The Solemnity of Christ the
King, 2013
2 Samuel 5:1-3
Psalm 122:1-2, 3-4, 4-5
Colossians 1:12-20
Luke 23:35-43
If
the importance of a word or concept in the Bible were to be judged by the
number of times it was used, then certainly the word KING would have the
greatest place of honor. There are no
less than 6,318 references to kings or kingdoms in the Bible. However, for nearly all of us the notion or
idea of king has little meaning since
this country broke away from England in 1776. In the United States we've never
known a king. Perhaps the only remnant of kings and queens is in our American
high schools when students chose a classmate to be crowned the king and queen
of the Junior Prom.
Normally
when we think of kings and queens we picture castles and crowns, jewels, pomp
and ceremony. We think of riches, power, and glamour. Today we honor Jesus as our King. The first public record of Jesus being
publicly named a king was right before he died.
Usually, a criminal carried the cross on which he would be nailed an in
front of him was a soldier who carried a sign written in Greek, Aramaic and
Latin giving the reason why this man was
crucified. But Pontius Pilate decided to change this tradition by he himself writing
in charcoal the words Jesus of Nazareth
King of the Jews on the top of the cross on which Jesus was nailed.
On some of the crosses you see these words are abbreviated by the
letters INRI.
Many
years ago an Italian artist worked for a long time on a very large piece of
marble. After years he gave it up,
saying I Can't do anything with this. He threw it away. Forty years
later another Italian artist from Florence by the name of Michaelangelo found
the marble in a pile of rubbish. He immediately saw that he might be able to do
something with it. After three years of carving he produced one of the world's
greatest sculptures known as David.
This
is the King David, son of Jesse, who lived 2500 years before
Michaelangelo, who is talked about in
the book of Samuel. He is the David that
wrote many of the prayers known as psalms. In his early life David had no
faith. He murdered persons whom he did
not like, and went against most of the
10 commandments that had been given to his Jewish ancestors. His father did not
think he could be a leader so he left him in the fields to take care of the
sheep. But somehow God saw the possibilities in the young farmer David. He
changed his way of life, and decided that he could do good for the people in
his country. He brought enemies together to talk about peace, and they
did. He led them to God. David never wanted to take this honor for
himself praying that everything is from God.
But they insisted that he be known as their King David.
In
a few weeks from now we will hear the Bible tell us that a person by the name
of Jesus will be born in Bethlehem who will be from the kingly line of David.
But
Jesus had none of what we usually associate with a kingly lifestyle. We honor a
person who has none of the ways of those kings.
Just try to image the scene when Jesus was publicly named a king: his
throne was a cross, his crown was made of thorns, his servants were his
executioners, and the people closest to him were common criminals. The cross
shows us the kind of king Jesus is: he
is one who cares for us right to the end. He cares enough to suffer and to
even give up his life for those he loves.
He cares enough to be misunderstood and rejected. He cares enough to
seem a failure. He is a king who cares, and is prepared to make any sacrifice
for the sake of those he loves.
Today's
Gospel reminds us just how personally Jesus fulfils his saving mission on
earth. Only in Luke's' Gospel do we find
this incident in which Jesus guarantees the salvation of one of the criminals crucified with him, the familiar
Good Thief. This thief, referred to as
Dismas, prays to Jesus as both are dying and says to Jesus: JESUS, REMEMBER ME WHEN YOU COME INTO YOUR
KINGDOM. Jesus remembers him and
tells him YOU WILL BE WITH ME IN
PARADISE.
Jesus
focuses on the necessity for us to follow him day by day. In the midst of all
difficulty and bad times, we find hope, words of encouragement, new life comes
to us. Within ourselves we find a renewal when new ideas let go of the bad and
painful. Old habits of sin must be
destroyed if the newness of Jesus is be part of us. Our future is one of
constant renewal. We are always in the process of renewing our responses to the
will of Jesus for us. We renew our spiritual life, not by world
shaking actions, but by actions that show we are thankful and loving: by
reading a book to a child; by listening to an elderly parent; by listening to a young person who feels
alone; by leading prayers at home at meal time; by teaching your children or
grandchildren about Jesus; by making Advent a time of preparation for the birth
of Jesus, and not just a time to buy more and more gifts.
If
Christ were in this church today he would be advising us that in God's kingdom
even the guilty can find welcome, no matter what their crimes, lifestyles and
misdeeds.
We
Christians and Catholic place the cross in prominent places in our homes and
often use it as part of what we might wear. But for centuries followers of
Jesus were often laughed at for putting their faith in a man who died on a
cross. They were embarrassed by the cross because it was considered a
punishment best suited for slaves, murderers, and members of the lowest class.
Christians were mocked for worshipping a criminal and his cross. But these same
Christians began to make the sign of the cross on their forehead and making the
sign of the cross like we do today. Objects were blessed by making the sign of
the cross over them. By the fourth century the cross was viewed with pride as a
symbol of what Jesus suffered for all people. And the crucifix became part of
Christian culture.
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