CHRIST THE KING

The Once and Future King 

I recently had the chance to travel to Scotland, a land with a long and complex history of kings. I couldn’t keep track of all the various kings, dynasties, and available heirs — all the clans, along with their many grudges, feuds, and efforts to kill off each other. Most of them either died violently or survived by inflicting violence on others. Hearing about their power grabs and clashes with rival clans sounded to me like gang warfare. But, as discouraging as the politics of our secular age are, I’m glad we’ve never had to deal with a king here. 

Which leads to the question of why have a king in the first place, and what makes a great king. At its best, having a king provides a kingdom with at least three things: meaning, membership, and moral guidance. We have an incomplete idea of kingship here, thinking it’s mostly about pageantry, Buckingham Palace, or the latest gossip about the royal family. But at the core of a king is his purpose: to serve and protect his people. Shakespeare’s King Henry VI voiced this when he said, “My crown is in my heart, not on my head.”  A king’s purpose lies not in a crown made of diamonds and gold but in his love for his people and his service to them.  A good king helps us to define the boundaries of a good life. Or even a holy life. 

Today the Church gives us the feast of Christ the King, and today’s readings are awash with imagery of kings and kingdoms. We find Christ attesting to the truth of his kingship: that his divine kingship “does not belong to this world” (Jn 18:36). We learn in the first reading that “one like a Son of man received dominion, glory and kingship” (Dn 7:14), hear in the responsorial psalm that “The Lord is king; he is robed in majesty” (Ps 93:1), and hear from the Book of Revelation that Christ is the ruler of the kings of the earth and he has made us into a kingdom. In other words, Christ’s kingdom doesn’t exist only in some future or perplexing heaven; it resides in us now. 

Pilate and the chief priests failed to understand the meaning of Christ’s kingdom. They couldn’t grasp the reality of Jesus, that he is the “ruler of the kings of the earth” (Rev 1:5), yet his kingdom does not belong to this world.  We, too, live within the tension of those opposites. It is a paradoxical logic: you have to give to receive, you have to surrender yourself to become yourself, you have to be humble to be lifted up. The confrontation of these tensions within us is never fully reconciled. But they are how we grow. Social scientists call this a paradox mindset, and have observed that people who learn to appreciate, rather than dismiss, opposing demands show greater openness, resilience, and commitment to behaviors that match their values. 

Just as Jesus’ kingdom is not of this world, having Christ as our king demands obedience to his vision and not the world’s.  This is not a zero-sum game; we need not fear losing out on life if we marry our vision to Christ's. God transcends such concerns. Nor should this be a source of intimidation or anxiety, but rather a recognition that the deepest aspects of our very selves lie not within our own selves, but rather within Christ and the suffering he took on for his kingdom. The implications of that can be overwhelming and hard to accept.

We live in a country short on kings but long on opinions about them. Who is my king? I would do well to examine my own ideas about kingship and take a deep look at the awesome kingdom that Christ, our king, calls us to.

--Jim Healy

Send Us Forth are reflections written by St. Matthew parishioners and friends.