A homily for The Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe
Dn 7:13-14, Rv 1:5-8, Jn 18:33b-37
If human kings throughout history had been one scintilla of the kind of king Jesus is, we Americans would not cringe at the thought of following a crowned head of state, let alone revering one.
But they weren’t, and we rebelled 2½ centuries ago, and we’re still a rebellious bunch. Empty seats in church are only one sign of many to make that point.
Jesus never claimed to be an earthly ruler, which disappointed many, many followers who wanted a warrior-king to throw the Romans out of Palestine and restore the Davidic line to the throne of Israel.
His kingdom, he reminded anyone who would listen, is not of this world and, as such, is not weighed down and corrupted by human frailties and failings and lusts and selfishness — the way the Herods’ or John Lackland’s were.
Jesus’s reign over his kingdom, his reign over the staggeringly vast universe, is a reign of love shaped by the mind of God.
No caprice. No petty whims. No moodiness.
Pure wisdom, the source of all wisdom and goodness.
Now, it’s valuable to remember that earthly kings — who are the examples we know best — embodied what today we recognize as three branches of government: legislative, executive and judicial. All rolled up into one.
The king made the laws with a wave of his scepter; he enforced them — by going to war, if necessary — and he judged anyone accused of violating those laws. The king handed down stiff punishments, often the death penalty. The king imposed taxes and rents. The king demanded honor and respect, regardless of whether he actually deserved it.
I wear the crown; bow down to me. I have the divine right of kings on my side.
Of course, if you have to say it, and say it more than once, then you don’t.
Jesus never said it because he never had to.
But in the millennia since Jesus died, rose and ascended home to Heaven, we’ve had a lot of bad kings, and they’re our touchstones.
So as we mark this relatively new feast of Christ the King, established in 1925, we need to put aside any notions we may have about kings or caesars or emperors and look at both the nature of the divine kingdom and how Jesus presides over it.
First, when we say universe, we mean all of it. The million billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy and the multimillion billion planets orbiting them. The million billion galaxies beyond the Milky Way and the stars and planets and black holes and dark matter and if your brain isn’t hurting you aren’t paying attention.
Yes, we’re talking about the literal universe that Ph.D. scientists aim telescopes and microscopes and bathyscopes at, not some figurative literary example of something kinda big up in the sky. No fairy tales; this is the universe documented in textbooks and lab journals.
God.
Created.
All.
Of.
It. Billions of years ago.
This universe and probably others, scientists say; maybe sequentially, maybe simultaneously.
All of it. That’s an incomprehensibly big “all of it.”
All of it. Which makes our Triune God even more incomprehensibly big, especially considering we each are invited to have a personal relationship with her. So big and yet so close.
Wow.
Through Creation, God established the laws of nature, many of which we understand, some of which we don’t, and likely even many more we have yet to uncover and discover.
When everything in the universe is obeying these laws, we see harmony. When one or more of these laws is violated or broken outright, we see damage and destruction, to all things animal, vegetable or mineral.
Break the law of gravity and someone gets hurt or something shatters. Break other natural laws and species go extinct.
God, through Jesus, the prophets and the Apostles, also revealed laws of proper living, of maintaining our relationships with the Almighty and with each other. These laws of loving God and loving our neighbors as ourselves work on two levels. There’s a “live and let live” aspect of respect and tolerance to them, meshed with a requirement to actively seek out injustice and inequality and remedy those evils.
We’re human; we don’t always color inside the lines when it comes to God’s laws. So when our heavenly king does enforce them, his judgment comes with love and mercy not usually seen in human royalty. God forgives, even if a brick wall does not.
And that is why we celebrate today.
We have a king who was there at the beginning of time and the start of the universe, and who will be there forever. Whose Creation is continuing while his laws remain constant and perfect. Who is the Alpha and the Omega.
We have a king who serves us, his servants, and who leads us home to eternal joy.
We have a king — at last! — worth following.
