Christ the King: End of Time Juxtaposed to an End of a Liturgical Year, Discerning Fresh Hope for What Is To Follow - Christmas

As it draws near to the end of the liturgical year, the scripture readings focus on the end of time. And, this liturgical year – Year C – ends with this week! So, what does it mean? 

Does it mean there is no more liturgy, including the scripture readings in Mass, because it is the end? 

No. 

It is only “an” end. Not “the” end. 

There remains continuity beyond an end – beyond the end of this liturgical year, because this liturgical year will gives its way to ring in a new liturgical year – Year A, as we maintain the 3-year liturgical cycle (A-B-C) in the Church. 

This coexistence of an end and continuity is one important thing to bear in mind as we approach the very last week of this liturgical year, focusing on the issues about the end of time through our scripture readings.  This is very important so that we won’t get “lost” in an end-of-time pessimism as we retain a sense of continuity beyond an approaching end. 

To highlight the end of this liturgical year, we solemnly commemorate the feast of Christ the King, the 34^th Sunday of Ordinary Time.  And, that’s this Sunday! 

During this liturgical year (Year C), we primarily read Luke’s Gospel, and the Gospel readings for the 32^nd Sunday and the 33^rd Sunday really touch on our eschatological concerns. 

When we are hinted with something that invokes an end, such as death, we tend to become anxious. And, we often wonder and worry.  But, in order to cope with our anxieties and worries, invoked by our awareness of an end, it is important to maintain a sense of continuity beyond an imminent end. In pastoral care for dying patients, this is important. But, we do not have to be dying patient to have a sustaining sense of continuity beyond an end, in order for us to meaningfully cope with fears and anxieties involving an end and uncertainty.  There is important wisdom for this, drawn from the Gospel readings leading to the last Sunday of the liturgical year. 

These Gospel readings from 32^nd Sunday (Luke 20:27-38) and 33^rd Sunday (Luke 21:5-9) are meant to help us deal with our tendency to become anxious about a prospect of an end but also to prepare us for the feast of Christ the King, marking the end of the liturgical year. The Gospel reading for feast of Christ the King – 34^th Sunday (Luke 23:35-43) is not only to highlight the very last week of the liturgical year with a scene of the very last hour of Jesus’ life in Calvary but rather to reveal apocalyptic nature of Jesus’ Kingly identity a bit. The Gospel readings of the 32^nd Sunday and 33^rd Sunday are to build up our mindset well-prepared for a gradual revelation of Jesus’ Kingly identity, leading to its completion in the Book of Revelation. 

Psychologically and spiritually, this arrangement of the Gospel reading across these last 3 weeks of the liturgical year is to appreciate the beginning of the revelation of the apocalyptic nature of Jesus’ Kingship nature without being misguided and fooled.

The Gospel reading for the Christ the King (Luke 23:35-43), indeed, provides a case study for being misguided with a criminal, who mocked Jesus as a failed king of the Jew with cynicism and pessimism (Luke 23:39). This man, being crucified with Jesus, had thought the Jesus, the king of the Jew, was simply to die without the resurrection. And, this pessimistic view echoes the Pharisees’ view in the 32^nd Sunday Gospel reading (Luke 20:27-38). 

On the other hand, the Gospel reading for the Christ the King (Luke 23:35-43) also gives a case study counter to the case of cynical and pessimistic criminal.  Another criminal being crucified with Jesus to his right hand, also known as a “good thief” or “patient thief”, viewed Jesus on the Cross differently. The “god thief” said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom”(Luke 23:42), instead of mocking him.  And, you may want to ponder why the “good thief” said “your kingdom”. He did not say, “when you come into your republic”, though. Apparently, the “good thief” had seen Jesus, the man being crucified like him, right next to him, as a king beyond the king of the Jew, which was a conspired “crime” allegation to kill Jesus. This awareness of the “good thief” is extremely important to appreciate the meaning of the solemn feast of Christ the King. And, because this nature is apocalyptic, its full revelation has to wait until the end of time – the time described in the Book of Revelation, the very last book in the Bible.  This is why this man is also called “patient thief”.

A very important lesion from the Gospel readings of the 32^nd Sunday and the 33^rd Sunday to see Jesus as the “good thief” did is not to be misled or fooled by false teachers and false prophets, who are to prey upon our fears and anxiety about uncertainly toward the end of time. 

