ALL SAINTS MARGARET STREET

Christ the King – 2005
Fr Ivan Aquilina

In the Liturgical year there are two different kinds of feast days of Our Lord. There are those like Christmas, Epiphany and Easter that commemorate an event in the life of Jesus; then there are others like Corpus Christi, Trinity Sunday and today that commemorate an "idea" rather than an event about our Lord.

At the end of this liturgical year we are celebrating the mystery of this "idea" of Christ the Universal King. In fact during this liturgical year we have celebrated this feast day not once or twice as today is the fourth time we are celebrating such mystery.

Each commemoration of Christ as King illustrates to us a different aspect of the fourfold "idea" of how the Church understands the kingship of Christ.

The first time we celebrated Christ the King was on Palm Sunday. On that day we saw Christ fulfilling the Messianic prophecies as King of Israel. For a long time in the Old Testament there was a serious debate going on to decide whether the Chosen People should have a king, like the surrounding nations, or not. Hebrew doctrine maintained that there is only one king and that is the Lord God of Hosts. No one on earth could replace him or take his title. This was a very hot issue especially when neighbouring countries venerated their kings as divine or related to a divinity. When Saul and David were anointed kings the word used for them was nagid- ruler, rather than melek - king. The chosen people saw these rulers as governing under God and led by His wisdom. The whole point of the covenant with Abraham was to gather a nation in which God will be the King. In the Passover God shows Himself as the King who delivers and vindicates. Through the Patriarchs and the Prophets the Lord consecrates for Himself a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. The prophets foretold the Messiah who would establish God's kingship on earth, and on Palm Sunday that is what happened, the fulfilment of the prophecies: "Look, your king comes to you: he is humble, he rides on a donkey. . ." Jesus is both human and divine, he is the only one who can be the real king of the Chosen People, and indeed God established once and for all His royal place on the Chosen People on Palm Sunday.

The second time we kept Christ the King was on Good Friday. Here we were presented with a king who for ermine chose a simple cloak, for a sceptre he accepted a stick, for jewels he adorned himself with His Most Precious Blood, for a crown he chose one made of thorns and for a throne he ascended a gibbet. Could Jesus show more conclusively that his reign is not of this earth as he tried to explain to Pilate? On that sacred of days Jesus shows that he is a different king; a king that redeems his people and defends his kingdom from the assaults of the Evil One. Jesus has bought His people not only by right but also by his blood. He is the Shepherd-King, the Redeemer-King.

Ascension Day is the third time we kept Christ the King during this liturgical year. On that day Jesus takes his rightful place at the right hand of the Father. On that day all his claims and aspirations have been upheld by God. There he will be in the fullness of his kingdom constantly interceding for those he redeemed. On that day he did not ascend the heavens to leave us to our own devices. He empowered his priestly, prophetic and royal people to establish the kingdom of God. This is the part of the kingdom of Jesus to which we belong. The Church is not the kingdom of God on earth; it is the germinating seed of the kingdom. The seed already contains the beauty of the full flower and all its potential, but it is still a seed: it is now, but not yet. By his glorious ascension Jesus empowers and entrusts to us his Church the wonderful work of bringing about and pointing to His kingdom, the kingdom of justice, mercy and peace. This is our mission, the ground on which we are called to become holy.

And so we come to our own feast day today - Christ the universal king. This day is meant to provide us with the last part of the "idea" that the Church has of the Kingship of Christ, the aspect of his kingship that is yet to come. When the hour known only by the Father arrives, the germinating seed of the Kingdom - the Church, will flower to its full and Christ with all his glory will come again to judge the living and the dead, to prune the Church and present it to God spotless just as He is. That moment will be the restoration of all the created order to the Creator: there will be mercy, justice and peace, death will be abolished, innocence restored, evil destroyed, there every tear will be wiped away and we shall see God as He is and share His life. That kingdom will have Christ as king who through him and with him and in him all glory will be given to God in the Holy Spirit. This will be the fulfilment of all the hopes and aspirations of humanity.

This is what we celebrate today; we celebrate Christ as King of the Chosen People in both testaments, the fulfilment of the old in the new. We celebrate Christ as King with a difference who restores and saves his people by his own blood. We celebrate Christ as King of glory at the right hand of the Father constantly interceding for the Church that here below continues his work: the Church the extension of the Incarnation and the Easter Mystery. We celebrate Christ as King of the restored Universe in the time that is, but has yet to come in which his kingdom will have no end.

Today at the end of this liturgical year the Church tells us in no uncertain terms that the whole point of our existence is a movement towards the end and fulfilment of time. It tells us that during this liturgical year we broke open the cloud of unknowing every time we celebrated the Holy Mysteries and brought creation nearer to that kingdom which is already and yet is not yet. It tells that all our liturgies, indeed the whole point of being Christians, is to point beyond words and symbols, to point to God. We point to God when we submit to Christ. Under the holy obedience of Christ we have nothing else to do except wait with joyful hope for his coming and with the whole Church that in one way or another already lives the fullness of his kingdom we unite our voices and all our deepest hopes as we say to our king here present: Christus Vincit, Christus Regnat, Christus Imperat per omnia saecula saeculorum. Amen.