Feast of Christ the King 25.10.09
The most recognizable symbol of Our Lord’s life is the Crucifix. It may seem strange to call someone hanging on a Cross the King of the whole universe. It is not just that He rose again from the dead. We could say, Sure He was crucified but that was only a temporary setback. No, we go out of our way to emphasize the Cross; we make it the centre of our whole religion.
On the Cross Our Lord demonstrates His self-giving love. It is this love which defines in what way He is the King. My kingdom is not of this world, Our Lord told Pilate. In allowing Himself to be crucified He acted unlike other kings, who usually assert their power by putting other people to death, but not themselves.
He sets the tone for the rest of us, who would be His disciples. If we are to belong to this Kingdom we also must be prepared to serve others, even to the point of laying down our lives.
The Kingdom of God is not so much a place as a way of life. When we pray Thy Kingdom come, we are praying that we and others live in the way of humility and service. The Kingdom ‘comes’ when I and a lot of other people take God seriously enough to obey and worship Him.
By His life and death Our Lord was teaching us something, but He was also establishing a new way of life. He was not just ‘giving a lecture’ about how humanity should operate. He put it into practice and led the way. He changed the condition of the human race, repaired what Adam had lost.
Adam had dominion over everything. He was king. He forfeited his authority through sin. Creation then started to work against man. From then on animals might eat you; plants might not grow; the body would rebel against the soul; and men would kill one another.
The second Adam was also King and He regained dominance of the whole world by complete obedience to His Father.
If we obey God creation will obey us! It is as simple as that. Our Lord, in His humanity, gave complete obedience to God, and this restored humanity to peace with creation, including other humanity.
(This is why saints are able to work miracles. They are invoking their own exceptional obedience to God and the powers of nature will obey them in turn.)
Most of us do not have much power on this basis, because we are still rebellious against the will of God.
We must learn to obey the King and the more we do that the more order and concord will come back into our world; and the further we take it the better it gets. Even just as individuals we can do a lot of good.
We cannot predict exactly what will happen but all of it will be for the good. There might still be suffering because that is the way of Christ, but will be towards a good result.
The key for us is to be humble enough to fit in with God’s plan. If we assert ourselves we create rebellion and a lot of trouble. If we humble ourselves before Him and obey we become channels of His peace and the Kingdom takes hold.
The Kingdom can flourish only when people are and remain humble. So why make trouble where there is none? The devil will be trying to stir the waters all the time and he often succeeds, but we learn to see him coming.
Our Lord does not force His kingdom on us. We retain the right to choose, but we cannot choose the outcomes of our choice. If we reject Him we will have the roof fall on us in all sorts of ways.
So, come on board and taste real freedom, even your own power to make things happen. Our own share of creativity is waiting to be discovered.
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