Gospel Reflection for Nov. 24:
As we close out the Liturgical Year, we celebrate the Solemnity of Jesus Christ, King of the Universe. This feast, inaugurated in the early 20th century, stood as a challenge to ardent nationalism and the emergent socialism that dominated that period. Our own time seems eerily reminiscent of those days. Around the world the tendency towards nationalism and even regionalism seems to be making headway. Civil disturbance threatens good social order, and ethnic and linguistic groups desire greater autonomy and even independence. This is all in opposition to the “new world order” that characterized the later part of the last century.
The Gospel for this solemnity speaks eloquently in opposition to the advancement of worldly kingdoms and the amassing of power. The First Reading recounts the critical moment when the people of the divided Northern Kingdom of Israel asked David to assume kingship over them. Their focus was on establishing a kingdom in this world to protect them and keep them united. It was over the objections of Samuel the prophet that the kingdom was established first under Saul. When the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah eventually failed, as the Lord foretold it is a distant descendant of David – it is the Son of David, who accepts a crown of thorns instead of a royal crown and scepter. It is Jesus on the cross speaking with the repentant thief, that draws our focus.
The dialogue between the two men flanking Jesus at the crucifixion shows us a sense of the tension between the followers of Jesus and those who rejected his mission. The mocking: “Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us,” is reminiscent of the demands for signs and the skeptics who dogged Jesus throughout his ministry. We should not be surprised that the same taunts would be hurled at him during his crucifixion.
At the same time, the other criminal sees deeper into the moment. He not only defends Jesus, he does so in ways not seen even among the most ardent of Jesus’ disciples. The reader of the Gospel now sees clearly spelled out the other-worldliness of the Kingdom of God. Jesus’ kingdom is not of this world. It never was of this world. The justified criminal seeks to share in the eternal kingdom that Jesus promised.
Jesus dies as a king, even if he never lived like one. His preaching has been focused on the Kingdom. The many miracles, the many dialogues, sermons, conversations, and even the times of quiet prayer recounted in the Gospels all centered on the kingdom. At the Last Supper, as Jesus instituted the Eucharist and established the priesthood, he does so for the sake of the Kingdom.
The crowds clearly thought Jesus a king. He is tried, ostensibly, as a revolutionary, and is subjected to the cruel torture of a non-Roman citizen by the agents of the empire. Mocked by the soldiers and jeered at by his fellow countrymen as the king of an imaginary kingdom, Jesus suffers the indignity and dies at their hands. Matthew notes that as Jesus was hanged upon the cross: “Above him there was an inscription that read, ‘This is the King of the Jews.’”
The unnamed man, known as Saint Dismas throughout tradition, was clearly moved by his encounter with Jesus. We do not know if he had ever been in a crowd to hear Jesus preach. He was most certainly in Jerusalem when Jesus entered the Temple precincts in triumph only days before. He must have heard some rumblings about Jesus upsetting the tables of the moneychangers in the Temple. As Jerusalem was under high alert for terrorist activities during the Passover, he would have been under suspicion himself as a revolutionary. We do not know what crime he might have committed or what brought him to his cross. He had likely spent his life fighting the Roman rule of Palestine. Yet, he sees the vanity of his life, and now understands the kingdom for which he should have put his energy and effort.
We now stand at the tension between serving the kingdoms of the world, or stand and be mocked for following the Kingdom of God. Like St. Dismas we desire to share in the hope and promise of Paradise with Jesus. We need to pray and work, not for the kingdoms of the world, but that the kingdoms of the world will find that their only meaning is in working to build up the eternal kingdom of God.
Father Garry Koch is pastor of St. Benedict Parish, Holmdel.