OUR LORD JESUS CHIRST, KING

[cappie]

We come to the last Sunday of this liturgical year, and our year-long celebration of all the wonders that God has done for us culminates in the feast of Christ the King. Crowning the liturgical year, we profess and rejoice that Christ is King of the Universe, Lord of all creation, and that he is Lord of our lives, individually and communally.

In 1925, as the world was being gripped by nationalist, secularist, anti-Semitic, and authoritarian-fascist dictators like in the old Roman Empire, Pope Pius XI instituted Christ the King Sunday to refocus the Church, the Body of Christ on Earth, on why we are here at all.  No doubt, Pius XI would recognize the signs of a similar gathering darkness once again, throughout the world today: so-called “strong men,” dictators, and fascist governments are once again promising peace and prosperity but delivering nothing close.

It is our God’s tender compassion, which one sees at work even as Jesus is already nailed to a Roman cross. The scene, as Luke describes it, is dark. They are at the Place of the Skull, a hillside outside the city gates of Jerusalem, where the Romans have crucified countless others considered, like Jesus, a threat to the empire (Luke 23:33-43). As Jesus is crucified alongside two other criminals, he forgives the soldiers doing the empire’s work, “for they do not know what they are doing.” People in the crowd and leaders of the community are mocking Jesus. If indeed he is the Christ, the Savior of God’s people, why does he not save himself? Why doesn’t he order his followers, who are many, to revolt? The disciples and the reader all know, however, that is not the way of God’s love, mercy, and forgiveness.

Then, one of the criminals also crucified joins in the jeering:  ‘Are you not the Christ? save yourself and us as well.’  But the other says, “Have you no fear of God at all?’ he said. ‘You got the same sentence as he did, but in our case we deserved it: we are paying for what we did. But this man has done nothing wrong.” He continued, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” He replied, “Indeed, I promise you,’ he replied ‘today you will be with me in paradise.” We hear Luke’s Passion every three years on Palm Sunday.  That is, we can all be with Christ, whom Pope St Paul VI calls “the King of the Universe.”

As the author of Colossians reminds us, in agreement with the opening words of John’s Gospel, this Jesus, the Christ, the Word, was with God before Creation itself, and is “He is the image of the unseen God and the first-born of all creation,” (Colossians 1:11-20). This is the Universal Christ and King of the Universe itself. The Good News for all is that the kingdom of God’s beloved Son, in whom we have redemption and forgiveness, is open to all today, here and now. For the cross was not the end of the story. It was just the beginning of the reign of the resurrected Christ, whose Spirit is with us and in us at all times.  

The Franciscan Sister Ilia Delio, in her book The Primacy of Love, reminds us of the power of this moment with Christ on the cross. The reign of Christ, this Paradise he promises us here today, means that “each person is a divine creative work of love.” We are all created in the image of God and represent God’s special and distinct love for each person. She goes on to speak of that powerful and early follower of St. Francis, Clare of Assisi. Clare, in correspondence with Agnes of Prague (the sister of King Wenceslas!), urges us to meditate on the image, the icon, of Christ on the cross every day, for it is a mirror of our hearts: “Study your face within it, so that you may be adorned with virtues within and without.” Delio then asks the reader, “Does your face reflect what is in your heart? When the image of who we are reflects what we are; when our face reflects what fills the heart, then we image Christ, the image of love incarnate, God’s agape.”

  As Albert Nolan, a Dominican priest from South Africa, writes in his book, Jesus Today, “For some, the greatest relief of all is the experience of freedom from guilt. Our wrongdoing will never be held against us. We are forgiven. We are free.” We are freed to be with Jesus in paradise today. This is Jesus’ final declaration from the cross. This is what the “mirror saint” Clare wants all of us to see as we gaze at Christ on the cross. May God forgive us, may Christ renew us, and may the Spirit enable us to grow in Christ’s love, mercy, and compassion for all persons, and all creation itself. Amen.