Read­ing Time: 3 minutes

Introduction

The feast of Christ the king is a right way to con­clude the year. Today, Cath­ol­ics in Niger­ia pro­claim and remind Nigeri­ans that Jesus is the king of Niger­ia and of the uni­verse. The pro­ces­sion marks two cel­eb­ra­tions: the feast of Christ the King and Cor­pus Domini. As we know, due to rain­ing sea­son, the pro­ces­sion of Cor­pus Domini is post­poned until the last Third Sunday of November.

Are you the king of the Jews?

“Then Pil­ate entered the headquar­ters again, summoned Jesus, and asked him, ‘are you the King of the Jews?’” (John 18:33; cf. also Matt 27:11; Mark 15:2; Luke 23:3). This was a ques­tion put to Jesus by Pil­ate as the Jew­ish author­ity brought Jesus to him for inter­rog­a­tions. But why this ques­tion on the king­ship? From the con­text, Luke gives the reas­on for the ques­tion. Accord­ing to Luke, when the coun­cil or the assembly of the eld­ers of the people, the chief priests and the scribes led Jesus to Pil­ate, they began to accuse him say­ing “we found this man mis­lead­ing our nation and for­bid­ding to pay taxes to Caesar, and say­ing that he him­self is Christ, the King” (Luke 23:2). In his own account, John says they accused Jesus of being an evil­do­er (cf. John 18:30). The issue here.….

The Kingdom of truth

“My king­dom is not from this world. My king­dom is not from here” (John 18:36). Jesus’ king­dom is not of this world. How­ever, he came into this world to testi­fy to the truth. In his reply to Pilate’s first ques­tion, Jesus uses the expres­sion “my king­dom” three times. This is a won­der­ful explan­a­tion of what really is the king­dom and the king­ship of Jesus. It is not of this world, but of the world to come. Unlike the worldly kings, Jesus does not have guards or ser­vants to fight for him, only the lov­ing com­mit­ting of his life into his Father’s hands. Jesus’ reply “Yes, I am a king”, explains his ori­gin and his mis­sion. Jesus was born for us and to us, he was sent for us and to us, to reveal the truth of the Fath­er from whom we have sal­va­tion and allow us to listen to his voice and to fol­low him by being faith­ful to him all our life. 

Conclusion

This Sunday read­ings bear wit­ness to the king­ship of Christ. Daniel proph­esied about the etern­al reign of peace of Jesus, the Christ (cf. First Read­ing), while John in the Book of Rev­el­a­tion describes him as the first born of all cre­ation and the Alpha and the Omega (cf. Second Read­ing). The read­ings also remind us that the reign of Christ shall be marked by justice, love, truth, and peace. The Gos­pel under­line the unique role of Christ which neither Pil­ate nor the Jews could com­pre­hend because they were blinded by their selfish­ness and love for the king­dom of this world. Many people are like the Jews and Pil­ate who can­not see the truth, who do not know the truth and who can­not even speak the truth. Many people think everything ends in this life. Hence, all they are inter­ested in is this eph­em­er­al king­dom. Jesus teaches that we must strive to gain etern­al king­dom where he reigns supreme.

FOR DETAILS, GET YOUR OWN COPIES OF THE BOOK “THE WORD OF LIFE: SUNDAY REFLECTIONS” (vols. I and II)!! The reflec­tion for the 34^th Sunday of the year (B) is found in vol. II pages 528–537. Happy reading!

For details on how to get it, con­tact the author on this link: https://m.me/uchennabiblia?fbclid=IwAR2yeg4a6sDGBp9QGkIvKj6FSADumMokN6lshdE0zuo-JHs6qOmlhA7jyHo or email me at: postmaster@uchennabiblia.com or simply send an SMS on 08116100926, and I will get back to you.

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