The Good Thief could understand in his own body the incredible, biting pain Jesus would have been experiencing a few feet away, and yet he could see that that pain had not gained the upper hand. The criminal on Jesus’s right - at arguably the worst moment of his up-to-then bad life, during his excruciatingly painful public execution - had the ability to see how special the one being crucified beside him was. Jesus’ true regality was not lost on everyone. To enter into his kingdom with him, to be his right hand, to be his cabinet ministers, means to be willing to give our life as a ransom for God and others, to serve rather than be served, to give rather than get. It shall not be so among you but whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave even as the Son of man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” That is Jesus’ kingdom. After James and John got their mother - how pathetic is that!? - to go up to Jesus to ask him to do whatever she asked and to grant that her baby boys sit on his immediate right and left as began his kingdom, Jesus used it as a lesson for all, who were hungering after the same worldly authority and power: “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. We see throughout the Gospel that they were competing against each for the greatest positions in the messianic administration as they imagined it would be on earth. Jesus said it is associated with truth.Įven the apostles had a false idea about what it meant to be in the service of the king. They thought it was associated with force. Every one who is of the truth hears my voice.” The Romans thought that kingship meant having the power to crucify or pardon. For this I was born, and for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth. When Pontius Pilate interrogated Jesus, he asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” Jesus answered, “My kingship is not of this world if my kingship were of this world, my servants would be fighting that I not be handed over to the Jews but my kingship is not of this world.” Then Pilate retorted, “So you are a king?” Jesus replied by describing more specifically what type of king he was and what type of kingdom he was establishing. The Romans were likewise unprepared for a king like Jesus. They were totally unprepared for a king who would serve at all, not to mention to the point of death. The Jews anticipated that the Messiah-King would use his power to subjugate all those who made themselves his adversaries, not take their abuse and die a horrible death to save his abusers. So when David and his men took the city, they went up and attacked even the blind and the lame. When David marched into Jerusalem, right after the end of today’s first reading, the inhabitants of Jerusalem who opposed David told him that even the blind and the lame of the city were united in opposition against him and would defeat him. He would defeat all foreign powers and would be brutal to those who opposed him. The Jews anticipated that when the Son of David came, he would rule in the way that his ancestor David had ruled. In the first reading, we see the beginning of David’s kingship in Jerusalem. And all of them mocked him in the same way: “If you’re truly the king of the Jews, the Messiah, the Christ, come down from that Cross and save yourself.” Such visible force was the only demonstration of kingly power that they could comprehend.įor most Jews at the time, Jesus’ crucifixion was the proof that he was precisely not the long awaited Messiah-king for whom they had been waiting for centuries. The Roman soldiers and passers-by mocked him. To ridicule him and Jews in general, Pilate had ordered that an inscription in three languages be placed above his head: “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.” Rather than pay him homage, most in the crowd mocked him. He was crowned with thorns, not with gold and diadems. He was hammered to a Cross, not seated on a throne. He was bathed in blood, not clothed with royal purple. The last thing Jesus looked like as he hung upon the Cross on Good Friday was a king. When Jesus inaugurated his kingdom, it had nothing to do with the expectations of almost anyone at the time. Thousands of times a year, Christians normally pray, “Thy kingdom come!” We all know the aphorism that says “Be careful what you ask for.” Today on this Solemnity of Christ the King, it’s important for us to ponder what type of kingdom we’re praying will come so that we may enter, dwell and rejoice in it. Jesus’ Kingdom Didn’t Match Anyone’s Expectations The written text guiding the homily was as follows: To listen to an audio recording of this homily, please click here: Retreats for Priests, Deacons, and Seminarians.
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