In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
“If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!”
Picture the scene. On a hillside outside an old Middle Eastern city: a naked Jew, who had been beaten and tortured is now nailed to a tree. He’s covered in sweat and blood. He’s suffocating. A crowd looks on. They had heard about this miracle-worker, this healer. Some had said he was David’s heir. Now look at him. The Roman soldiers too had heard the stories, and now look at him. Looking into that pathetic, brutalized face, you could be pretty confident: whoever he was, he was obviously not David’s heir, obviously not a king. He’s dying in the scorching heat. The soldiers put vinegar on a sponge and shove it in his face. They call out to him: “If you really are the King of the Jews, you should be able to save yourself!” This is not a manifestation of the Kingdom of God. This is a cold and impartial display of the WORLD’S power, the long arm of Caesar’s justice.
Today is the feast of Christ the King, and today’s Gospel reading advertises itself as a depiction of Christ coming into his Kingdom. This brutalized, dying Galilean, nailed to a tree, covered in blood, struggling to breathe, THIS is the Lord of Life, the King of Kings. And Jesus isn’t portrayed in the Gospels as merely the VICTIM of injustice on this hillside outside Jerusalem. Rather his agony is supposed to be the very core of his Kingship. His suffering and death are WHAT IT IS for him to be King. In this respect, the taunts and mockery of the onlookers is an element of Gospel irony. The bystanders and the soldiers GET IT without realizing that they’ve gotten it. Its like when the Jesus heals and forgives the Paralytic and the Pharisees ask say: “Who can forgive sins but God alone?” And you want to shout at them: YES! That’s right! God alone can forgive sins, and here is Jesus of Nazareth forgiving sins! What does that mean to you? And here on the cross we have again this ironic mockery that drives right to the core of Jesus’ identity: Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews. Its written in three languages over his head, for all the world to see.
This is what the Kingdom of God looks like in a world corrupted by the power of sin. This cross, this IS the triumph of God’s love for mankind within the context of mankind’s attenuation and sickness – within the very framework of human existence, where people are self-seeking an abusive and licentious, where we defraud and kill one another – when Pure Love injects itself into the midst of such a world, it will triumph, and its triumph will take the form of a Cross on a hillside outside Jerusalem. It will look like a man stripped and abandoned and mocked and beaten and killed. This is Christ the King, reigning from the Cross, crowned with thorns, abandoned, dying, and finally: dead.
And we must remember the words of Christ the King: whoever would be my disciple must deny himself and TAKE UP HIS CROSS and FOLLOW ME. This is what your life will, in some sense, look like if you are going to be his disciple. Its no wonder Jesus said “For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few” (Matt. 7.14). The route to eternal life and happiness goes straight through the Sacred Heart of Jesus, pierced with the soldier’s lance; straight through his broken body. And who wants to go to Jerusalem and die with him? [cf. John 11.16]
Lately I’ve been reading about the Christero Rebellion in Mexico during the 1920’s. Under president Plutarco Calles, the Church in Mexico suffered fairly intense persecution. Calles had made it illegal for priests to wear clerical dress outside of their churches, or to comment publicly on affairs of state. Offenses were punished by enormous fines and imprisonment. Thousands of Christians were killed by the government, including many priests and religious. The rallying cry of the Christeros was “Viva Christo Rey!” “Long live Christ the King!”
In 1927 a Jesuit named Fr Miguel Pro was arrested on trumped-up charges of having tried to assassinate the former president. On November 23, 1927 – 80 years ago almost to the day – Fr Miguel was taken from his cell into a courtyard to face a firing squad. He knelt briefly in prayer and blessed his executioners. He declined a blindfold and instead stood serenely facing the firing squad. He stretched out his arms in the form of a cross, and spoke to his executioners. These were his final words: “May God have mercy on you! May God bless you! Lord, you know that I am innocent! With all my heart I forgive my enemies! Long live Christ the King!” The rifles fired but Fr Miguel was only wounded. One of the soldiers stepped forward and shot him point blank, and he was dead. The execution was meticulously recorded by the government, and photographs of Fr Miguel facing the soldiers with outstretched arms appeared in the newspapers the following day.
Viva Christo Rey. Long live Christ the King.
Fr Miguel’s king was Jesus Christ. Fr Miguel recognized the claim that Christ had on his life, and he refused the easy road of compromise and equivocation. He chose instead the narrow gate and the hard way that leads to life. He gave every ounce of himself in the service of Christ the King. And there can be no doubt that Fr Miguel heard those wonderful words “Well done good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of your Master.”
Today we commemorate Christ the King. But it is not a “commemoration” in the sense that we remember Christ the King, but in the sense that we remember THAT Christ is OUR King. This day should be a reminder of the claim Christ has on our lives. He is our sovereign. He purchased us on the cross. He shed his blood so that we might not be defeated by the powers of this world – whether they be persecutions or sickness or loneliness or poverty or death itself. These natural powers no longer have the final say for those who have given themselves over to the sovereignty of Jesus. We now belong to HIM. And he has elected us to eternal life and unending joy with him. And the balance of our lives in this world must therefore be given to his service. All of our efforts and decisions should be oriented toward his glory and the fulfillment of his purpose. With each circumstance in which we find ourselves, with each relationship, with each choice with which we are faced, the determinative question must be: How may I glorify Christ in this situation? In this relationship? In this decision? What may I do here to carry out his will? How may I serve him? For Fr Miguel and countless throngs of martyrs down through the centuries, serving Christ meant suffering and death. We may be thankful that that will likely not be our fate. But we should remember that the word “martyr” in Greek means “to bear witness.” And in that sense, each day of our lives, each circumstance, should be a little martyrdom, a little bearing-witness to the Sovereignty of Jesus Christ.
My prayer for each of us is that we will find the courage to seek this narrow gate, this difficult way that leads to life, and that our cry each step along the way will be, with Blessed Miguel Pro:
Viva Christo Rey. Long live Christ the King.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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