Solemnity of Christ the King (Nov 20, 2016)

A retired teacher decided to volunteer at a local hospital and tutor some of the children who were going to be there for an extended period of time. She was given the name of a 9 y/o boy, named Jimmy.  She called Jimmy’s teacher at his school and got the assignments which his class was studying-- nouns and verbs.  The teacher brought all the material with her to the hospital.

When she arrived, she found out that Jimmy was in the burn unit.  For those of you who don’t know much about burn units, the sights and smells can be overwhelming.  The teacher almost turned around and went home, but she gathered up all of her courage and went inside and introduced herself to Jimmy.  He was not a pretty sight, and he wasn’t responding well to the treatment. She said, “Hi, Jimmy, my name is Mrs. Smith and I’m going to be your teacher for a while, until you can return to school.  Today, we’re going to learn about nouns and verbs.  It’s very important that a person knows how to speak and write properly”.  After the lesson was over, she told Jimmy that she’d be back in a few days.

Two days later, Mrs. Smith received a phone call from Jimmy’s mother asking if she would be coming to the hospital that day.  Mrs. Smith thought that she had done a poor job with Jimmy and that the mother was calling to tell her not to come back.  “Oh no”, said Jimmy’s mother, “On the contrary.  You have it all wrong.  I don’t know what you said to my son, but, since your visit, Jimmy has been really trying hard to respond to his treatment.  It seems like he has finally decided to live.” When Mrs. Smith returned to the hospital, she found Jimmy with his therapist and his mother.  Jimmy said to his mother, “Now I know that I’m going to live.  They wouldn’t send a teacher to teach me nouns and verbs if I was going to die, if I was a lost cause, would they”?

The connection between this story and the Gospel is striking.  God the Father would not send his only begotten Son, Jesus, Christ the King, if we are a lost cause.  He wouldn’t let his son die a miserable death on the cross for us if he didn’t know that some of us would call out to him, as did the good thief --“Jesus, remember me, when you come into your kingdom”.

Many people, unfortunately, only see the negative in their lives.  They have given up.  But Jesus hasn’t given up on us.  He refuses to ever give up on us.  He is Christ the King who loves us.  He loves us to death.  The goal and dream of Jesus is to have us live with him forever.  Our goal and dream should be the same too.  Every other goal and dream is transitory and of very little importance, no matter how important that they may seem at the moment.  They will pass away. Only eternity and eternal dreams and hopes will remain.  Many of us struggle with the basic fear, “Will I be remembered after I’m gone”.  We try to leave our ‘mark’ while we’re still here. If we are followers of Christ, we don’t have to worry about being remembered, do we?  Jesus, our Lord and King, will remember us and love us for eternity.  That is the great hope of today’s gospel for us.

This unnamed man, known only to us as the ‘good thief’, is dying for crimes which he committed, whatever they were.  How many people did he swindle or rob?  Who knows?  But, here he was, very close to Jesus on that darkest of days -- Good Friday.   He didn’t know much about Jesus, when he asked to be remembered.  Basically, his future hung in the balance.  This ‘good thief’ knew somehow that his eternal future hung on his faith that Jesus was exactly who he said he was -- the Son of God.  In that faith, he asked simply to be remembered.  He didn’t ask for some mansion in heaven -- just to be remembered.  It is mercy in its purest form that he seeks.

We are that thief, aren’t we?  All of us are sinners, maybe neither better nor worse than that thief on the cross.  There is hope for people like us.  Just a prayer away is the mercy of Christ-- just one prayer away.  This has been the message of the Jubilee Year of Mercy.  Jesus is the face of the Father’s mercy.

This last Sunday of the Church year challenges us to decide -- who is our king?  What are the goals and dreams that we should really be working and sacrificing for?  May we pray for each other that we are all centered in our faith that Jesus is the Lord and King of our lives.  We believe that nothing, not even death, can steal the dream of his kingdom from us.  This day Christ the King isn’t just the conclusion of the Church year.  It’s a sign of our hope.  We are one prayer away from being immersed in the mercy of Jesus.  “Jesus remember me when you come into your kingdom.”  Have a blessed day.