Just Who is this "King of the Universe?"
Homily on the Feast of Christ the King
Luke 23: 35- 43

Pope Francis made a quick and not publicized trip to New York a while ago, and made arrangements to have a car pick him up at the airport in Newark.  When he got to the car – which was a nice big Lincoln—he was suddenly struck with the desire to drive it.
 
          So he said to the driver: “Could you please let me drive this lovely car? I rarely get to drive a car and when I do it is a little Fiat—this looks like a lot of fun to drive.”
 
          Well, since it was the Pope and all, the driver reluctantly said “OK”, got in the back seat, and let the Pope drive.
 
          And the Pope got in and was really enjoying driving this beautiful car—going down the Jersey Turnpike passing other cars, going faster and faster—80, 90, maybe almost 100 miles an hour—when a Jersey highway patrol cop saw what was going on, and pulled him over.
 
          The cop went up to the Lincoln, and did a double-take when the Pope rolled down the window to talk to him.  He glanced in back and  then ran back to his squad and radioed his sergeant.
          “Sarge,” he said, “we’ve got a big problem here.  I just pulled over a Lincoln speeding on the turnpike and there is someone really important in the back.”
          “Who is it?” the sergeant asked.
          “Is it the Congressman?”“No,” the cop said.
          “The Senator?” “No”
          “Well, it is the Governor?” No,” said the cop, “it is someone even more important than that.”
          “It can’t be the president, can it?” said the sergeant.  “No, even more important than that,” said the cop.
          “Well, who is it,” said the sergeant, getting a little frustrated.
          “I don’t know,” said the cop. “All I know is that the Pope is his driver.”
          I’ve told this story before and I apologize, but it seemed to fit with what we’re reflecting on today— what the Church technically calls “The Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe.”
          This feast is quite new as Church feasts go.  It was instituted by Pope Pius XI in 1925 and you might ask why, 1900 years after Christ lived, the Church decided to promulgate this feast of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe.
          And I think the answer has to do with what was going on back in the 1920’s.  It was a time of turmoil, not unlike our time, but probably even more so.  World War I had just ended, and the Western world was in complete disarray.  Great empires and their kings had fallen—the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Russian Empire, Germany, and, the longest of all, the Ottoman Empire.
          New and very scary ideologies were growing —communism, fascism, Nazism.
          And it was in that context- -in the context of change and uncertainty in the political and social structure –chaos, really in some places—that the Pope instituted this feast, as if to remind us, to get us to stop and think for a time, about the ruler, the king, that truly matters in our lives, and what that king—Jesus Christ, the King of the Universe—is all about.
          And so, in our own time, we might do the same—we might remind ourselves to whom we truly pledge allegiance – and it is not a political party or a president or even a country—and who that person, Jesus Christ, King of the Universe, our King, truly is.
          And as we think about Christ the King, we need first to get past some misconceptions.  Christ the King isn’t about power, glory, majesty, and all that.
 Sure, we believe He will come again in majesty, but now, in this time before He comes again and when His kingdom is not of this world, we have a very different king—a king whose throne is the cross, and whose crown is made of thorns—the king we see today in the Gospel.
No, Christ the King is a king who considers Himself so at one with the poor, the sick, the hungry, those in prison, the naked that when we care for them, it is literally the same as caring for Him.  That’s what we read at the end of chapter 25 of Matthew’s Gospel, one of the other readings that gets used on this feast.
          And today’s Gospel reading shows us how Christ reveals Himself to us—gives us an example of what we do that opens us up to an encounter with this most important king.
          Think for a minute about this question: what was it that caused the one criminal being crucified with Jesus to suddenly realize who he was next to—the Jesus was truly a king in a sense beyond that of a worldly king?
          After all, the criminal to whom Jesus promises entry into paradise doesn’t seem to have any special connection with Jesus.  There is no suggestion that he was a follower, a disciple.  We know only that he’s a criminal, and probably a pretty serious one, because he’s there being crucified.
          And this “good thief,” as he is sometimes called, listens to the leaders and the soldier sneering at and mocking Jesus.  He sees the mockery of the sign “This is The King of the Jews”  above Jesus’ head.
          He’s probably heard the commotion that led up to Jesus’ death sentence, and maybe knows Jesus is some sort of teacher or prophet, not a criminal.
          And finally, amid all the people who are trying to make Jesus’ situation even worse than it is—criticizing, belittling, mocking—he can’t take it any more.  When the other criminal joins in, the “good thief” speaks up, speaks up for truth, for justice, for recognition that what is happening to Jesus is completely wrong—and he speaks up in the midst of his own incredible agony, at a time when you’d think taking the side of an innocent person is the last thing in the world someone would be able to do—better just to shut up and conserve what little of your energy, your life, remains than to take the side of a condemned man against the Roman soldiers and the Jewish rulers.
          But he does it—he does what he can to alleviate Jesus’ suffering mentally, emotionally, takes his side—and basically tells the other criminal to shut up. 
          Where does that come from—the energy to do that?
          Doesn’t it have to be God’s grace, working in this man, perhaps without his even knowing it, to which he responds by taking the risk to speak for Jesus.
          What’s the result?  What happens next?
          The consequence of this reaching out to help, of this cry for justice, of this concern about another in the midst of one’s own incredible agony, of this response to God’s grace,  is that the “good thief” suddenly realizes who Jesus is.
          It is in this action that the “good thief” opens himself up to the King of the Universe—realizes at some fundamental level that Jesus is truly Christ the King in a way that he didn’t before.
          Because it is in our response to God’s grace, in that sort of behavior—reaching out to others, doing what we can, little as it might be, to ease their pain—that our king, the King of the Universe, the king who is so associated with those in need that serving them is like serving him—it is as a consequence of those actions that we find Christ reveals Himself to us.
          And the really good news is that when the criminal realizes who Jesus is and says “remember me when you come into your kingdom,” Jesus—in His own agony—says “done, you’re in.”
          It doesn’t matter what the criminal had done or why he’s being crucified.  Might have led a truly horrible life.
          But he asks Jesus to be admitted to the kingdom and the King of the Universe, a king whose fundamental, defining characteristic is mercy, doesn’t hesitate a bit in saying “yes.”
          Yes, times are uncertain, as they probably always are.
          But we might remember the example of the criminal today who got past his own pain and despair to help another.  When we do that, we have a chance to glimpse the true King, and ask Him to enter the Kingdom.
          He always says “yes.”