B Cycle – Feast of Christ the King 20

Mt. 25:31-46

Pope Pius XI in 1925 set aside a Sunday for the Feast of Christ the King.  His intent was to get us to refocus on a very specific aspect of Jesus who was given dominion over all things by the Father. Because I lived in a country that had a king, I never got this King thing.  Watching the royal family of Britain or through my experience while living in Malaysia.  I never understood why someone would forfeit their freedom to someone else.  In Malaysia, I lived just over a block away from the palace of the Sultan of Johore and at the time the King of Malaysia.  Mostly what I saw was the public display.  The pomp and circumstance of the monarchy and how the royalty was loved and adored by their subjects.  What we see in modern day monarchy is certainly not the Camelot of King Arthur’s day.

Yet, we know that Christ came to set us free and to bring us into the Kingdom of God on earth. A kingdom where we know our King desires all good things for us and has handed over to us dominion over his kingdom.  We cannot compare Christ the King with any king or queen of our day and if we do, we will never grasp the concept of what Pius XI intended when he established this feast in 1925. 

We need to understand what the Kingdom of God is all about and how we fit into that kingdom.  It is not about geographical boundaries or a place we can find by using our GPS.  The original Greek word for kingdom carries with it the notion of reign or activity.  So, when Jesus comes and proclaims that the Kingdom of God is at hand, he is telling us that the reign of God is established, and we are called to live in it.   When Jesus told Pilate, his kingdom is not of this world he was affirming that the Kingdom is not a tangible thing, but it is found in every heart.  It is not something we can set out to find, but instead it is something to experience. 

Once we experience the Kingdom of God, where Christ reigns, we will automatically begin to live our lives in a way that shows to the world that Christ is King does not rule over us but instead He provides for us all that is good.  Once we experience Christ is King we will discover how we are the ones responsible for building the kingdom not by our wealth but by our zeal to give witness to the fact we are not subjects but heirs, members of the household of the King.    

We find joy when we let Christ reign. 

We find peace when we let Christ reign. 

We find contentment when we let Christ reign. 

We find all we ever seek when we allow Christ to become Lord of our lives.     We will begin to remember all the proclamation (promises) of Christ and act on them because those promises hold the keys to our ability to surrender our hearts to God.  Christ our King told us to seek first the Kingdom of God and all else will be added. Christ our King told us to ask and we will receive.  Christ our King told us to knock and it will be opened.  Those are not the words from an earthly King who is somehow superior to us because they were born into a royal family.  No, our king came to earth, in the form of a slave, born in a stable, to a working class mother under questionable circumstances. 

For us, those words of Jesus give us a clue to the Kingdom Jesus established.  We are not royal subjects because we live in the boundaries of this Kingdom. No, we must voluntarily seek to live in His Kingdom.  We must desire it, seek it, and then ask for the grace of the Holy Spirit to change us into sons and daughters of the King.  We then will stop trying to please the King with the way we adore him, serve him, or acknowledge him.  Instead we will join Him and become princes and princesses, fulfilling our destiny as part of the family of God.  

Yes, the Church proclaims today to the world that Christ is King, but the issue is do we acknowledge Christ came to bring us into the Kingdom of God.  Do we acknowledge who Christ is to the world and work to help the world understand we need not fear our king because we are part of the royal family of God and are stewards of His Kingdom. 

Do we proclaim Christ is Lord by how we live our lives each day? 

Do we proclaim our faith by outward signs adulation because that is expected or do, we proclaim our faith because the love of God has been poured into our hearts by the Holly Spirit? 

Do we recognize there is a Kingdom of the World in opposition to the Kingdom of God?

Today is a reminder that we have a choice to give public adoration to a figure head or to give our hearts to the King of Kings. 

Yes, Christ is King, and we should bow in reverence and awe before Him each day, just as we would do if we entered the palace of any monarch.