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As I mentioned over the last two weekends, as the liturgical year draws to an end the readings, themselves, were getting darker and heavier. They were pointing us to the end times. After much talk about the end times, Jesus faces, in today’s gospel, the end time of his human life as he hangs on the cross to die. We are told that during the three hours Jesus hung on the Cross, darkness covered all the land. Before the crucifixion, when Jesus was arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane, he said, “This is your hour, and the power of darkness.”  In other words, “the stage is yours, darkness; show me what you got!” Darkness will strut its part on stage, but it will be nowhere to be seen, when the play comes to an end. Darkness will win a battle here and there, but it will be nowhere to be seen when the war finally comes to an end.

All I have to do is watch the 6 o’clock news, or ponder the death of a loved one, or see some injustice or poverty that shouldn’t be, and I inwardly say to myself, “Something bigger, something more just, something more loving, something more life-giving, something more merciful and forgiving has to speak to, and rule over, this situation.” That something is someone—Christ the King.

This feast in the Church is one of the newer feasts; we’ve only been celebrating it for about 100 years. In 1925, the world was trying to rebuild after World War l. Fascism was on the rise and our church had lost its political power being holed up behind the walls of the Vatican. Pope Pius XI felt the need to remind Christians, by establishing this feast, of who our true king was among so many corrupt earthly kings. He wanted people to see and hope in something beyond what their eyes were seeing. He wanted people to see and hope in Christ the image of the invisible God.

We have heard the Jesus story through the eyes of Luke this past year, and today we say good-bye to Luke and savor all that he has taught us about Jesus. So, who is this Jesus, and what does he tell us about what a real king is like?

Back in January, when we began Ordinary Time, Luke started us off with Jesus himself beginning his public ministry. Jesus, in his hometown of Nazareth, stood up in the synagogue, unrolled the scroll handed to him, and read from Isaiah. This is what the scroll said—it’s Jesus’ entire reason for living among us: The spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. (He could have stopped there, and it would have been enough, but he continued). He has sent me to proclaim freedom to everyone who has ever felt chained in life. He sent me to bring sight to all our forms of blindness. He sent me to tell those who are oppressed by anything at all, “You are free!” He sent me to tell people that this is a year of jubilee.” Why jubilee? Because so many people are just scaping by, just surviving, and this is not the way God intended our lives to be. This King, Jesus, came to give us life to the full, not just to scrape by.

We were then treated, throughout Luke’s gospel, to story after story of God’s love, mercy and forgiveness as Jesus ate with those considered sinners and the outcasts of society. Jesus allowed a repentant prostitute to wash his feet. We heard about a notoriously greedy tax collector named Zacchaeus who was so honored by Jesus’ presence at his dinner table that he changed his ways immediately and became an honest man. We heard about an unlikely Samaritan who came to the aid of an injured man when the religious elite found every excuse to pass him by. We heard of another unlikely Samaritan, so full of gratitude because his leprosy was healed, turn back, and gave thanks to Jesus while the others went on their merry way.

Luke then went on to tell us about this Jesus who sat, ate, and spent time with all the wrong people— women in openly social settings, non-Jews, and sinners of all kinds while at the same time ignoring all the purity codes of how, when, and where that his religion required at the time. Jesus formed new bonds of unity wherever he went. In doing so, he asks us to review our priorities. He also asks us to revisit who or what we hold as King in our lives.

This brings us back to Jesus being crucified between two thieves. He’s doing what he always did from Day 1. His mission has come full circle. God’s anointed one is proclaiming liberty to captives, sight to the blind, freedom to the oppressed, and he’s doing it all hanging on a cross between two thieves. Neither thief denies their guilt, but only one has the faith to call Jesus by name and own what he did. And from that place of truth he says, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”

There is nothing wrong with Jesus’ memory. He will remember this guy just as he remembered Day 1 in the synagogue in Nazareth when he said, “I have been anointed to set prisoners free. Today, my friend, you are that prisoner, and you will be with me in paradise.” This is the one who is our king; this is the one we are called to imitate. We are not perfect. We will fail to be like Christ, and we will not always make the right decisions. That’s O.K. For his outstretched arms on the cross “holds all things together” as St. Paul reminds us. These arms are big enough to save you, to save me, and to save the world.

Fr. Phil Mulligan