Pilate questioned Jesus, “Are you a King then?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a King” (John 18:37a). The Christians all over the world, on the fifth Sunday before Christmas celebrate as ‘the Christ the King Festival.’ On this day, Jesus is worshipped and venerated as the King of the Universe both in private and in public. This feast falls on the last Sunday of the Ordinary Time of the Liturgical Year and with this begins the preparation–which is called the Advent Time–for the incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ on the 25th December.
Though Jesus was not ‘King’ in the
political sense of the time, He is known, understood, worshipped and venerated
as ‘the King of Kings’ or ‘the Lord of Lords’. The King and the Kingdom He
speaks in the Bible should be understood from a transcendental sense and not
from the socio-political sense, which the authorities of the time misunderstood.
“And they [Pharisees, Scribes, political leaders] began to accuse Him, saying,
“We found this man subverting our nation, forbidding payment of taxes to
Caesar, and proclaiming Himself to be Christ, a king”’ (Luke 23:2). Therefore,
the question for us to reflect is this, “What kind of King is Jesus Christ and
what kind of Kingdom He wants to establish?”
The etymological meaning of the
word ‘Jesus’ is ‘the saviour,’ the one who saves, and ‘Christ’ is ‘the
anointed’, the anointed one to save His people. Christ is anointed to govern
the hearts of people and to lead them to the kingdom of truth, justice, peace,
equality, service, life, compassion, forgiveness and above all love. These are
also the characteristics of Jesus’s Kingship and Kingdom. Therefore, Jesus
says, “For this reason I was born and have come into the world, to testify to
the truth” (John 18:37b). Jesus accomplished this task in his life with
accuracy both in reality and symbolically, and commissioned to perform the same
to all who follow the above task in his great mission command, “Do this in
memory of me” (Luke 22:19). The authority to command is inherent for Jesus as
it comes from Heaven, that is, from God the Father (John 3:27). What is given
to Him or inherited is further offered or actualized in service.
Jesus envisions to us a servant
leadership of a good shepherd. A good shepherd risking oneself not only rescues
the lost sheep and the flock from any danger, but also leads the wayward ones
to a right path. Thus, the leader should be an inspiring one to every
generation with one’s words and actions, an enabling one by giving authority to
be a good Samaritan or enable someone to excel in life, an ennobling one by
lending a greater dignity to a person who and what he/she is and representing,
a leading one with conviction of justice, peace and equality, and above all a
servant of all. As a servant, the leader ought to serve the people entrusted to
one’s care, as if all are related in consanguinity. The welfare of each child
should be the welfare of the leader, the good of every member should be the
good of the leader and the suffering of any one of the individuals must be the
suffering of the leader. Thus, the leadership envisioned here is not of
ladder-hierarchy type, but of a circular one, where everyone is in equal
distance from the centre. Every margin is equally blended in the centre. Every
individual is equally respected and loved. The kingdom established thus will
remain forever unlike the kingdoms of the past which treated with tyranny found
their end in tyranny. The kingdoms built on power and wealth have been destroyed
and no one likes to imitate them any longer. The community built with love and
unblemished service remains and the leader who becomes the epitome of it lives
ever in the heart and minds of people.
The socio-religio-political
leadership of the time was tainted with hierarchy, power, position and wealth.
The leaders of the society instead of serving the people were trying to be
served. They were multiplying rules and burdening the people with taxes and
alms. Religious worship and practices had become consumerist. Religious leaders
were looking for recognition and fame in the society. Rich were becoming richer
and poor were trampled down upon. The certain sections of the society owing to
their poverty and sickness were branded as ‘untouchables.’ Indirectly so to
say, only the elites who could contribute to the ‘wellbeing’ of such leaders
were part of the society and others were treated as outsiders. Anyone who
revolted or raised voice against this tyranny was branded a ‘zealot’, the
militant (Josephus, Antiquities of the
Jews”). It is in this dark clouds and danger of discriminations and
sufferings, Jesus proclaimed the welfare of the poor and downtrodden through
the path of love, forgiveness and service. Therefore, the leadership He
advocates is of ‘the Servant King,’
and Jesus is the King of the Hearts, the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.
What kind of leaders our society
needs today? Obviously, not the dictatorial or totalitarian kind of leaders
like Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin we look for. We do not want leaders who
polarize the society, who divide and rule and distort the truth, and who work
for the self-glory. We do not want leaders who cannot protect the conscience of
the ordinary individuals and who cannot distinguish between reason and faith. We
need leaders who can understand the plight of the people, who can feel the
hunger and thirst of the ones living in the fringe of the society, who can
protect the nudity of the victims of injustice in various spheres of life, who
can console and apply the balm of compassion on to the sick, who can feel the
agony of the prisoners imprisoned in various situations in the society, who can
stand by the person threatened of his/her existence, who can be one with those who
have become strangers in their own ancestral land, and above all who can
selflessly empty themselves for the cosmotheandric welfare of the world. If you
want to be great, be humble; if you want to be a leader, be a servant. This is what
Jesus did in His earthly life. Therefore Jesus is the King and Leader par
excellence.
Present day reality is not far from
what Jesus experienced in his life time. Still many people are experiencing
alienation in one’s own society. Consumerism, power and wealth have captured the
centre of our religions, politics and organizations. People are lost, strayed,
naked, imprisoned, crippled, hungry, thirsty, homeless and strangers in many
ways. Solidarity, compassion and service of these ‘lost’ people is nothing but
hailing Jesus as the King, because, Jesus is the “Way, Truth and Life” (John
14:6). Saint Mother Teresa of Kolkota taught us in our own time that ‘the service
of humanity is the service to Christ.’ And today she is acclaimed as a great
reformer and leader of the society, and the world calls her by a magnanimous
title, ‘Mother.’
We need prophetic leaders of the
vision of Christ who can address the agonies of the least, the lost and the
last at the ground level–be it sociologically, religiously, politically or
economically. Christ and his vision must reign in our wills and hearts. The
journey to be an anointed king begins with the actualization of loving service
inherently reigning in each one of us. This journey is lifelong. May the
Kingdom of God, the mission and task of each one of us be a reality in and
amidst us.
St. Albert's College, Ranchi
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