Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe
2 Samuel 5:1-3
Colossians 1:12-20
Luke 23:35-43
Imagine how puzzled you would be if you had never heard of Jesus your entire life and read today’s gospel as explaining why Christians believe Jesus is “King of the Universe!”
Our passage tells us that above the dying Jesus the Romans had inscribed the derisive words, “This is the King of the Jews.” Some king! He does not seem like much of a king even in his tiny country of Palestine, let alone the entire universe. A king who is betrayed and abandoned by his friends, condemned by his own people, mocked, tortured and executed by the Romans. Even a criminal dying beside him finds the strength to revile Jesus.
Are Christians crazy to believe such a powerless pathetic creature has become king of the entire universe? In a way, perhaps we are.
A second question: if you believe Jesus is King of the Universe, how will that change the way you live?
Let’s begin with that first question. Consider the enduring power of Jesus’s revolutionary ideas about being a leader. He tells his followers that they are not to be like “the rulers of the Gentiles who lord it over them.” (Matthew 21:25-28). The leaders of Jesus’s movement are to be servants. This idea of servant leadership has transformed the world. Even the most selfish politician now claims to be “a public servant!” We all know from our own experience of being led that the most powerful and effective leaders are those who put the interests of those they lead ahead of their own.
Jesus spent the years of his ministry traveling around his country healing and teaching others, with no home of his own. He took serving others to the ultimate conclusion by giving up his life for us.
When we profess that Jesus is King of the Universe, we proclaim that love is more powerful than hate, serving is more powerful that being served, and non-violence is more powerful than violence.
The question for us, however, is do we really live this way? If we truly believe loving, serving and non-violence are what rule the entire universe, we have a lot of work left to do!
