This Sunday is the feast of Christ the King. When I read those words ‘Christ the King’, the image that springs to mind is Jesus enthroned in heaven in the manner of an emperor of the ancient world. That is no surprise because Jesus has often been depicted as such in religious art. ‘How wrong’, I want to say, that is not the Jesus we read about in the Gospels. At the trail of Jesus, Pilate, the Roman governor asks Jesus whether he is the king of the Jews. Jesus neither confirms or denies this. Later he goes on to say that his kingdom is not of this world. He also says:
“You say that 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.”
The dictators of today and the kings of the world in which Jesus lived rely, and relied upon the force of arms and propaganda to keep control of the actions and thoughts of the people. And the religious rulers stood on their religious authority to do much the same. Jesus had no soldiers or police, and he stood outside of the temple hierarchy without the weight of religious authority. But Jesus had and has no need of controlling anyone. ‘He has come’ he says, ‘to bear witness to the truth’. If one speaks the truth, anyone who recognises the truth will accept the words of the one speaking it. ‘Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice’. Truth needs no authority to commend it but itself, it requires no police force to guard or army to defend it, and no religious authority uphold it, truth is its own guardian, defender and authority.
I am not a Christian because all Christians are particularly kinder or nicer than other people, and not all are any way. I am not a Christian because the Church has always a been shinning light in a world of darkness, sometimes it has been, but we only have to mention the inquisition and the witch hunts, to remember that the church has often been a malign force in the world. I am a Christian because I believe what Jesus taught about himself and what the Church has proclaimed about him, I believe these things to be true.
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