In preparing us to face our eschatological concerns, Jesus’ teaching through the Gospel readings for the last 3 Sundays of this liturgical year (Luke 20:27-38 for the 32^nd Sunday, Luke 21:5-19 for the 33rnd Sunday, Luke 23:35-43 for Christ the King – 34^th Sunday) is to help us overcome our anxieties and fears.  In this respect, these 3 Gospel readings are good antidote to fears and anxieties we tend to experience on uncertainty toward the end. 

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For the 32^nd Sunday Gospel reading (Luke 20:27-38), the focal theme was on the resurrection.  For the 33^rd Sunday Gospel reading (Luke 21;5-19), Jesus offers advice as to how we should prepare ourselves for the end of time. Then, for the feast of Christ the King, in the Gospel reading (Luke 23:35-43), Jesus is portrayed as a mocked and crucified “king”. But, what is apocalyptic here is that this mocked and crucified king is the King of Kings – not the “king of the Jews”.  And, this prophetic message to be revealed is made clear in the Book of Revelation, which describes a process of Christ’s return, parousia. 

In fact, following these 3 Gospel readings toward the last Sunday of the liturgical year – the feast of Christ the King – guides us through our psychological path of increasing anxiety and perhaps some fears toward the end. 

First, the 32^nd Sunday Gospel reading (Luke 20:27-38) is to assure that the resurrection of us is real. Thus, this helps us prepare for the tribulations we may experience on our way to this salvific phenomena further down on our journey of faith. Then, the 33^rd Sunday Gospel reading (Luke 21:5-19) addresses how we are to conduct ourselves during tribulations, especially in dealing with false teachers and false prophets, who often take advantage of disasters to fool us about the end of time. This warning wisdom of Jesus is, in fact, very timely, as we are now dealing with catastrophic and traumatic consequences of Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda). There have been some “religious” people linking the disaster to the end of time, trying to lock us in fears and anxieties toward the end of time. 

In this regard, going over these Gospel reading at this time is even more meaningful to reflect what it means to live as Christians in the time like now – not only it is nearing the end of this liturgical year but also it is facing tragic aftermaths of Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines. 

Fear and anxiety can derail us from our right path of faith and draw us away from God.  Devil works hard to do this as its mission is to separate us from God – making us lifeless in this way. Thus, we must be aware of this and vigilant about a possibility of Devil’s attack on us through our anxieties and fears. When we find ourselves growing in pessimism and cynicism – becoming like the Pharisees in Luke 20:27-38 of the 32^nd Sunday or like the criminal who mocked Jesus in Luke 23:35-43 of the Christ the King – 34th Sunday, chances are, you have been attacked by Devil. And, unless you take an affective spiritual intervention and exercises right spiritual disciplines, you may sink deep into the abysmal quagmire of despair beyond an irreversible point. This psychospiritual state is like what Viktor Frankl calls “spiritual death”.

When Jesus was mocked and crucified as a failed king in Luke 23:35-43, those who used to believe in his teaching were gravely disappointed – even to a point of anger and resentment, soon to have their anger and resentment replaced or mixed with fears and anxieties about the end of time, invoked by Jesus’ death. And, they had to wait for 3 days in order to testify the validity of Jesus’ teaching on the resurrection. 

But, in the 32^nd Sunday’s Gospel reading (Luke 20:27-38 ) , Jesus is speaking about our resurrection, and even indicating that we are the children of the resurrection (Luke 20:36). 

With this understanding, we can appreciate the Gospel reading for the feast of Christ the King in a way that the King of Kings we call our Lord is beyond the death of the mocked king – the king of the Jews. Those whose faith is none or lukewarm lost their vision with the death of the mocked king of Israel on the Cross, just as those whose faith is weak and pathological are easily swayed and fooled by false teachers and false prophets, sinking in to fears, anxieties, and eventually irrecoverable despair. 

But, if your faith is mature, healthy, and strong, then, you are able to endure all the tribulations that may occur between now and the end of time – trusting the Lord, as David did in his Psalm 23, and cope with fears and anxiety that may arise along the way. The false teachers and false prophets prey upon our fears and anxieties. Their purpose is to lock us in fears and anxieties in order to keep us away from God – to cut us off from God. The weaker and the more lukewarm our faith becomes, the more vulnerable we become to become fooled by such false teachers and false prophets, thus, becoming imprisoned in the darkness of fears and anxieties. In fact, this is rather sinking in the abyss of the darkness of fears and anxieties, more like being sucked into the black hole – the spiritual black hole  - when we lack our faith during the time of tribulations in life. 

