Our Old Testament Reading for Christ the King presents us with a stark contrast with the kingship of Christ. You can see and hear me give this Homily on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iva3P35jbuE
If you were to read the three Chapters that come before this Reading from 2 Samuel (5:1-3) you would see that David’s kingship is very worldly, for he comes to power by defeating his enemies in war. At the beginning of Chapter 3 the author actually says, “The war between the house of Saul and the house of David lasted a long time. David grew stronger and stronger, while the house of Saul grew weaker and weaker.” It is in this context that the people of Israel eventually make a pact with David in which he is proclaimed their King. There’s no freedom here, and certainly no loyalty or love. They do so because they have to.
Of course, there is at least one element of the kingship of Jesus that we can find there. A king is one who inspires his people and leads them in battle against the enemy, and Jesus certainly does that; but his battle is won by love and sacrifice, and the enemy he leads us against is a spiritual not a physical one, what St Paul calls “The spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” (Eph 6:12) On the whole however, I think it’s better to see these two kinds of kingship in complete contrast with one another; otherwise we are in danger of turning our following of Jesus into a battle, and that’s not what Jesus would want is it.
I took a school Assembly this week and, after thinking about how to present this kind of kingship to them, I came up with the idea that the modern equivalent of the kingship of Jesus is not a king fighting a battle, and definitely not a king sitting on a throne with a crown on his head; rather the kingship of Jesus is more like that of the Captain of a Team. Of course, they liked the idea of bringing football into an Assembly, and it’s certainly a particularly appropriate analogy as we mark the beginning of the Football World Cup. Here in England, it is Harry Kane who is our Captain and hopefully will lead our team to victory. And how will he do that? Well not by shouting at them, nor being angry with them if they make a mistake; rather his task is to encourage them to give of their best, to be gentle with them if they make a mistake, and to inspire them with his words of wisdom, and with his own footballing skills. And most important his job is to realise and put into action the fact that he cannot win the game by himself; he needs every member of the Team to show how good they are in their various positions and to help them to work together. Only in that way might they win the victory that they hope for.
In one sense of course, Jesus is not like that, because he does win the victory by himself. He alone can defeat the powers of evil by his death on the cross, which is why, as he died, he can say to the thief hanging beside him with absolute authority, “Indeed, I promise you,… today you will be with me in paradise.” But although he alone is the victor in the battle, we are all players in his Team. Indeed St Paul puts it very dramatically, talking about his own suffering, when he says that in that suffering he is “Completing what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church.” (Col 1:24) This surely reminds us that as Christians we’re called to be part of Christ not just followers of Christ, so that our offering of ourselves in sacrificial love, small though that offering may be, becomes part of Christ’s one offering, is drawn into that one offering, that brings salvation to the world. This is why the Mass is called a sacrifice because by it we are made one with the one perfect sacrifice of Christ, and our little sacrifices are made part of his.
But we must go further even than this, because Jesus makes clear that he “Can do nothing on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise.” (John 5:19)And if this is the case, then everything we do too is in the end part of God acting in the world. That might seem presumptuous, but it is actually our great calling – to be God to the world. St Augustine puts it well in one of his sermons dealing with people who say “How can we rejoice in the Lord if he is far from us?” And he replies “Pray God he may not be far. If he is, that is your doing. Love, and he will draw near; love, and he will dwell within you. The Lord is at hand; have no anxiety. Are you puzzled to know how it is that he will be with you if you love? God is love.”
The priest praises God at every Mass today that he has “Anointed… our Lord Jesus Christ, with the oil of gladness as eternal Priest and King of all creation, so that, by offering himself on the altar of the Cross…..he might accomplish the mysteries of human redemption and might present to the immensity of your majesty an eternal and universal kingdom, a kingdom of truth and life, a kingdom of holiness and grace, a kingdom of justice, love and peace. (Preface for Christ the King) In and through the cross of Jesus, we are assured that the victory has been won, but it is up to us to make that victory as real as we can for our generation; and we can only do this in and with Jesus, only by being linked to him in faith and love. Jesus warns us that it is not enough to say the words that we love him and serve him, we have to do so in his power not in our own. That is why prayer, listening to God being open to God, is the heart of being a Christian. Then, however feeble we think our efforts may be, and despite our sins and failings, we are part of the bringing in of the kingdom of God. “Thy kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven” Or as we hear at the beginning of our 2nd Reading (Col 1:12-20) God “Has made it possible for us to join the saints and with them to inherit the light.
Because that is what he has done: he has taken us out of the power of darkness and created a place for us in the kingdom of the Son that he loves.”
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