Word to the Wise
Sunday, November 22, 2015 - 34th or Last Sunday in Ordinary Time - B: The Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ the King
[Dan 7:13-14; Rev 1:5-8; John 18:33b-37]"You say I am a king. For this I was born and for this iIcame into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice." [John]
OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST, KING OF THE UNIVERSE
Every once in awhile I hear college students cry, "So and so RULES." I think this means they consider whatever it is to be the best of its kind. In 1925, Pope Pius XI started this feast with the idea of saying that nationalism and secularism do not have the last word in the ultimate scheme of things. Then Pope Paul VI decided that to be thorough the whole universe should be included! The basic idea is that Jesus should be dominant in human affairs and persons. The political analogy of "king" is not one that we in America find helpful unless we are fans of the celebrity news of European royalty in the pages of PEOPLE MAGAZINE.
The scene in the Gospel of John, which serves as the gospel scripture for this feast in Cycle B, is more instructive. Pilate thinks in political terms. He was always interested in finding some way to irritate the Jews and also to cover himself politically - i.e. to put down any challenge to Roman authority. He could see that Jesus was no "king" in any of the senses of other Jewish revolutionaries that had tried to overthrow the Roman authority. It was politically expedient to give the mob someone to sacrifice. By putting an inscription on the cross giving Jesus the title, "the King of the Jews," he succeeded in irritating the Jewish authorities. Pilate responded to Jesus by saying, "What is truth?" The truth was standing in front of him, but he was blinded by his politically convenient notion of truth (Lordy, that sounds like the current political debates!).
That truth continues to stand before us as a "ruling" reality for our faith. If Jesus is a king, it is because he stands at the center of our lives and of all creation. AMEN
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