Christ - Our True King
CHRIST
– OUR TRUE KING
Mario
D’Couto
On the very outset, wishing you all a very happy feast of
Christ the King to each and every one of you. As the above title suggests, Our
Blessed Lord is indeed our true King. A King is one who looks out for his kingdom
and all who are part of it. Likewise, we who have become the adoptive children
of God through the precious Blood of Our Lord, have been redeemed by His
suffering, death and resurrection. This is what forms the basis of this article
through which I intend to show that the true purpose of Christ coming was to
liberate us from the slavery of sin; that while the Israelites thought of His
Kingship as a source of political freedom, it was actually a source of
spiritual liberation.
To situate ourselves, we first need to understand how the
phenomenon of sin came into existence. While there is no doubt that whatever
God created was good, including the angels (and that includes even those before
the fall), it would be worth raising the question, what made the so – called
‘bad’ angels and why there were not capable of God’s forgiveness if they fell.
If love is the first law given to spirits, freedom is
necessary to them because love under compulsion is a contradiction in terms and
is no less absurd than a square circle. It was necessary for the angels to be
free as it was for Adam and Eve, and as it is for us to be free to choose our
own course, that is to give our love to God or to refuse to do so. The fall of
the angels becomes in this way as intelligible to us, the fall of Adam or our
own fall.
The theological virtues of faith, hope and charity were
endowed in them by God. But that leads us to a question, “How long did this
form of existence last?” The answer is uncertain. As mentioned earlier, there
are well founded reasons for saying that we cannot situate the angels in time
without detriment to their nature. They are above time. If one were to dwell
further, we may be straying into hazardous speculation. What is certain – and
by no means conjectural – is that like us, the angels underwent a test and we
have seen why it is so.
There is no happiness without love, there is no love
without freedom and there is no freedom without a choice, that is to say
without a test. With this in mind, we are led to the very depths of the mystery
of our own destiny. “In what did the trials of the angels consist?” “How long
did it last?” These 2 questions remain
unanswered. Our scriptures are silent upon these two points. What they do say,
however, is that there was a fearsome battle between the angels as can be found
in the book of Revelation.
Pride is at the origin of all rebellion. Pride is pre –
eminently a sin of the spirit. Angels being spirits could not sin, as men do,
through sensuality but they could very easily sin through pride, as the in the
book of Sirach it is written, “Pride is hateful before God and men ….. for
the beginning of pride is sin.” (Sirach 10:7, 13)
The idea or their own perfection, the power of their
intelligence, the grandiose visions it offered them would all lead them into
the temptation to pride, through self – satisfaction. Hence it seems quite clear,
that the sin committed by Satan and his angels could only be a sin of pride.
This sin was doubtless the wish ‘to become God Himself’ at least in the eyes of
the angels who desired to follow him and whom he managed to lead astray. To wish to become God is the height of
pride. It is the crime that among human beings, the false messiahs of
philosophy and politics commit with varying degrees of enlightment and
violence. The denial of love, the essential revolt, the unforgivable sin.
The next question that is yet to be answered is “Was
there no way of the angels who went against God capable of forgiveness?” Theologians
have carefully examined this problem. The explanation of it, according to them,
is that the nature of the angelic spirit is to see in a flash, both for and
against before making the choice and never again, metaphysically, to be able to
retract once that choice is made. The angelic intelligence is intuitive. It
operates by powerful inspiration. It never returns to the things seen, once
they have been seen nor does it reconsider decisions once taken. A sin
regretted is a sin that can be forgiven but a sin that is not followed by
repentance and retraction is an unforgivable sin. This is what is called the
final impenitence.
We may infer that the evil one was jealous of humanity
since we were all created in the image and likeness of God. Given his pride and
jealousy, he did not want humanity to be in communion with God and wanted us to
fall, just as he did. Sadly, we did fall and while we probably should have
received a similar punishment, God chose not to do so. He still loved us, which
is why He sent His Son, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ to pay the penalty
for our sins.
