Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Universal King

Stalin once asked, derisively, how many divisions does the Pope command. When Jesus was asked by Pontius Pilate whether he was a king, his answer was enigmatic: “Mine is not a kingdom of this world”. So you are a king then? said Pilate, to which Jesus responded: "Yes, I am a king. I was born for this, I came into the world for this, to bear witness to the truth”.


Today, the last Sunday in the Christian Year, we sum up all that we have learned and celebrated through the past twelve months in this one title – Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Universal King. But, as with the dialogue between Jesus and Pilate, there is something enigmatic here, differing understandings of the same words. That Jesus is not a king in any conventional sense is all too painfully clear. If he were, then we would expect direct action to right the wrongs and injustices of the world, to usher in an immediate age of peace and good will. A knight in shining armour. Barack Obama writ even larger.

So what are we doing in calling Jesus a king? For the prophet Ezekiel when God reveals himself to his people it will be in the form, not of a prince, but of a shepherd. “I shall look for the lost one, bring back the stray, bandage the wounded and make the weak strong”. When he does appear, Jesus describes himself as the Good Shepherd, and he underlines this ministerial understanding of his vocation when he kneels during the Last Supper to wash the feet of his disciples. Jesus is, in the words of the Apocalypse: “the first born from the dead, the Ruler of the kings of the earth” through whom everything that exists was made – his sovereignty is of the very essence of his own being – but the exercise of that natural kingship is through humility rather than power, through service rather than domination.

Jesus told Pilate that he had come into the world “to bear witness to the truth”, and once, famously, in teaching his disciples, he declared: “The kingdom of God is within you”. If we try to define Christ’s sovereignty in worldly terms we are destined to frustration – any human model of authority just does not work when applied to the Son of God – but if we understand God’s kingdom in the way that the Gospels define it, we see it as the gradual conversion of human hearts, from within – not a cosmic reality yet, but the grain of wheat falling into the ground, the mustard seed slowly taking root. The truth which Jesus offers Pilate is the potential for change within the heart of each individual. His call to conversion is so much more radical than anything envisaged by those seeking to build utopia on earth.

But if, for the moment, the reality of Christ’s Kingdom is hidden, not easily observable, underground, that does not mean this will always be the case. Very much the opposite. We are those who are committed to the new heaven and the new earth envisaged by Daniel: “I gazed into the visions of then night, and I saw, coming on the clouds of heaven, one like a son of man – on him was conferred sovereignty, glory and kingship and men of all peoples, nations and languages became his servants. His sovereignty is an eternal sovereignty which shall never pass away”.

We are looking towards a final moment of judgement when everything that is good and creative and positive and life-affirming will be seen for what it is – and when everything evil and destructive and negative and life denying is also seen for what it truly is. We believe that the Father has put all judgement into the hands of his Son, and that it is Jesus, alone, who has the power to say: “Come you whom my Father has blessed, take for your heritage the kingdom prepared for you since the foundation of the world”.

Until that final Day of Judgement the kingdom will not be seen clearly, and right up to the very end the symbol of Christ’s kingship will be nothing more than a crown of thorns placed on the Man with the broken heart. That is why the celebration of Our Lord Jesus Christ as Universal King is a closely bound up with devotion to his Sacred Heart. “Everyone will see him, even those who pierced him”. Sovereignty through suffering – lordship through self-sacrifice – this is the mystery and the glory of our faith. It is a mystery which can only be fathomed by those who, like the Saviour himself, are the poor in spirit. “Blessed are the poor in spirit, theirs is the kingdom of heaven”.

Jesus, gentle and humble in heart,
make our hearts like your heart.

Jesus, may your kingdom come!