Anxious and fearful hearts and minds tend to see the reality myopically and find it very difficult to accept the reality with mystery. Such hearts and minds are prone to impatience and irritation. Then, anxious and fearful hearts and minds may deteriorate into paranoia – finding it increasing difficult to trust each other and God. And, this is the real darkness that Devil tries to sink us in. If there is such a thing called hell, this must be it.

The darkness symbolizing our suffering and grieves brought by calamities in the world are not necessarily the darkness of the end of time – though false teachers and false prophets may myopically and hastily say so to drive us into the quagmire of fears and anxiety. The real darkness we must fight against is the fears and darkness that false teachings and prophesies will throw us into.

“Magic pills” and the ones who prescribe the pills, “shrinks” won’t do. But, it is our steadfast faith in God that will do steers us through the darkness of trials in life while keeping us from the real darkness of the abyss of fears and anxieties. Even if we get drawn into the darkness of fears and anxieties, recovering our faith can pull us out of the abyss – if it is  not too late. 

Heralded by Dr. Harold G. Koenig of Duke University, evidence-based rigorous scientific studies pretty much consistently indicate that people with strong spirituality and intrinsic religiosity are better able to cope with challenges in life, coping with fears and anxieties that tribulations in life may invoke. Echoing this fact, Dr. Robert Coles of Harvard University has discovered a strong association between children’s psychological resilience and spirituality. Because faith is an expression of spirituality, Jesus’ teaching on strong faith to weather through the darkness of trials and tribulations in life – calamities and sufferings in the world also makes sense also scientifically.  This is how we fend off the negative fear-inducing influences of false teachers and false prophets, as the 33^rd Sunday Gospel reading (Luke 21:5-19 ) reminds us. 

So, put the spiritual of Psalm 23, totally trust in God when walking through the darkness of trials in life and calamities in the world. This way, we become stronger in fighting the bad influences from false teachers and false prophets – even though these false teachings and prophecies may seem to be an easier way. By trusting God, as in Psalm 23, we are not fooled by an illusion that false teachings and prophecies try to infuse in us.

Even though we may have to walk through the darkness of persecution because of our love of God, we can endure and preserve our life – meaning, our souls, our spiritual life – not to be confused with our physical lives. 

Jesus also inspires us to cultivate our heart – our spiritual discipline ahead of time so that we won’t worry about how we will defend ourselves in front of our enemies, as said in Luke 21:14. And, this is because we trust in God’s providing of words and wisdom invincible to our enemies’ attacks (Luke 21:15). In fact, this echoes how Jesus himself proved his teaching on the resurrection is indisputable by the Sadducees’ attack in the 32^nd Sunday Gospel reading. And, the Pharisees’ in the 32^nd Sunday Gospel reading can be understood as an example of false teachers and false prophets in the 33^rd Sunday Gospel reading. 

With this understanding from the 32^nd Sunday Gospel reading (Luke 20:27-38 ) and the 33^rd Gospel reading (Luke 21:5-19 )aforementioned, now we can better appreciate the Gospel reading for the 34^th Sunday (Luke 23:35-43), the very last Sunday of this liturgical year – the feast of Christ the King.

If you have this understanding discerned from these two Sundays’ Gospel readings, then, you will see Jesus on the Cross, not as a mocked “INRI – Iesus Nazareus Rex Iudaeorum: Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews” as the “bad criminal” did but rather as the salvific or messianic King above all kings, as the “good thief” did. And, because of his discovery of this truth, Jesus assured salvation to the “good thief” by saying, “Amen, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise”(Luke 23:43).

Those who lack faith and are vulnerable to false teachers and false prophets are likely to see Jesus as a poor INRI, mocked and killed – nothing more. They are, thus, unable to see the resurrection in Jesus. They are left in the darkness. To them, the Temple of Jerusalem is forever destroyed. 

