The Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe-Cycle B
My Dear Friends in Christ,
With today’s most august celebration we come to the end of another liturgical year. It is most appropriate that on the last Sunday of the liturgical year we celebrate with great solemnity the kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ over all things, and this for three reasons. First, it is a simple recognition of the basic fact recognized by the Psalmist that “The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it, the world, and those who live in it; for he has founded it on the seas, and established it on the rivers” (Ps 24:1-2). Accordingly, as the Creator of All reality only makes sense when under His rule which is most appropriately characterized by Love (cf. 1 John 4:8). Secondly, it reminds us of the reality that He Who once called all things into being in the fullness of time deigned to become one with His creation precisely so that His creation might be afforded the opportunity of achieving the purpose for which they were created, eternal loving communion with Him. The Psalmist continues by asking, “Who shall ascend the mountain of the Lord? And who shall stand in his holy place?” (Ps 24:3). Today’s celebration loudly proclaims, no one, at least not of their own volition or by their own means. No, in order to achieve the end for which we were made it was absolutely necessary that the Creator of all descend to unity with us, so that we might ascend in unity with Him. Thus, today’s solemnity also reminds us that the One Who is Our End is also the Way to that End, as St. Augustine of Hippo was so fond of pointing out (see, e.g., Sermon 92.3 & De Trinitate, 4.6). Thirdly, in response to the line of questioning above, the Psalmist responds:
Those who have clean hands and pure hearts, who do not lift up their souls to what is false, and do not swear deceitfully. They will receive blessing from the Lord, and vindication from the God of their salvation. Such is the company of those who seek him, who seek the face of the God of Jacob (Ps 24:4-6).
With this the Psalmist provides a program of sorts for living in God’s presence, life under the aegis of the King of the Universe. It is a life that like the life-giving Word is one of Truth and pure self-giving Love.
With these three points provided by the Psalmist we are prepared to examine our readings for today.
The solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe in a very real way states Christianity’s view of the eschaton, i.e., the end or end times, and says very clearly that at the end of time all will finally be brought under the Reign of God, period. Accordingly, our first and second readings for today are drawn from the apocalyptic genre of scripture. Our first reading comes from the Book of Daniel. Daniel is perhaps best known as an interpreter of dreams (Daniel 2:1-45), and for surviving unharmed in the lion’s den after having been thrown to them as food by King Darius for his refusal to obey the law forbidding prayer to anyone except the king (Daniel 6:1-28). In this latter aspect, Daniel has much in common with a few other heroes we will discuss momentarily.
Scripture scholars tell us that though the events of the Book of Daniel are set during the Babylonian exile of the Jewish people in the sixth century BC, textual evidence suggests that this apocalyptic work was written much later, during the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes the IV in the second century BC. In this, Scripture is not being fraudulent. Instead, this is the mark of apocalyptic literature. Apocalyptic literature is often written to a persecuted people intended to provide encouragement and assurance that eventually the persecution they now face will come to a happy end. The reign of Antiochus Epiphanes the IV of the Greek Seleucid Dynasty was likewise a time of persecution for the Jewish people. Thus, the events of the Book of Daniel were meant to encourage the Jewish people of the second century BC that just as their ancestors had successful endured the time of exile in Babylon by remaining faithful to the God of Abraham, so too would they reach the day of salvation if they imitated the faith of their ancestors. In the Book of Daniel the ancestors of the Jewish people are portrayed especially by the characters of Daniel, and Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Like Daniel, the latter three young men faced death for fidelity to the law, in their case threat of death in a fiery furnace (Daniel 3:19-30). And, like Daniel, the three young men pass through this time of trial unharmed, a fourth undisclosed figure accompanying them amidst the flames and bringing them through to safety (Daniel 3:25). All of these stories make the same point: live under the reign of God above all and no worldly power will be able to bring any ultimate harm to you, for God will see you through to the eternal well-being that is salvation (cf. Matt. 10:28).
The passage selected for our first reading taken from the Book of Daniel has the message stated above, that in the end all the powers of the world will fade into history and God will reign supreme. This is seen more clearly if we take a brief look at what immediately precedes today’s pericope. In the verses leading up to our passage for today we hear more of Daniel’s vision. It includes the vision of four beasts, one like a lion with eagle’s wings, a second like a bear with three tusks in its mouth, a third like a leopard who had four heads and the wings of a bird on its back, and finally, a terrifying beast with iron teeth and ten horns on its head, destroying and devouring all that stood in its path. Out of one of the ten horns of this last beast, we are told, there appeared another little horn, which plucked up three of the earlier horns by the root to make room for itself (Daniel 7:1-8). All of this very strange imagery is meant to capture the fear and sense of impending doom the Jewish people would have felt under the reign of the Greeks in the second century BC. The four beasts who pass in succession represent various kingdoms of the world which reigned for a time and then faded into the dust bin of history, regardless of how powerful they had once appeared. The Babylonian empire represented by the first beast, the Median empire by the second, the Persian empire by the third, and the final beast by the Greek empire of Alexander the Great. The ten horns represent the ten kings of the Seleucid Dynasty who ruled after Alexander, and the little horn that poked out at the end the tyrant the Jewish people were currently facing, Antiochus Epiphanes IV.
