satish Joseph