Today we celebrate Christ the King. Although the idea that Christ is our king is present in the Scriptures, this is not an ancient observance. This feast was only instituted in 1925. Centuries before, America and France had cast aside their Kings by violent revolution. In those days the Kaiser of Germany lived in exile, and Russia had just killed their entire royal family. In an era when men refused to be ruled by Kings, the Church reaffirmed her ancient language for the relationship we have with Christ. She did so because nothing short of the word “King” can capture what it means to say that Christ is in a position of authority over us.
Christ is the absolute Monarch of the whole earth, and we are his subjects. This means we are not free to do whatever we please with our lives, but must follow the commands of our sovereign. We must be willing to swallow our pride and submit to his law. And he explains to us clearly in the Gospel the nature of the laws that He demands we must obey:
- We are to give food to the hungry
- Drink to the thirsty
- We are to welcome the stranger
- Clothe the naked
- Care for the ill,
- And visit those in prison.
When He says, “whatever you did for one of the least brothers of mine, you did for me,” Christ reminds us of how He manifested his Kingship in the world: He was born into poverty, suffered hunger and thirst, lived for years in exile from his home country, was stripped of his garments, and was wrongfully put to death. That was Christ’s idea of how to show that He was the great King.
Being King, for Christ, never meant asserting his rights, but instead meant being willing to suffer for the sake of his people. This gives us some insight, I think, into how we should live in imitation of our Lord.
The Church in ancient Rome, believing with all her heart in the Kingship of Christ, did not attempt to assert before Caesar the rights of Christians to freedom of worship. Rather than taking the course of political activism, the earliest generations of Christians proclaimed one thing only: Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. They proclaimed Him with their upright moral lives, with their unsparingly generous service to the poor, and by their willingness to die rather than compromise even one article of their faith. And the effect of the witness of the martyrs was that the entire Roman Empire abandoned the false gods worshiped by their fathers, and adhered to the true faith.
Imitating our Lord, Who served in humility and died in obscurity, the early Christians changed the world. And the way they thought about Christ as their King guided their actions.
There is a fourth century legend (Life of St. Martin, XXIV) about St. Martin of Tours in which the Devil attempts to trick the saint by presenting himself disguised as Christ the King. Satan, whom Saint Paul tells us sometimes “disguises himself as an angel of light,” appears to Saint Martin surrounded by a brilliant purple light, clothed in a royal robe, and with a crown of precious stones and gold upon his head; even his shoes were inlaid with gold. With excitement and rejoicing in his voice, he stands by the side of Martin as he prays in his cell and says, "Acknowledge, Martin, who it is that you behold. I am Christ; and being just about to return to earth, I wished to manifest myself to you first." The saint, who was dazzled by this appearance, preserved a long silence. ... The Devil then repeated, "Martin, why do you hesitate to believe, when you see? I am Christ." Then Martin replied as follows: "The Lord Jesus did not predict that he would come clothed in purple, and with a glittering crown upon his head. I will not believe that Christ has come, unless he appears with that appearance and form in which he suffered, and openly displaying the marks of his wounds upon the cross." On hearing these words, the devil vanished like smoke.
When St. Martin thought of Christ crowned with many crowns, he imagined the first and greatest of Christ’s crowns to be the crown of thorns. Martin knew that Christ’s majesty was the prize of his suffering, and so would not believe that it was Christ unless he saw the nail marks in his hands. As we sang in our opening hymn, “Rich wounds yet visible above in beauty glorified!” For the early Christians, the suffering we undergo in this life is the means by which we attain Heaven, where earthly suffering will be transformed into something beautiful.
This way of thinking about Christ’s kingship produced many saints. And the saints learned to think about Christ the King in this way by observing how Christ treated power and authority in the Gospels.
Our Lord was tempted by Satan in the desert with worldly power: “The devil led him into a high mountain, and shewed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time; And he said to him: To You will I give all this power, and the glory of them; for to me they are delivered, and to whom I will, I give them. If you therefore will adore before me, all shall be yours. And Jesus answering said to him: It is written: You shall adore the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.” He declined to lay claim to the worldly authority that ought rightly to have been his.
Our Lord was asked by Pontius Pilate quite directly, “You are then a King?” His words ought to ring in our ears, not only on this Feast of Christ the King, but every day of our lives: “Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, my followers would certainly have fought that I might not be delivered to the Jews. But, as it is, my kingdom is not from here.”
How did Our Lord assert his Kingship? By living in a way that led all men to the conviction that He was one who “taught with authority,” and whose words were Truth.
How did Our Lord assert his Kingship? By eschewing all secular power, lest anyone say that He attained his kingdom from a bargain with the Devil.
How did Our Lord assert his Kingship? By being willing to suffer and die for the Truth He had preached, rather than hold back even a single word of that Truth.
Let us follow his example.
Let us prove Christ’s love for the poor by serving our needy neighbor as if he were our King.
Let us prove the truth of the words Jesus spoke by living as if our kingdom were not of this world.
Let us prove the superiority of that kingdom by choosing to suffer for our faith rather than battle for our rights.
Let us prove the veracity of our faith by proclaiming at all times the Truth we have been taught by Christ, even if by sharing this Truth the world condemns us to a shameful death.
If we, like our Lord and like his glorious martyrs, are willing even to hazard our lives in order to proclaim to truth of the Kingdom which is not of this world, then by our sufferings we shall give the world such a proof of that Kingdom that men shall once again stand in awe of the faith of Christians, lay aside their false idols, and follow Jesus.
Thy Kingdom Come.
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