“I think you’ve all noticed even during the last couple weeks during our weekly readings and certainly you’ll notice for the first week of Advent that we will begin next week, the readings are what we call apocalyptic, in other words they pertain to end times. They have a lot of cosmic imagery because really the season we’re about to enter, Advent, focuses first more even than Christmas, focuses first on the Lord’s coming at the end of days or the end of our days at least. Today again we have this apocalyptic imagery of end times and the prophet Daniel, which really in some ways is inspiration for the book of Revelation. ‘We see one like the son of man coming in the clouds of Heaven and to the Ancient One,’ which represents God the Father. This son of man figure foretells Jesus, the image of Jesus and in the scripture we see dominion, glory and kingship. All peoples, nations and languages serve him it says. Jesus Christ is king of the universe, king of all creation, His dominion is everlasting.
In the book of Revelation, the second reading today, Jesus is the faithful witness, the first born of the dead, ruler of the kings of the Earth. He’s king of kings and lord or lords, Revelation Chpt 19 says. When he comes in glory everyone then will know that He is king. There will be no doubt to His identity then and the scriptures say, ‘All will lament.’ There will be a deep sadness of what sin has done, the impact of sin, the price that had to be paid for it, but amazingly even though all will know he’s king, not all will repent. Many will we hope. There will be repentance, a conversion, but some will have hardened hearts and even then will not repent. For some it will be a day of immense hope, for others a day of unimaginable horror.
In the Gospel today, Jesus is questioned before Pilate. Jesus’ kingdom does not belong to this world, he tells Pilate. In other words, it’s not a kingdom found on domination or fear or oppressive power, of lording over, but a kingdom founded in truth and in love. That’s the kingdom that Jesus ushered in. He said, ‘I came into the world and testified to the truth and everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.’ Jesus says. In 1925 Pope Pius XI instituted this feast that we celebrate today, the feast of Christ the King. The Pope at that time was very aware of what was happening in Europe. Fascism was on the rise. The black shirts under Mussolini were already in power in Italy, a rabble rouser called Adolph Hitler had just become leader of the Nazi party in Germany, dictatorships were on the increase. Many of them were of a militaristic and atheistic nature especially the Soviet Union. What the Pope was saying to the world in creating this feast day was that despite such dictatorships and their claims Jesus was still king of all. On this feast of Christ the King, we are invited to reflect on Jesus’ kingship, his lordship in our own lives. Do we live as subjects of Christ the King? The whole notion of kingship is odd for us Americans. We kind of bristle at it. We were found rebelling against that kind of kingship. C.S. Lewis uses a house metaphor. He says, ‘Do we receive Christ into just our drawing room or do we allow Him in all the rooms of our house?’ This feast day invites us to ponder that. Do we allow Him in our family life? Do we treat all in our family with dignity, never manipulating, never taking advantage, never domineering, willing to serve one another generously? In our prayer life, does Christ reign? Do we pray? Do we seek union with our king and communion with Him in prayer? In our personal, social and even sexual lives does Christ the King reign? For priests and religious, do we honor our pledge to celibacy and to purity? For singles, do we remain chaste despite the ways of the world that invites us otherwise? For married spouses, do we self-donate to one another, generously open to life using only legitimate means to plan and time birth? In business, if Christ reigns in that room of our life we must speak up sometimes when immoral decisions are being made or when people are being used as instruments of gain and not ends in themselves? Are we willing to risk even a promotion to speak the truth? In politics, does Christ reign and form our decisions, our choices, our activity? The reign of Christ if He is truly king should be evident in our actions and our choices. If we moved into a new neighborhood would the neighbors immediately know that Christ reigns in our lives? Would our actions speak that truth?
Ignatius of Antioch way back in the first century, maybe the early second century said, ‘Do not have Jesus Christ on your lips, but the world in your heart.’ St. Paul in his letter to the Galatians indicated the Christ is the lord of his life by saying, ‘It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.’ If that’s not true for you, if the Lord does not reign in your life, or if he occupies just one room of the many rooms of your house it’s not too late. There’s time to change that. Jesus invites all of us to welcome Him as king of our life, to reign in our hearts and in all that we do, to let the truth to which He testified reign in every room of our house so to speak, to let the Lord’s voice resonate in our mind, heart, and in our life’s choices. ‘I came into the world to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth’, Jesus said, ‘listens to my voice.’ This feast affirms and invites us to allow Jesus to reign as lord and king of all and especially as lord in all aspects of our lives. All hail, Christ the King!”