Sunday 25th November, 2012
Our Lord Jesus Christ, Universal King. G. Daniel 7:13-14. The Lord is king; he is robed in majesty—Ps 92(93):1-2, 5. Apocalypse 1:5-8. John 18:33-37 [St Catherine of Alexandria].

  
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I saw one like a human being coming with the powers of heaven. To him was given glory and kingship that all peoples and languages should serve him.

The idea of kingship, to modern democrats, can seem strange, even alienating. Certainly, Jesus, in the calm gravity of his conversation with Pilate, seems to deflect attention away from the notion of king to an insistence on the importance of the kingdom, that is, to what will happen to those under his rule.

When the people wanted to seize Jesus and make him king, he hid himself. Throughout his years of preaching and exemplifying the Father’s plan for humankind, he shunned the triumphalist style of leadership that some would foist on him, stressing that whoever would be a leader in his outfit must be the servant of all. In the end, we are left with the triumph of the cross.