St. Mary’s Cathedral, Sydney
Dan 7:13-14; Apoc 1:5-8; Jn 18:33-37

By + Cardinal George Pell
Archbishop of Sydney
26/11/2006

Hail Redeemer, King Divine!
Priest and Lamb, the throne is Thine
King whose reign shall never cease,
Prince of everlasting peace.
Angels, saints and nations sing
“Praised be Jesus Christ, our King;
Lord of life, earth, sky and sea,
King of love on Calvary.”

We celebrate once again today, on the last Sunday before Advent commences, the Feast of Christ the King; Jesus Christ the Son of Mary, who lived and died to free us from our sins and rose triumphantly from the dead to vindicate finally his Divinity, his divine sonship and his mastery over human history and the immensity of the universe.

We give Jesus many titles to acknowledge that he is our Lord and our God; we call Him the Messiah, the Christ, the one anointed with the oil of chrism; we call him Son of Man, Redeemer and Saviour; Alpha and Omega, the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, to signify that Christ is the key to the universe and to all the grandeur, folly and simple foolishness of human history.  We dare to say that we are sisters and brothers of Jesus, because the one great God is our Father; this Father is Jesus’ God and our God and we call Jesus King, because He is our model and teacher and leader.

We are members of his Kingdom, whose values are not those of earthly Kingdoms; but it is nonetheless a Kingdom which is rooted in our hearts and in the mud and blood of human history, and which extends far back into the past, far into the future and will be consummated only in eternity.  We are disciples, followers of Christ, who rejoice in the name Christian, just as we rejoice in the title Catholic, the Greek word for universal, signifying our membership in the one world-wide family, united under the leadership of the Pope and bishops, which also goes back in an unbroken line to the time and person of Christ and his immediate chosen leaders the Apostles.  Today we should spare a prayer or two for Pope Benedict as he is about to visit Turkey at the invitation of the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Constantinople (the former name of Istanbul).

In today’s gospel we hear of the encounter between Our Lord and Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of that difficult and rebellious province of an Empire close to the zenith of its power – the Northern Ireland of the Roman world.  To an outsider Jesus the Jew belonged to an inferior colonial people.  He was no Roman citizen, unlike Paul, able to appeal to the Emperor or seek a Roman trial.  He was in fact killed in the way slaves were killed, by public crucifixion.  It is difficult to be certain of Pilate’s tone as he asked Our Lord whether he was King of the Jews.  Was Pilate sarcastic, or puzzled?  Did he think Our Lord a simpleton, or some local guerrilla leader with delusions of grandeur, or an unusual and remarkable man, who was perhaps a bit mad also?  We cannot be certain, but he certainly received more than he anticipated with Our Lord’s reply.

His Kingdom is not of this world, Jesus explained.  If it had been of this world, his followers would have fought for him.  His kingdom is of another kind, but he is a king nonetheless.  He was born for this, and came into the world for this – to bear witness to the truth and all who are on the side of truth listen to his voice.  Of all the claims Jesus might have made about his kingship, linking it perhaps to faith, or hope, or love, he linked it to truth.  Our Lord was not post modern (where no concept of truth is accepted), he was not into offering therapies; he offered the truth of things.

Pilate was impressed and he was bested.  He was a colonial governor, a practical man of affairs, not a philosopher or a priest.  “Truth”, he muttered, “What is that?”

In conclusion let me emphasise two particular aspects of the kingship of Christ, a title which was used only infrequently throughout most of our history because of the danger of misunderstanding e.g. that people might choose to follow Christ for political or financial advantage.  Following Christ’s way of life does deepen our humanity and improve the quality of community life, but does not exempt us from suffering or make life easier in the short term.

Today Church leaders throughout Australia have requested that we pray for rain across the continent, which has been our regular prayer in this Cathedral for a long time now.

Our Lord when he taught us to pray urged us to pray for our “daily bread”, for what we need, and many regions of Australia are in desperate need of rain; a situation causing severe financial and emotional suffering in many parts.  We now have the tragic reality of many suicides, directly connected with the drought.  So we pray again to the king of kings for rain throughout Australia.

In the second place the feast of Christ the King, foreshadowing his triumphant return on the last day to inaugurate a new heaven and new earth where love, mercy and justice will rule, reminds us that ultimately Christians are not losers.  To mix my metaphors further; we have not backed the wrong horse! Our struggles and our defeats and disappointments are of ultimate significance.  In their small way all our strivings will be taken up by Christ the King as elements in the final Kingdom.

Just as Christ’s suffering and death were essential preconditions for the resurrection of Christ the King, so all are good works (no matter how unsuccessful they might be historically or in day to day life), all our good works will be part of the Kingdom of love, with Christ as its centre at the end of time.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.