Friends
Peace be with you.
Our second reading today comes from one of the most befuddling books in the Bible, the Book of Revelation. It is both the last book sequentially and chronologically, meaning it contains the last words you hear andis believed to be the last book written historically. It’s attributed to St. John who protected and accompanied Mary, Jesus’ Mother, after Jesus’ Ascension into heaven. St. John gets the credit for writing the last gospel, three New Testament Letters, and the Book of Revelation, making him one of the most prolific and diverse writers in the Bible. There are some scholars, however, who say that it was probably not written by St. John himself but by a community of disciples he helped to form. Nonetheless, for simplicity I’m going to say it was St. John. In the end it doesn’t really matter because, regardless, it is Sacred Scripture and, therefore, worthy of our reflection, despite the fact that most priests really hate having to do so.
Let’s face it: the Books of Daniel and Revelation are hard to understand and even harder to explain. They have been abused historically by charlatans to scare people into giving them their money and their property and their loyalty since the end of the world will make the money and property worthless and will mean people are scared enough to follow a leader over a cliff. I think that’s why it’s important we take some time today, on Christ the King Sunday, to read them.
So, let’s get something straight: The point of apocalyptic literature in general and the Book of Revelation in particular isn’t to make you afraid. The word apocalypse comes from a Greek word meaning to open the curtain. That’s why, when we translated the word “apocalypse” from Greek into Latin and, eventually, English we used the word “revelatio” or “revelation”. It is a revealing of the truths of God. And what is being revealed? Part of the challenge of answering that question comes from the fact that there are certain particular truths that are being revealed to seven particular churches with certain particular problems. For instance, the first church listed is in the town of Ephesus, a town in modern day Turkey. St. Paul wrote a letter to the Ephesisans and we know it is, therefore, an important and ancient center of Christianity. In Ephesus, at the time, they had figured out who was a real Christian and who was a fake one and they had not tolerated the evil done by fake ones. However, St. John also says, “I hold this against you: you have lost the love you had at first. Realize how far you have fallen. Repent, and do the works you did at first.” What were the works they did at first? Why did they stop? The people at the time would have known but, unfortunately, we don’t. The other issue, that may be related to this, is that this was written during a time of persecution. So, the writer deliberately uses coded language intended to protect the readers from being discovered if this ends up in the hands of the Roman authorities.
Nonetheless, there are certain things that we can learn from this piece of apocalyptic literature, especially from the first chapter, which is the origin of the second reading for today’s Mass. In it, Jesus has three important qualities. He is faithful witness, firstborn of the dead, and ruler of the kings of the earth. He also has three relational qualities: He loves us, freed us from our sins, and made us into a kingdom of priests for God. Lastly, St. John says he has three temporal qualities or time qualities, he is, was, and is to come. A trinity of trinity descriptive words. St. John is grappling with the notion that the Word existed at the beginning of creation with the Father and the Spirit, yet was incarnated, fully God and fully human, for a period of time on earth in the person of Jesus Christ until he ascended into heaven, and he remains with us in love but will also come again as judge of the living to take the faithful to his kingdom of peace. St. John is revealing, pulling back the veil on, the trans-historical nature of Jesus and the particular ways throughout history that Jesus has revealed himself. He does this by reminding us, first and foremost, that he loves us, he freed us from sins, and made us into a kingdom. I think that’s done deliberately because judgment can seem so frightening. I’ve worked with people who are aware that they are going to die sooner rather than later. One that I continue to think about was a woman who went to Mass every day she could and prayed the rosary constantly. She insisted on being anointed immediately after she had her fatal diagnosis. When I finished anointing her, she admitted she was frightened because she wasn’t sure she had been good enough to get to heaven. I told her that none of us have but that it didn’t matter because Jesus has been good enough for us all. I tried to assure her that she had shown faith by coming to Mass and being anointed but her daughters admitted to me when we prepared her funeral that she shared the same concerns with them, that she didn’t feel worthy of heaven. The daughters, who had stopped coming to church long before and whose lives had gone in very different directions than their mother, sort of made fun of her in a way that almost made it seem like they figured she was foolish in believing God would have any qualifications for getting into heaven. As I walked away from the funeral home, I wondered who was better off: the one who struggled to be one hundred percent certain that she was saved or the ones who figured they were owed it because at least they weren’t Hitler.
St. John, in the second reading, gives a very brief account of what the second coming will be like. Borrowing from the Book of Daniel in the first reading, he says Jesus will be the one coming in the clouds and “every eye will see him, even those who pierced him. All the peoples of the earth will lament him.” I think, in today’s world, we tend to think of the spectacle of it all and maybe be tempted to see thunderstorms or hurricanes as pointing to the reality and the closeness of this event. St. John was less concerned about the “coming in the clouds” part and more wanting us to focus on what our reaction will be when we see the King coming in the clouds. He says that we will look on him, even those who pierced him, and lament him. He’s saying that we will see how our sins contributed to the need for the crucifixion. We will see the wounds in his hands and his feet and see the gossip we spread about others piercing him. We will see the wounds from the crown of thorns and see the times we didn’t feed the hungry, welcome the stranger, or shelter the homeless. We will see his scourged back and see the times when we tried to be our own king, the king of our own castle, when we put liberty over obedience and license over what is morally right.
St. John thinks that that revelation either has happened, is happening, or will happen for everyone. He hopes that, for the majority of his listeners, it has already happened but he knows that some are starting to fall back into former lives of sin. He hopes that the evangelizing work that is happening will bring more to see Christ as their King and they will come to love him as much as they are loved and forgiven. But he knows that, for some, it will only be when they see the Son of Man coming on the clouds that they will lament the loss of the opportunity for conversion. They’d been obstinate during their lives in their refusal to come to know the one who is, who was, and who is to come and they’ll likely continue being obstinate even when he is standing right in front of them. Where we are along this continuum. Do we already lament the sins we have committed knowing how they have pierced Christ the King or do we still have more work to do? Are we so settled in our conviction that we are saved that we don’t recognize the sins we committ today and tomorrow and the next day all the away until the end of our life as needing to be lamented, as worthy of being spoken to a priest in confession? Have we allowed our own arrogance, our own need to be in total control and have total say over everything that happens in our life that we have stopped looking for the one coming in the clouds and, if so, how can we remind ourselves that Christ is King?