However, the plight was that despite Him becoming
incarnate, not many people realized who He truly was – the Saviour. The miracle
of feeding of 5000 men (not counting women and children) was supposed to be a
pre – figuration of His ultimate sacrifice on the Cross. However, for some
reason, they had not taken the miracle as a sign of His Divinity; they were
looking ‘for’ Him instead of ‘to’ Him. It seemed as though they
saw Him only as a means of satisfying their bread – hunger and not the soul –
hunger. In fact, we may just say that when Our Blessed Lord got off the boat
once it reached the shores, the multitude of people were there to meet Him.
They had brought their sick with them and they were hungry in more ways than
one. They gave Him no repose, not because they believed Him to be the Son of God,
but because they regarded Him as a magician who could do wonders or a physician
who could heal the sick.
Through the multiplication of the loaves of bread, Our
Lord was setting two kinds of bread before them: one that would perish and the
other, that would endure into life everlasting. He cautioned them against
following Him as a donkey following the master who holds a carrot. Excitement is
not religion, nor was religon meant to be that way, but it was definitely meant
to be meaningful. Of course, in later stages, one may find it exciting once one
has discovered the meaning and purpose behind what he/she believes. But if this
is not there, everything else is just a shallow façade. Bishop Fulton Sheen
puts this in perspective in his book, “Life of Christ”, “The masses were generally
interested only in wonders and in security. When He multiplied the leaves and
fishes, He startled their eyes. When He filled their stomachs, He satisfied
their sense of social justice. That was the kind of King they wanted, a bread
King. ‘What else can religion do for man, anyway, except given him social
security?’ they seemed to ask. The masses
tried to force Him to become a King. That is what Satan wanted too! Fill
gullets, turn stones into bread and promise prosperity – this is the end of
living to most mortals. 
But Our Lord would have no kingship based on the economics of plenty. To make Him King was His Father’s business, not theirs: His Kingship would be of hearts and souls, not digestive tracts. So, the Gospel tells us He fled into the mountains to be by Himself alone, to escape their tinsel crown and tin sword.” [In this regard, I would suggest checking out my article “Towards a mature relationship with God” and would also recommend reading all 4 parts as it is very much connected to this theme].
To conclude, there are two kinds of philosophies of life,
Ø First
the feast then the hangover
Ø First
the fast then the feast
Deferred joys purchased by sacrifices are always the
sweetest and most enduring. Christianity begins not with sunshine but with
defeat. Sunshine religions that begin with psychic elation, end often in
disillusionment and despair.
Unless there is a Good Friday in our lives, there will
never be an Easter Sunday. The seed must fall to the ground and die before it
springs forth to new life. The Cross is the condition of the empty tomb and the
crown of thorns is the preface to the halo of light. Unfortunately, today we
are living in a ‘quick – fix’ culture
and somehow it seems as though the meaning of sin has been lost. It seems as
though the only sin that modern man admits is social sin committed by the
State, Government or Capitalists. If he/she does wrong personally, he/she is
‘sick’ but he/she is not a sinner. What is forgotten, is not the worst thing in
the world. The worst thing is the denial of sin. A person who is sick and
pretends to be fine or denies that he/she has any illness, such a person cannot
be cured. If I am blind and deny there is any thing such as light, I would
never be able to see. If I am deaf and deny sound, I would never be able to
hear. If I deny there is sin, I make forgiveness impossible.
If we leave the Cross out of the life of Christ, we have
nothing left and certainly not Christianity. For the Cross is related to our
sins. Christ was our ‘stand – in’ on
the stage of life. He took our guilt as if He were guilty and thus paid the
debt that sin deserved, namely, death. This made our resurrection to a ‘new
life’ in Him. Christ therefore is not just a teacher or a peasant revolutionist
but our Saviour. He is, indeed, our true King. 