Above all, the inspired author of the Book of Daniel wanted his readers to know that however terrifying and all powerful Antiochus now appeared, his reign would not last. Thus, the vision continues and we see the Ancient One seated on His throne in judgment. As fire blazes forth from His presence and thousands of attendants minister around Him, the Ancient One pronounces judgment, death for the little horn, Antiochus Epiphanes IV, and a stay of execution for the other empires “for a season and a time” (Daniel 7:12). In a fashion similar to the prophets, the sacred author of the Book of Daniel then follows the message of destruction with the message of hope, which brings us to the passage we read for today. Next, Daniel sees
one like a son of man coming with the clouds of heaven. And he came to the Ancient one and was presented before him. To him was given dominion and glory and kingship, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that shall not pass away, and his kingship is one that shall never be destroyed (Daniel 4:13-14).
The language here is extremely dense with meaning, especially when read in the light of the New Testament, and it is important that we unpack the layers a bit. Daniel describes the one he sees as a “son of man.” Christian ears should immediately perk up when they hear this title, for Jesus refers to Himself as the Son of Man several times in the Gospels, saying in connection with that title among other things that “the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10; cf. Matt. 18:11). But in addition to the Son of Man coming to save what was lost, Jesus also says that the Son of Man will come in judgment in the last days. Upon His appearance:
all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other (Matt. 24:30-31).
Jesus here uses the same imagery as described by Daniel in our first reading for today of the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven. Thus He is telling His listeners and us that the long awaited Savior has arrived to save His people from destruction, now no longer the destruction of a nation, but the destruction that comes from being estranged from God, the destruction of sin and death.
In addition to being referred to as the Son of Man, Christ is also referred to as the Son of David. The first place we see this is in Matthew’s genealogy: “An account of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the Son of David, the son of Abraham” (Matt. 1:1). But the Evangelists are not the only one to call Jesus by this name. Others, like the blind Bartimaeus call out to Jesus for healing under this title: “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” (Mark 10:47 & 48). For Jesus to be addressed as the Son of David was to recognize Him as the long awaited Messiah, who among other things was expected to reestablish the Kingdom of their ancestor David. Except this time, His kingdom was to have no end as Daniel suggests in the passage above. This is precisely what we will hear from the prophet Isaiah at Midnight Mass when we celebrate the birth of the Son of David:
For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. His authority shall grow continually, and there shall be endless peace for the throne of David and his kingdom. He will establish and uphold it with justice and righteousness from this time onward and forevermore (Isaiah 9:6-7).
It is also in the Book of Isaiah that we hear it proclaimed, for the first time in Scripture, that in the days to come “the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised above the hills; all the nations shall stream to it” (Isaiah 2:1-2). This description of the in gathering of the nations of the world on the mountain of the house of God is both reminiscent of the Psalm mentioned at the outset and the message from Daniel in our first reading: “To him was given dominion and glory and kingship, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him.” Moreover, if we pay special attention to the detail of diverse languages coming together, the scene of Pentecost comes readily to mind. Then, as the Apostles gathered with Mary in the upper room, the Spirit came and rested upon them, giving them the ability to speak in the languages of people from many diverse nations of “God’s deeds of power” (Acts 2:11). Pentecost is traditionally known as the birthday of the Church, the Body of Christ where we are told in the Book of Revelation that one day will be gathered a great multitude of people that no one can count, “from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages” (Revelation 7:9) for the wedding feast of the Lamb (Revelation 19: 6-9). This final eschatological love feast will take place on the other side of eternity in the New Jerusalem (Revelation 21:9-27). Then there will be no more suffering, sadness or tears (Revelation 21:4). That is what life is like when God reigns supreme, when all people and nations gather harmoniously in worship of the God who once lovingly called them into existence and sustains them at every moment.
But, alas, that kingdom is not of this world. This is precisely what Our Lord tells Pilate in today’s Gospel. Worried about what the presence of another claimant to sovereignty might mean for him and his Roman bosses, Pilate asks Jesus, “Are you the King of the Jews” (John 18:33)? Our Lord asks whether or not Pilate has come to such a conclusion on his own. When Pilate responds with further inquisition our Lord finally reveals Himself to Pilate. “My kingdom is not from this world,” He says adding, “If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here” (John 18:36). With consternation Pilate asks for clarification, “So you are a king?” To this Our Lord responds, “You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice” (John 18:37).