On the other hand, as long as our faith is strong and trust in God is unconditional, as in the spirit of Psalm 23, and as understood from the Gospel readings of the 32^nd Sunday and the 33^rd Sunday, the Temple will be built anew – though its reconstruction may not come as the same old one. Likewise, we understand that Jesus, though dying on the cross, is not the king of the Jews but the Messianic King, the only one who can shepherd us into salvation through our resurrections when it is due in his time. As described in Psalm 23 and Revelation 19, we will be happily sitting at the heavenly banquet, in front of the conquered enemies. And, as imaged in Revelation 19, Jesus, the Christ, will reveal his Messianic and Kingly identity – King of kings and Lord of lords (Revelation 19:16) in order to defeat Satan (Revelation 20:7-10) and to complete the final judgement (Revelation 20: 11-15). This is how we close this liturgical year to bring in the new liturgical year with Advent.

The new incoming liturgical year, then, opens with Advent – a time of our anticipation for the coming of the Lord.

So, during Advent, our time of spiritual preparation for Christmas, we gradually begin to know the darkness we have been enduring will give its way to the new light. In other words, the darkness of our sufferings and world’s tribulations are not eternal as we endure and begin to be transformed to the new light of hope.  Eschatologically, this transition during Advent into Christmas, following the feast of Christ the King of the previous liturgical year’s closing is echoes in the flow from Revelation 19 to Revelation 22. In other words, Christmas we celebrate every year is a psychospiritua projection of our hope and anxiousness toward parousia, imaged in Revelation 19 on. 

With our mature and healthy and steadfast faith, we can endure tribulations and trials, both internally and externally, whether sufferings of our own or sufferings of the world, because of our eschatological hope firmly latched on the resurrection to come. With this, we trust God as the shepherd who guides us through the valley of darkness (Psalm 23) and the Good Shepherd, who protects us and even willingly lays his life for us (John 10:10-18).  And, as sung in the hymn, “I Am the Bread of Life”, and as envisioned in Revelation 20:5, the Christ the King will raise us up on the last day. 

The lyric of this hymn also reminds us that the Christ the King will not only raise us upon his return (parousia) or the last day vision of Revelation 20:5, but also is the Bread of Life, the Holy Eucharist, to sustain our journey through tribulations and trials, so that we can endure and persevere all the way into the salvation to come upon parousia. This Christological revelation also echoes another identity of Christ the King as the Good Shepherd who willingly gives his life for us (John 10: 10-18).

I Am the Bread of Life
You who come to Me shall not hunger
And who Believe in Me shall not thirst
No one can come to Me unless the Father Beckons

And I Will Raise You Up
And I Will Raise You Up
And I Will Raise You Up on the Last Day

The Bread that I Will Give
Is My Flesh of the Life of the Lord
And if you Eat of this Bread
You Shall Live Forever
You Shall Live Forever

And I Will Raise You Up
And I Will Raise You Up
And I Will Raise You Up on the Last Day

Unless You Eat of the Flesh of the Son of Man
And Drink of His Blood
You Shall not Have Life Within You
You Shall not Have Life Within You

And I will Raise You Up
And I will Raise You Up
And I will Raise You Up on the Last Day

I am the Resurrection
I am Life
If You Believe in Me
Before You Die
You Shall Live
You Shall Live Forever

And I Will Raise You Up
And I Will Raise You Up
And I Will Raise You Up on the Last Day

Because of this understanding of our King of kings – Christ the King, the very one who feeds us, shepherds us, and raises us, so that we won’t become a lost sheep into the abyss of fear and anxieties, we always cite:

Christ has died, alleluia, Christ is risen, alleluia, Christ will come again, alleluia!  for Memorial Acclamation during Mass.

Christ has died on Good Friday, as the Gospel reading for the feast of Christ King – 34^th Sunday (Luke 23:35-43) suggests to. But, what follows this end, which symbolizes the end of this liturgical year, is the coming of Christ to this world, Christmas, upon Advent, with which we will begin the next liturgical year, juxtaposing our eschatological hope for Christ’s return – parousia.  So, Christ is risen on Easter and has ascended in 40 days. And, God has sent the Holy Spirit, as he promised, on Pentecost. And, he also promised his return – parousia (Luke 21:27, echoes by Revelation 1:7). So, we sing, “Christ will come again, alleluia!” And, this is our hope – what we keep our eyes on to help us endure and persevere, keeping ourselves from spiritual derailment from the right path, protecting from false teachings and prophecies.

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May God bless and continue to shepherd all of us, feed us, and sustain us, the faithful, through this transitional time, through the turbulent and traumatic time of the world and our sufferings, as we set our eyes on our resurrections into salvation, imaged in Revelation 21 and 22….as we project such our hope in Christmas.