Solemnity of Christ The King of the Universe, 2022

Our King Is The Crucified One

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Solemnity of Christ The King of the Universe

St. Bridget Catholic Church, Minneapolis, MN

Sunday, November 20, 2022

Today we celebrate the Solemnity of Christ Jesus the King of the universe. Everything we say and write about him, everything we celebrate in relation to him is finally meant to affirm him as the King of our lives, as the King of the universe, the one to whom absolute obedience and allegiance is due. In the entire New Testament, no statement emphasizes the absolute preeminence of Jesus Christ stronger than what St. Paul said in today’s second reading: “Jesus is the image of the invisible God...” God is invisible. We can’t see him. But if you want to know what God looks like, look at Jesus! If you want to get some ideas of what God looks like, look at Jesus. Look at what the authors of the Gospels say about him. If you pray before an icon, the icon becomes for you a window to the actual figure. For you, the icon is not just a pretty picture; it is meant to be a window to the truth behind it. When you pray before the icon of the Mother of Perpetual Help, the icon becomes a window through which the Blessed Mother is present to you. St. Paul is saying here that Jesus is the icon of the invisible God. God himself is present to you when you look at Jesus.

But what does Jesus look like? Let’s go to Golgotha, a garbage dump outside Jerusalem. Golgotha was the place where people were crucified, where criminals were put to death. At Golgotha a young Galilean Jew who proclaimed himself to be the long awaited Messiah was dragged to. Prior to this deeply sad event, he had appeared on the hills of Galilee, preached with unprecedented and alarming boldness. He also performed great miracles of healing and demonstrated a mastery over the forces of nature. He spoke and acted, not like a typical Jewish prophet, but as God. As a result of all these, huge crowds of people came to him. Some were drawn to him out of love; others out of curiosity, while others, out of jealousy and hatred. But at a climatic moment of his ministry, his haters got him arrested and brought him to Golgotha. With his arrest, his followers abandoned him. All those who were once with him left him. He was alone. At Golgotha, in this garbage dump, they stripped him naked and pinned him to a terrible instrument of torture— the cross. He is surrounded by a brutal band of soldiers who specialized in putting people to death. To make matter worse, as they walked by, they pointed at him, laughed at him, made fun of him. The onlooking people shook their heads not out of pity but out of disdain. The irony here is that he is the one that St. Paul is talking about. He is the image of the invisible God. He is the Lord of of lords. He is the King of kings. He is the one in whom all things hold together. He is the beginning, the middle and the end of all reality. He is God from God and light from light. He is through God from through God.

With these in mind we all can now see that our notion of kingship is sadly mistaken. Our notion of power, majesty, and lordship has very little to do with the real thing. Consider the things they said to Jesus on the cross, and it will help you understand how we get things right and wrong: “The rulers sneered at Jesus and said, ‘He saved others, let him save himself if he is the chosen one, the Christ of God.’ Even the soldiers jeered at him…. if you are the King of the Jews, save yourself.” Add to that, one of the criminals reviled Jesus and said, “Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us.” Their mockery contains the key. It contains the clue. What do we think kingship means? Power! Authority! Domination! For us, kingship means the capacity to save yourself. If you have enough money, if you are Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk or Bill Gates etc. or a billionaire, you have saved yourself from most of the inconveniences of life. If you have enough political power, enough political clout, you can save yourself. If you have enough cultural influence, you can save yourself from embarrassment, from humiliation and from being forgotten. To be king is to be able to protect yourself. But the irony here is that the true King, Christ the King is not the one who saves himself, but the one who forgets himself in love. The true King is not the one who saves himself, but the one who dies as he saves others. The true King is not the one who aggrandize his ego, but the one who gives it away. He is not the one who fills himself up, but the one who empties himself out. 

Sisters and brothers, this is the icon of the invisible God. Do you want power in your life? Stop filling up your life with the goods of this world. Empower others. Do you want life? Save others. Do you want to be saved, redeemed? Help someone else find Jesus. Do you want to be protected? Reach out and protect someone else. If you want to know the Alpha and the Omega and everything in-between, perform a simple act of love. That’s how you become a loyal subject of Christ the King. I guess it is not what you expected. It is not what the world tells us over and over again. But the true King is the one who gives himself away.