Sunday Gospel, November 21st, Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe
Jn 18:33b-37
Pilate said to Jesus,
“Are you the King of the Jews?”
Jesus answered, “Do you say this on your own
or have others told you about me?”
Pilate answered, “I am not a Jew, am I?
Your own nation and the chief priests handed you over to me.
What have you done?”
Jesus answered, “My kingdom does not belong to this world.
If my kingdom did belong to this world,
my attendants would be fighting
to keep me from being handed over to the Jews.
But as it is, my kingdom is not here.”
So Pilate said to him, “Then you are a king?”
Jesus answered, “You say I am a king.
For this I was born and for this I came into the world,
to testify to the truth.
Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”
Bishop Barron:
Friends, today we celebrate the feast of Christ the King. And though the very notion of kingship is rather alien to us, the metaphor should remain. For the whole idea is that Christ must become the Lord of our lives, the one to whom an absolute submission is required.
Things do become a bit easier to take when we see precisely what kind of king Jesus Christ is. Bottom line: we are not dealing with another Napoleon or Caesar Augustus; just the contrary. We are dealing with the one who rightly reigns over those earthly potentates but who bears very little resemblance to them.
Our first clue as to his identity comes from the Gospel for today, an account of Jesus’ conversation with the Roman governor Pontius Pilate, who asks, “Are you the King of the Jews?” And Jesus responds that his kingdom “does not belong to this world.”
So what precisely is his kingship? Worldly kingship has to do primarily with power and self-aggrandizement. But the kingship that Jesus represents is a ruling ordered to the truth. Its purpose is to guide people to the truth, which is another way of saying toward God.
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