Words on the Word
Christ the King C
2 Samuel 5.1-3: You shall be shepherd of my people Israel.
Colossians 1.12-20: He gave us a place in the kingdom of the Son.
Luke 23.35-43: Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom!
David’s anointing as Israel’s king in Hebron marked the end of a long, tough search for realistic government once the people was home again after 430 years in Egyptian exile, then 40 years’ wandering in the wilderness.
There was no historical precedent. Before the exile, ‘Israel’ had been the name of a person. Jacob received that name from the nocturnal angel that fought him at Jabbok and struck his hip out of joint (Genesis 32.22.30). ‘You have striven with God and with men’, the angel said. The name ‘Israel’ was bestowed as an honorific title. It means something like ‘God’s Champion’. God is subject in that name. Jacob is his honoured vassal.
The point matters.
So before the exile, ‘Israel’ was the name of a patriarch; then it was transferred to the patriarch’s nation. The concept of a nation is linked, historically and linguistically [natio > nasci], to blood ties. When Moses was called by God to his work of liberation, it was because God had ‘looked upon the sons of Israel’ (Exodus 2.25). It was his kin Moses referred to when he told Pharaoh, ‘Let my people go!‘ There were many of them: six hundred thousand men on foot, not counting the children. Then, in addition, a huge mixed crowd of all sorts of people (Exodus 12.37f.).
An assembly of such dimensions needed to be led, somehow. The Lord himself was their leader. When Israel had made it through the Red Sea and saw the chariots of Pharaoh sink ‘like a stone’, Miriam, Moses’s sister, sang a song we still sing at each Paschal Vigil. ‘The Lord‘, sings the song, will be king for ever and ever’ (Exodus 15.18). This was the basis of Israelite nationhood. The people was to be ruled by God.
The Law, revealed on Sinai, was the basis for the society that emerged. God called elect men, and some women, to implement it. The first was Moses, followed by Joshua. Then came Gideon, Debora, Samson, and other judges.
As Israel, now a people, settled, however, they felt like having a more concrete style of leadership. Round about them kings reigned. Some were magnificent. Royal might had advantages, that much was clear. A king could readily mobilise resources. As long as he had sons, there was a succession; one didn’t have the kerfuffle of finding new judges. In addition a king could reflect a degree of glory on his people. Israel’s judges lived modestly on the whole. They remained nomadic shepherds, following their flocks. Now the time had come, many people thought, for a bit of pomp and circumstance.
When Israel first demanded a king, the Lord God was wrathful. He explained that political might easily corrupts, that institutions tend to acquire tyrannical traits (1 Samuel 8.10-18). The people was unimpressed, and held their ground. ‘We want to be like other nations’, they exclaimed, ‘that our king may govern us and go before us’ (1 Samuel 8.20).
Then God said – I paraphrase only slightly – ‘Have it your way!’ (cf. 1 Samuel 8.22).
Saul, Israel’s first king, stands as an example of everything a ruler should not be: authoritarian, fearful, increasingly irrational. David had a dark side, too. Think of Bathsheba and poor Uriah! David learnt from his mistakes, however. He turned into something very rare: a devout and humble king. ‘Remember David and all his meekness‘, we sing in Psalm 132, which follows another Psalm, attributed to David, starting with the words: ‘O Lord, my heart is not exalted, my eyes are not raised high; I do not busy myself with things too great and too marvellous for me’ (Psalm 131.1).
By experience and grace, David turned into a king in God’s image, an instrument of God’s cause. As I said, such a phenomenon is rare. The kings in Judah’s and Israel’s lines who followed David’s example can be counted on one hand, even with an amputated finger or two.
This background is needed to see what it means to celebrate the feast of Christ the King!
The feast is not about political potency. When Jesus, at a certain point, realised that people ‘were about to come and take him by force to make him king’ in the worldly sense, he beat it. He ‘withdrew to the mountain by himself’ (John 6.15). He only accepted the royal title when he was about to be raised up on the cross. By pouring himself out he showed his glory.
God, who is almighty, does not suffer from jealousy. He has no status to defend before rivals, for he has none. His wish is to set us free from servitude so that we, freely serving him, may learn what freedom is. We are called now, as Israel was called then, to sing: ‘God is king for ever and ever!’ Thereby we ourselves are clothed, by grace, in royal dignity.
Pope Pius XI inaugurated the feast of Christ the King exactly a century ago, in the jubilee year 1925. What was then still called The Great War had been brought to an end seven years before, but peace was uneasy. Sabres were being rattled on all sides. Arms were being restocked. Ultra-nationalism made Europe tense. Pius XI did note, it is true, certain signs ‘of a more widespread and keener interest evinced in Christ and his Church’; but he recognised the risk that such interest could be held hostage by worldly pretension. So he bade the Church, and the world, raise their eyes towards Christ, the King, who reigns from the Tree and there displays his love, the criterion for the kingdom he founded, into which he calls us.
To honour Christ as king, wrote Pius XI, is above all to ensure that he may reign freely in my heart. That way my life is formed by his commandments, his presence. This is the sense of the solemnity we keep today. If Christ, the Prince of Peace, rules in us, we may be bearers and sources of his peace.
What the world needs now, more than any amount of talk, is an effective, clear-sighted, peace-bearing, truly Christian presence at its core.
Amen.
Mosaic from the cathedral in Monreale: William II is crowned by Christ. Christ alone is ‘King for ever’. Any exercise of earthly might is by delegation and for a while – that’s what earthly potentates so easily forget.