This
feast of Christ the King has its origins in the years between the two
world wars of the twentieth century when totalitarianism was on the
rise: Fascism in Italy, National Socialism in Germany, Communism in the
Soviet Union. As a counterpoint to those godless grabs for power that
denied and trampled on basic human dignity, Pope Pius XI boldly placed
the figure of Christ the King, the most unlikely of kings – with no
armies, no weapons other than the truth, and no territorial ambitions
other than human hearts.
The
world situation has certainly changed since 1925 when this feast was
inaugurated, but the need for the feast is no less pressing. Soviet
Communism, Nazism, and Fascism may have disappeared – or not - but other
frightening ‘isms’ have not. Think, of the present rise of nationalism
and authoritarianism which distort the truth and cry out for a
confrontation with truth like the one between Jesus and Pilate in
today’s gospel.
The
confrontation began as a conversation, or more accurately, an
interrogation. Pilate, representing the imperial power of the Roman
Caesar, asks Jesus a simple question: “Are you the king of the Jews?”
Jesus, though on trial for his life, is serenely in charge of this
exchange. He answers by questioning Pilate: What prompts your question?
‘Are you asking this on your own or are you just repeating what you’ve
heard from others?’ At that point Pilate shifts to another line of
questioning: “What have you done?” he asks Jesus. But Jesus calmly stays
with the original question: ‘You asked me if I was a king. Let me tell
you about my kingdom. It’s not what you think. My kingdom is not about
power, it’s about truth’: “The reason I was born; the reason I came into
the world is to testify to the truth.” And with those words, Jesus put
Pilate on trial. He confronted him with the most important
question of all; namely, which is greater – power or truth?
For
me, that question is where the feast of Christ the King gets its present
and perennial relevance. It may have been a twentieth century
inspiration but it’s a twenty-first century imperative because power is
still more highly valued than truth - as is so evident from the
political currents awash in our country at this time and, indeed, across
the world. And so, we need a feast that runs counter to all the
prevailing political orthodoxies that suck from our world so much that
is good and beautiful and noble and true. Pilate’s cynical question to
Jesus, “What is truth?” was a chilling foreshadowing of today’s moral
relativism where there are no answers, only questions; no truth, only
what works.
But
Christ the prisoner, hands bound before Pilate, puts the lie to all
that. He is bound, yes, but he is free. And he freely speaks the truth
to power. And his freedom no one can take from him because his is an
inner freedom grounded in one thing only: the truth. “For this I was
born,” he says to Pilate, “and for this I came into the world, to
testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth hears my
voice.”
My
friends, those words of Jesus say it all. “Everyone who belongs to the
truth hears my voice.” Without equivocation or qualification, Jesus
identifies his voice, his Word, with the truth. He dares to say that
there is such a thing as truth and that he himself embodies it. That’s
quite a claim and it’s what gives this feast of Christ the King
particular relevance for our moment in time, for one of the great
challenges of our moment is to believe there is truth and to find the
truth, and Jesus says we find it by hearing his voice - by letting his
word, his gospel, pierce and penetrate our consciences for, my friends,
the gospel is just words on a page until it takes flesh in people’s
lives, in our lives.
And when it
does, we begin to see things differently – radically differently. Our
outlook begins to change – the way we look at everything: our world, our
nation, our work, our responsibilities, our relationships, our faith and
its many demands. Nothing stays the same. How different our lives are
when we take the gospel of Jesus seriously. Really seriously. It cuts
through everything like a two-edged sword, lays bare our deepest
thoughts, motivations, fears. It also liberates us – frees us to leave
our comfort zone and to follow wherever it is that Jesus wants to lead
us.
My
friends, it all begins in the court of our conscience but it is
cultivated in this community of faith we call the Church. Our response
to the gospel is always personal, yes, but it comes to life in
community. We live it - carry it out - in community. That’s why we’re
here; that’s why we keep coming here; that’s why, on the Lord’s Day, we
gather as a community of faith around the altar of Christ’s sacrifice,
the table of the Eucharist. Here, in a unique and powerful way, we
encounter Christ who is our life, our truth, our King. And this Christ
and his gospel can change everything: change hearts, change minds,
change us, and through us, even change the world!
Father Michael G. Ryan
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