Fr. Michael Williams

The gospel for the feast of Christ the King this year comes from St John. If we go to the beginning of St John’s gospel John tells us of Jesus, ‘[Who] was in the world that had come into being through Him, and the world did not recognise Him’. Throughout St John’s gospel this failure to recognise who Jesus actually is, is a recurrent theme. Many people, especially those with power, fail to recognise the truth about who Jesus is. For those ‘who did accept Him He gave power to become children of God’.

Some of the Pharisees in particular fail to recognise who Jesus is. In chapter eight of the fourth gospel, they accuse Jesus of being ‘possessed by the devil’ (8:48). And towards the end of His life, the authorities are once again seeking to destroy ‘the King of the Jews’. This time it is the Sanhedrin and the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, who seek to eliminate the Lord.

Right from His birth in Bethlehem, there were forces at work that were opposed to Christ, and His Kingdom. St Matthew’s Gospel reports on King Herod, who felt threatened by the new born King. Indeed, he felt so threatened that he began a reign of terror by slaughtering all the young boys in Bethlehem.

What is the root of the opposition to Christ the King in this world? In St John’s gospel Jesus speaks of ‘the prince of this world’ or satan. The values of satan and his followers are in direct opposition to the truth of Christ. The Prince of this world inverts the commandments of God. Where God says, ‘Keep the Lord’s Day holy’, satan says, ‘Don’t keep the Lord’s Day holy; where God says, ‘Thou shall not commit adultery or fornication’, the Prince of this world says, ‘Live immoral lives’; where God says, ‘Live in peace with one another’, the devil says, ‘Choose violence’.

Jesus says, ‘Mine is not a kingdom of this world’. The values of Jesus’ Kingdom and the values of the kingdoms of this world are often very different. Christ has brought Truth into the world. In our post-modern culture the philosophy is, ‘you have your truth, and I have mine’. Pilate could have been a postmodernist, for he asks Christ, ‘What is truth’? Yet it is Christ alone who reveals the truth about God, about people, and about how to live. As He tells Pontius Pilate, ‘I came into the world to bear witness to the Truth; and all who are on the side of Truth listen to my voice’.

Jesus, ‘the Alpha and the Omega [the beginning and the end]’, does not need to defend Himself. He ‘who is, who was, and who is to come, the Almighty’, cannot be obliterated by violence. Even though Pilate passes the death sentence on Him, death cannot destroy the Truth. Christ, ‘the First born from the dead’ is vindicated by His Resurrection on Easter Sunday, when it is seen that ‘His Sovereignty is an eternal sovereignty which shall never pass away’.

The truth of Christ, and what He teaches cannot be obliterated by violence. Many have tried and failed; and they continue to try and fail. From the Roman Empire to the Soviet Empire to Nazism. They have all failed to destroy the truth, even though they violently attempted it. Militant secular forces are trying to do it in a more subtle way in our society.

As followers of Christ we are called to have supreme confidence in the Truth that is Christ. Christ told Peter ‘to put your sword back in its scabbard’, when he drew his sword on those who came to arrest Jesus. The Truth will always vindicate itself, it does not need weapons to defend itself. The Truth always was and is and always will be. That Truth is revealed to us in the Person of Jesus Christ. Let us listen to the Truth of the Universal King, rather than the prince of this world, who seeks to draw us away from the Truth in many subtle ways.