His Kingdom Will Have No End

Homily for the Solemnity of Christ the King, Year C
All good things must come to an end, or so the saying goes. Today is the Feast of Christ the King, and it is an ending of sorts. We decorate our Church in gold, we use incense to mark the solemnity of the occasion – and all for an ending, the end of the Church year. Next week, we will start all over with the First Sunday of Advent. This is our New Year’s Eve – the Church’s version of the end of the year.

But there is another ending that we hear about today – the end of the earthly lives of three men hanging on crosses. One of these men we know well – we have been following his life and his journey for the past year in the Gospel according to Luke. Sunday after Sunday we have heard his parables – remember the one about the son who ran away from home, or about the Samaritan who helped a beaten traveler? Sunday after Sunday he has taught us how to pray and how to have faith – even if that faith is only the size of a mustard seed. We know this man, we know his family, his friends, we know that he wants us to follow him. But these other two men on the crosses – we know nothing about them except that they are thieves. We don’t know their stories, we don’t even know their names – but their lives are coming to an end, too, just like the life of Jesus the teacher, Jesus the friend of the poor and outcast, Jesus the Son of God.

They call him a king in the gospel today – the King of the Jews – but he can’t be like any other king we’ve heard of. He’s certainly not like King David, who lived in sumptuous palaces and commanded large armies. This King of the Jews didn’t seem to have a home – he spent his adult life on the road, traveling with his band of disciples. And you definitely couldn’t call those disciples an army – here at the end, they’ve deserted their leader and left him to die by himself. But he does have those two thieves beside him, and perhaps that is where we can see him as a king.

Christ the King rules from a throne made to execute criminals. His kingdom is not of this world – and yet he can promise eternity in a place called Paradise. His subjects are the poor and outcast, the rejected of this world, like the petty thief hanging next to him, or the scared fishermen who ran away when trouble came, or the grieving women who are helpless at the foot of his cross. Christ is a king unlike any this world has ever known or will ever know because his ending is just a beginning – his death ushers in a new and eternal kingdom, his last breath – the breath that breathed on the waters of creation, the breath that spoke to Elijah in the cave and hushed the storm on the Sea of Galilee – his last breath comes with the promise of a new breath, the breath of the Holy Spirit, and that is a promise that will never end. Christ is a king unlike any this world has ever known because his kingdom will have no end.

And so on this day when we celebrate endings – the end of the Church Year, the Year of Luke; the death of three men on crosses; on this day of endings, we also celebrate those things that have no end – God, the Father, Son and Spirit; God’s eternal kingdom; and the promise that Jesus made from the cross: “Today, you will be with me in Paradise.”