November 20, 2009
Sunday Scripture
Christ the King
BY FATHER DONALD DILGER
There are three cycles of readings for Sunday liturgies, cycles A, B, C. Today we end Cycle B. The main source of our Sunday gospel readings during this year was the Gospel of Mark. Occasionally the readings were taken from the Gospel of John. In fact, during July and August most of the readings were from the sixth chapter of John’s gospel. For this final Sunday of Cycle B we again switch from Mark to John. It is the feast of Christ the King. This feast day always replaces the semi-retired liturgy of the 34th Sunday in Ordinary Time, which can still be used on days following the feast of Christ the King.
Pope Pius XI instituted this feast in 1925. By this act he intended to counteract secularism and atheism. The feast was originally celebrated on the last Sunday of October. When Pope Paul VI, 1963-1978, reformed the Roman Catholic liturgical calendar, the feast was transferred to the last Sunday of Ordinary time, the Sunday before the First Sunday of Advent. The liturgy of the feast celebrates the rule of Jesus over individuals, families, society in general, over the state and the universe. It affirms Jesus as the king who obtained his kingdom thru the shedding of his blood in redemption of the human race. Biblically speaking, the feast of the Ascension of Jesus is the original celebration of Jesus as king, that is, his return to glory and exaltation “at the right hand of the Father.” Today’s liturgy reinforces the themes of the liturgy of the Ascension.
Today’s gospel is part of the trial of Jesus before Pilate. The earlier gospels, Mark, Matthew, Luke, depict a mostly silent Jesus at his trial. John takes a different approach. Jesus in fact takes over the trial after Pilate’s question, “Are you the King of the Jews?” Pilate seems intrigued by the pathetic-looking figure standing before him, so the question may have been one of some mockery. It is also John’s irony coming into play here. What is meant as mockery is actually true. This is even more evident in the mocking title Pilate ordered to be put at the top of Jesus’ cross, “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.”
By responding with a question John makes it clear that this pathetic figure is not only the equal to Pilate, but is his superior. He puts Pilate on trial by asking what seems like a discourteous question, “Do you say this on your own or have others told you this about me?” Because of Pilate’s next response, Jesus’ impertinent question of his judge has to mean, in John’s mind, that Jesus implied his kingship even over Pilate. Pilate takes offense. “Am I a Jew?” Then he notes where such an idea came from, not from himself but from “your own nation and the chief priests.” They are the ones, says Pilate, who turned Jesus over to him complete with accusations.
Finally, John comes to the heart of what he wants to teach by this episode, that Jesus is indeed a king, but not as the world understands the role of king. “My kingdom does not belong to this world . . ., nor is it from here. For this I was born and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Whoever belongs to the truth listens to my voice.” Throughout John’s gospel Jesus rejected attempts to make of him a king in the secular sense. If Jesus’ rule and his kingdom were ever fully realized on this earth, what would it be like? The Preface for the Feast of Christ the King responds, “A kingdom of truth and life, holiness and grace, justice, love, and peace.”
The authors of the Book of Daniel describe the hero of their book having a vision of four beasts coming up out of the sea. The beasts are symbols of kingdoms that have oppressed the Jewish people at various points in their history. At the end of the vision of the oppresing beasts Daniel sees a human being (a son of man) approaching the Ancient of Days (God). The Ancient One gives the human being “dominion, glory, and kingship.” He will be served by all peoples, nations, and languages. His kingdom will be eternal. From early on, Christian teachers interpreted this vision of Daniel, about 165 B.C., as predictive of the kingdom of Jesus, not a kingdom to be fully realized here on earth, but one that would reach its completion only in the hereafter.
This reading speaks of the risen Jesus as “ruler of the kings of the earth.” That he won his kingdom by shedding his blood is recognized, “To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood, made us into a kingdom . . . to him be glory and power forever.” The final sentence equates Jesus with God, “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet. (The Book of Revelation was written in Greek.) The saying is based on Isaiah 41:4, where God speaks, “I, the Lord, the first and with the last; I AM.” If this was not clear enough, John more clearly proclaims Jesus as God by adding these words to Jesus as the Alpha and the Omega, “the one who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty One.”