What do we expect
from our king?
When, in John’s
Gospel, Pilate asks Jesus, Are you the
king of the Jews?, Jesus’ eventual answer points to the true nature of
kingship: for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Jesus came in order to reveal that the love of
God is the only truth, a truth that remains elusive unless we allow God to be
king of our lives. To accept the Lord’s
kingship is to accept his love, even though we have not earned it; to accept
his kingship is also to obey his word, not out of coercion but out of a
confidence that God’s will is the truth, that God will lead us, that God’s
power is the only power worth paying attention to.
Readings from the
Old Testament give us a foretaste of the messiah-king to come. The prophet Daniel suggests that, though this
king will be like a Son of man, and therefore human, because
he comes on the clouds of heaven, his
origins will be divine. Moreover, Daniel
is confident that his kingship shall not
be destroyed. Psalm 93 similarly
celebrates the Lord’s kingship – The Lord
is king; he is robed in majesty! – with an accent on the trust that his decrees inspire. And the
final book of the New Testament celebrates the fullness of Jesus’ kingship,
citing Daniel’s clouds of heaven
while proclaiming that Jesus is the
faithful witness to God’s truth, the
Alpha and the Omega who brings us the whole of life, ruling our hearts with
the power of his love.
We are waiting for
the kingdom to come in its fullness, a kingdom not ruled by man but by God
alone, where the only power is the power of God’s love. Let us live in the present, for that kingdom, as if we are
preparing to enter it at every moment, with trust that Jesus is the truth, the king, the almighty!
This post is based
on Fr. Pat’s Scripture class.
Image source: www.wordle.net