‘Yes I am a king,’ Our Lord tells Pilate, ‘but not the sort of king you think I am, not the sort of king who poses a threat to you, at least not militarily.’ You see Jesus cannot deny His Kingship because it is woven into the very fabric of the universe as we mentioned at the outset. All things by their very nature have been created to serve Him with the service of Love, as St. Ignatius of Loyola asserts in the First Principle and Foundation of the Spiritual Exercises (23). Thus, Jesus says that if His kingdom were of this world, His servants would be fighting for Him in the same way that the kingdoms of the world hold their power, through violence, coercion and the enforcement of ideologies meant to bring others into subjection to them. But Jesus tells us His Kingdom is of a different nature entirely and therefore employs different means of spreading its reign. His kingdom is above all characterized by Truth, the Truth which He embodies in His Incarnate life. Therefore, while the servants of Jesus don’t engage in violent defense of His Kingdom, this does not mean that they are completely passive as they await eternal life. Rather, in imitation of their King, the servants of Christ are those who make their way up the mountain of the Lord with clean hands and pure hearts as the Psalmist told us at the beginning of our discussion, seeking to draw others up the mountain with them in love and thereby spread His reign.
What does it look like to cleanse one’s hands and purify one’s heart? It means to live as Christ rules from His throne, the throne of the Cross, as a complete and totally offering of self-giving love to the Heavenly Father. Said differently it is to live as a nation of priests as our second reading from the Book of Revelation tells us today. There, John addresses his readers “from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth” who out of love freed us from sin through his blood “and made us to be a kingdom, priests for his God and Father” (Revelation 1:4-6). There we get the same language of the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven as we have seen from the Gospels and the Book of Daniel, but this time He comes as one who has been pierced (Revelation 1:7). And it is precisely as One Who was pierced that He appears as “the Alpha and the Omega,” “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty” (Revelation 1:8). Here is revealed the very ground of reality. Creation was not created to be the realm of destruction, violence, division, disease, sin and death, that is what we have made of it. Instead, it was to be a place where all participatorily imitate the life of the Creator by living lives of complete offering of self out of love. And so it shall be in the end.
From then on, we live in the in between time of already but not yet. As members of Christ’s Body, the Church, we are called to make His life and reign known and present to the world so that His will might be done on earth as it is in heaven (Matt. 6:9-13). And we do so by living out our priestly vocation by becoming living sacrifices of love to God our Heavenly Father through love for neighbor (Matt. 22:36-40).
One way we can describe this is through the language of virtue. For many Fathers of the Church including Sts. Augustine and Gregory of Nyssa, in the first and most basic sense, God is Virtue (St. Augustine, Miscellany of Eighty-Three Questions, 51.2 & St. Gregory of Nyssa, Life of Moses, 1.7). Accordingly, all authentic human virtue is participatory, and therefore when we see virtue lived out we see the creature reflect the image of God in which he or she was created. Authentic virtue, then, in the most basic sense imitates God’s total unreserved gift of self out of love. Thus, Augustine defines the virtues as various forms of love. Prudence is “love discriminating rightly between those things which aid [the soul] in reaching God and those things which might hinder it.” Justice is “love serving God alone and, therefore, ruling well those things subject to man.” Temperance, he says “is love preserving itself whole and unblemished for God.” And fortitude is “love enduring all things willingly for the sake of God” (The Way of Life of the Catholic Church, 1.25).
If we want to learn how to live as sacrificial offerings to our Heavenly Father in unity with Christ, it is imperative that we strive for these cardinal virtues with the help of God’s grace. In doing so, not only do we increasingly reach the end for which we were created, i.e., loving unity with God, but because in doing so we become increasingly animated by that same life, we become the answer to the prayer that Jesus taught us that God’s kingdom may come and His will may be done here on earth. Accordingly, to live a life of virtue is to work to spread and establish the reign of God here and now within ourselves by overcoming the sickness of vice, and in the world around us by denouncing divisive ideologies, violence, and all structures of sin through our actions. In short, by living the life of virtue not only do we live out our vocation as priests in unity with Christ, but we proclaim with Daniel, St. John and Truth Himself the prophetic message that in the beginning there was Love, and in the end all the kingdoms, ideologies, and idols of the world will pass away, and Love alone will triumph (cf.1 Cor. 13:13 & Revelation 1:8).
Your servant in Christ,
Tony Crescio is the founder of FRESHImage Ministries. He holds an MTS from the University of Notre Dame and is currently a PhD candidate in Christian Theology at Saint Louis University. His research focuses on the intersection between moral and sacramental theology. His dissertation is entitled, Presencing the Divine: Augustine, the Eucharist and the Ethics of Exemplarity.
Tony’s academic publications can be found here.