Jesus Christ King of the Universe B (2012)
You often hear this feast called ‘Christ the King’
and when it was introduced in the 1920s that was indeed its name.
But in 1969, as part of the liturgical renewal,
its name was changed:
Christ, King of the Universe,
and it was moved to be the last Sunday before Advent.
The new name resonates with the opening prayer of the Mass:
It is worth just letting a few phrases from that sink in:
Almighty ever-living God,
whose will is to restore all things – all things –
in your beloved Son, the King of the universe,
grant, we pray,
that the whole creation – the whole creation, set free from slavery,
may render your majesty service
and ceaselessly proclaim your praise.
Our faith is that Jesus, in his humanity,
is the focal point of the whole of creation.
He unites, he reconciles, he fills all things. [Eph1:10,Col 1:20, Eph 1:23]
Each year, at the start of our Easter Celebration
Jesus Christ is proclaimed as
the Beginning and the End of everything
and the candle is marked with
Alpha and the Omega
the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet:
recalling today’s second reading
I am the Alpha and the Omega,
who is, who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.
Jesus is King of the Universe, not simply as God,
for that is not to say much, that is the nature of God;
he is King of the Universe as a human being,
precisely in his sharing in the created order.
This is all very well, but how should we understand ‘King’?
We do have to be careful.
Jesus said, loud and clear, in today’s gospel:
‘Mine is not a kingdom of this world’
All our ideas on feudal monarchy
– on power, on law-making, on governing, on conquering –
have the potential to draw us away
from the beauty and mystery of this feast.
We should try to lay these ideas aside.
Jesus says:
Yes I am a King. I was born for this,
I came into the world for this: to bear witness to the truth
These are powerful, powerful words:
among the greatest treasures in John’s gospel.
Here, standing before Pilate,
Jesus articulates his mission in a few words.
Ordinarily, kings are kings by birth right: they are born into it.
Prince Charles will be king because he was the first-born of his mother.
Jesus declares – even proclaims –that he is King:
King by birth, as one would expect, I was born for this,
but then, even more profoundly,
King by his entering into creation,
I came into the world for this.
Then we get the key,
the meaning of ‘being King’:
it is bearing witness to the truth.
This is not at all what we expect.
It hardly seems connected to the idea of King –
and that is exactly the point, for:
‘Mine is not a kingdom of this world’
In this King, there is no compulsion,
no insisting on anything,
no lauding it over others,
no arbitrariness.
Instead, there is bearing witness to the truth.
This witness goes far beyond the truth of propositions,
the truth that touches the mind only.
It is about all truth, deep truth:
truth about God,
truth about humanity,
truth about creation,
truth about the relationship between these three.
At baptism we are joined to Christ, we share in his mission:
For, as our second reading said: Jesus has made us a line of kings.
So a child’s baptism is followed immediately by an anointing,
recalling that Christ was anointed King.
By baptism we are invited, and enabled, to live like Kings,
following the pattern of our King.
Now, we understand that this means –
that we have the honour of bearing witness to the truth:
the truth that creation is a gift from God,
to be cherished and understood;
the truth that every person is as close to us as a brother or sister;
the truth that God is our loving Father.