Jesus is King … a crucified King

Leadership is rather about searching for the lost and saving them, like the good thief and Zacchaeus, the lost sheep, the lost coin, the lost son, the woman of ill-repute, etc. It is about serving the deprived, the oppressed and the scum of the earth. It is about forgiveness. It is about service in

Nov 18, 2022

Reflecting on our Sunday Readings with Fr Martin Arlando

Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe (C)
Readings: 2 Samuel 5:1-3;
Colossians 1:12-20;
Gospel: Luke 23:35-43

Once there was an execution of three men by the Gestapo in front of thousands of spectators in a Nazi concentration camp. The three were mounted onto the chairs, and when the nooses were placed on their necks, two of them shouted, “Long live freedom!” while the third, a child, simply, kept silent. Then, presumably asking why such a cruel fate should befall on the threesome, someone from among the crowd commented, “Where is God?” At a given signal from the head of the camp, the chairs tipped over, and in a split second, two of them were dead. However, the small boy, was still alive, and for about an hour, he hung there, suspended between heaven and earth, suffering the agony of dying slowly. Then, the same man from the crowd, who probably could not comprehend why such a child should suffer agony, asked again, “Where is God?” Then in answer to the question, a voice was heard, “Where is God? There he is, hanging on the gallows.”

That one sees God in a condemned child hanging on the gallows, that is something concealed from the eyes of many, for one does not normally associate God with defeat, or with condemnation in the hands of sinful men. Our image of God is one who is always triumphant, always in control of everything, and ever above human contingency and suffering.

The same may be said of Kingship. In our common understanding, a reigning king is always associated with absolute authority and power. A ruling king who acts like a slave, is treated as a slave, who is in fact a slave, that is something beyond imagination. But that is precisely who Jesus is: a servant-king. It is therefore understandable that, in today’s Gospel, the Jews could not believe in the kingship of Christ. If anything, He was, in their perception, exactly the opposite.

That is why the leaders mocked Him; if He were a king, they thought, God would not have allowed Him to die just like that; if He were God’s anointed, He should have saved Himself. The soldiers, too, mocked Him in the same vein, placing an inscription over His head: “King of the Jews”. And one of the criminals derided Him, convinced as he was that Jesus could not have been the Christ, for He was powerless; to prove His Messiahship, Jesus should have saved Himself and the two of them who shared His fate.

But Jesus’ kingship can be perceived only by those who have faith. Only one who has faith can see the kingship of Jesus in powerlessness, weakness, pain, and suffering. And precisely because He is a king, a crucified king, Luke is subtly suggesting that rather than trying to understand the kingship of Jesus in terms of what we know from kings who ruled in history, we must understand what it really means to be a king in terms of the kingship of Jesus. That is to say, the analogue by which we judge what actions are proper to a king is none other than Jesus himself. It is the way Jesus rules that gives us the standard and meaning of kingship. Kings stand or fall on their conformity or non-conformity with the life of Jesus. Because Jesus is a king, as the inscription over His head itself reads, His kingship from the cross is thus a critique of how secular kings, heads of nations and leaders in Churches must conduct themselves accordingly.

In today’s Gospel, Luke focuses on the declaration of faith by the good thief. Unlike the bad thief who shared his fate on the cross, but who uttered blasphemous words to Jesus, demanding that the latter should prove His Messiahship by saving them from the cross, he looked on Jesus with the eyes of faith. Because of this faith encounter, he was moved to acknowledge his sinfulness, and appealed to the compassion of Jesus: “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” He could make this appeal because he knew, through the eyes of faith, that Jesus is the real King who could grant him salvation. And his hope was not disappointed: “Truly I say to you, today, you will be with me in paradise.” This recalls the words of Jesus to Zacchaeus, “Today, salvation has come to this house.” Both Zacchaeus and the good thief were notorious and lost, but, by their faith and by opening their lives to Jesus, they received salvation. And because he could dispense salvation to those who have faith, Jesus is thus a king.

At the same time, Jesus’ conduct is a scathing critique of leaders of our Churches and of our nations. Luke seems to be saying that now we have a new paradigm of leadership: to be a leader is not to subjugate and dominate people or do them violence; leadership is not about selfish exercise of absolute authority and power, nor is it about maintaining one’s place at the top over the broken bones of many people. Leadership is rather about searching for the lost and saving them, like the good thief and Zacchaeus, the lost sheep, the lost coin, the lost son, the woman of ill-repute, etc. It is about serving the deprived, the oppressed and the scum of the earth. It is about forgiveness. It is about service in the manner of a slave, a servant-leadership.

Fr Martin Arlando is a clergy of the Diocese of Penang

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