Sunday Reflection, November 26: “Your Kingdom Come, Your Will Be Done”

The Feast of Christ the King

Scripture Readings: http://www.usccb.org/nab/112606.shtml
Daniel 7: 13-14
Psalm 93
Revelation 1: 5-8
John 18: 33-37

“Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” We know these words by heart and pray them often. The prayer of which they are a part, the Lord’s Prayer, is a prayer both of hope and of longing. It is a prayer grounded in the hope that faith in Christ gives us. It is also meant to be a prayer of heartfelt longing that God will indeed establish his reign in the world and in our lives. This reign of God is God’s dream for his creation. It is the rule of God’s transforming presence and love, a rule that will bring true justice and lasting peace.

We pray those words of the Lord’s Prayer as people who live in a world that is a disconcerting mixture of good and evil. We see reflections of God’s presence and God’s reign all around us. We perceive them in the faces of the people whom we love and who love us, many of whom we see at Thanksgiving time. We catch glimpses of the kingdom of God in those relationships in our lives that are sacred and life giving. We experience the presence of this reign in the goodness we receive from others, in sincere gestures of generosity and forgiveness. We perceive the reign of God within ourselves when we are able to move from self-centeredness to genuine concern for others, from resentment toward reconciliation, from distance in our relationship with God to vital communication with God.

But we also read the newspapers and watch television. And we are confronted by a world wounded by the stark reality of sin. It seems that every day another suicide bomber has killed and wounded dozens of innocent people in Iraq. We read about the lucrative deal cut by O.J. Simpson to write a book entitled If I Did It – clearly one of the most callous acts in recent memory. Thankfully, Rupert Murdoch and his friends have finally realized just how bad that idea was. Our Church, too, continues to grapple with the effects of sin, particularly the misconduct of some members of the clergy. In many ways, our world seems light years away from the reign of God. And so we continue to pray with longing, “Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

On the Feast of Christ the King we reaffirm our belief that Christ has triumphed over the powers of sin and death. We are invited to embrace and to proclaim our conviction that through his life, death and resurrection Christ has become victorious over those powers that oppose the reign of God. The reading from the Book of Revelation articulates this belief quite beautifully: “Jesus Christ is the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead and ruler of the kings of the earth. To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood, who made us into a kingdom, priests for his God and Father, to him be glory and power forever and ever.” This belief in the saving death and victorious resurrection of Christ is the ultimate source of the hope we have as Christians. It speaks to us about the triumph of the God of life. This belief gives us reason to pray again and again with confidence: “Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

We need to remember, however, that this triumphant Lord is the one who stood before Pilate as a condemned prisoner. He was paraded before the people as one mocked and beaten, standing before a representative of the greatest earthly empire of his age. He was interrogated about his identity and his kingdom, even though he looked nothing like a king at the time. This Jesus is the one who inaugurated the kingdom of truth not by force of arms, but by emptying himself and enduring bitter suffering and a scandalous death. Christ is indeed enthroned over all creation, but he gained that status not by vanquishing his enemies but by giving himself completely on a cross. The kind of rule that he modeled for us was one in which the master washes the feet of his disciples.

As we gather this Sunday on the Feast of Christ the King, you and I are called not just to pray for the coming of God’s kingdom, but to commit ourselves to allowing God’s reign to become more present within us and through us to others. We know well that it is not just the world out there that is a confusing mixture of weeds and wheat. Each one of us is that mixture, too. And so at the Eucharist we ask the Lord Jesus to fill our hearts and minds with his presence. We give Christ space to reign in us when we take the Gospel to heart in our lives. His kingdom is present in us and through us as we strive to serve others in the spirit of the one who washed the feet of his disciples. His rule is amongst us when we work for forgiveness and reconciliation instead of furthering resentment and hatred. We reflect the kingdom of God the more we strive to live the moral teaching of the Church regarding our personal relationships and our social responsibilities. The rule of God becomes more present when we work to form vital and faith-filled parish communities, communities that give witness to the presence of Christ in our lives.

May God’s kingdom come and his will be done. This week, through the strength we receive from the Eucharist, may we make the reign of Christ a little more present in our world. 

Robin Ryan, CP