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November 25, 2018"My kingdom is not of this world." (Jn 18:36)
In the readings for this feast of Christ the King, Year B, we have a phrase from the Book of Revelation that evokes one of the most beautiful and deeply haunting passages of the Bible. The reading from Revelation states, “It is he who is coming on the clouds; everyone will see him, even those who pierced him, and all the races of the earth will mourn over him. This is the truth. Amen.” What comes to mind immediately is the passage that reveals what you could call the Suffering Servant of Deutero Zechariah. Just as the Suffering Servant of Deutero Isaiah was pierced through for our offences, so this Servant too is pierced: “But over the House of David and the citizens of Jerusalem I will pour out a spirit of kindness and prayer. They will look on the one whom they have pierced; they will mourn for him as for an only son, and weep for him as people weep for a first born child…When that day comes a fountain will be opened for the House of David and the citizens of Jerusalem for sin and impurity.”
Standing beneath the cross St. John saw the perfect fulfillment of this prophecy and recognized in Jesus the Pierced One from whose open side flowed blood and water for purification and life. “When they came to Jesus, they found he was already dead and instead of breaking his legs one of the soldiers pierced his side with a lance and immediately there came out blood and water…All of this happened to fulfill the words of scripture: “Not one bone of his will be broken”; and again in another place scripture says: “They will look on the one whom they have pierced.”
And so we gaze interiorly today on a king who is unlike any other king; one who is a pierced king and an only son---the only Son. Before this king is pierced by us he comes towards us, full of hope that we will receive him. What St. Bernard says of the saints must be said above all of him: “He longs for us.” He said it himself: “How I long to gather you to myself.” He come in such a loving, humble spirit; not arrogantly nor in a spirit of domination or aloofness. Such is our king.
Matthew and John in their passion narratives were powerfully illumined by Jesus’ fulfillment of the prophecy of Deutero Zechariah. John brings forth the image of the Pierced One while both of them capture Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday in Zechariah’s words: “Say to the daughter of Zion, ‘Look your king come to you; he is humble, he rides on a donkey.” Something we saw recently brought this home to me with fresh emotion: Pope Francis in the news clip we saw on Thanksgiving Day gave us a beautiful image of the humble love of Christ. Yes, it is Jesus who travels to the poor neighborhood of our hearts. Then he persuades us to come to him and tell him what troubles us, what makes our hearts ache. He listens like a father and like a mother, with the greatest attentiveness and affection so that he can hear every word and catch the meaning of the heart. Then he gives an answer from his own heart, from the depths of love and truth. And finally this king invites us to be his friend forever, to abide in his pierced heart.
Living with a pierced heart means that we will be pained by the inhumanity of others towards ourselves as well as by our own inhumanity towards others. But we won’t hide from others or from ourselves; we won’t let this stop us in our efforts to love and to be accessible to the other. Forgetting the past, forgetting the failures of today, we press on towards greater and greater sensitivity, greater and greater tenderness, despite the pain. We press on towards less and less defendedness, less and less self- protectiveness. This is made possible because we press on now, not ourselves, but Christ living in us, humble in us, loving through us, bearing with us and with others in our imperfect ways of loving, knowing that it is a million times better to love imperfectly than not to love at all.
When we consider this mystery of the Divine Heart piercing through our own lives, it is easy to understand why Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world.” Let us choose his world and cast our lot with Christ our King, choosing his most mysterious and blessed Kingdom, hiding there in his pierced and merciful heart. As St. Bernard put it, “The nail that pierced him has become for me a key unlocking the sight of the Lord’s will. Why should I not gaze through the cleft? The nail cries out, the wound cries out that God is truly in Christ, reconciling the world to himself. ‘The iron pierced his soul’ and his heart has drawn near, so that he is no longer one who cannot sympathize with my weaknesses. The secret of his heart is laid open through the clefts of his body; that mighty mystery of loving is laid open, laid open too the tender mercies of our God, in which the morning sun from on high has risen upon us. Surely his heart is laid open through his wounds!”
Image: St John's Bible
