¾«¶«Ó°Òµ

Christ the King
24th November 2024
Daniel 5 &John 6: 1-15

When Giuseppe Garibaldi, the Italian general, nationalist, and architect of what we now think of as modern Italy, arrived in this country in 1864, his fame preceded him. Garibaldi had achieved celebrity status at home and abroad, drawing vast crowds and commanding the respect of people of high and low estate alike. During his time in the United Kingdom, the purpose of which remains the subject of some discussion, he travelled widely. He championed the causes of the working classes, was an unrelenting critic of the Italian Church, particularly its temporal power, and was a committed republican. Needless to say, his visit to these shores wasn’t universally appreciated.

Less than 65 years after Garibaldi’s death in 1882, the monarchy in Italy would be a thing of the past, and Italy the republic was reeling from the rise and the fall of fascism. But, already from 1925, in response to Mussolini’s regime, and as a pointed critique of it, the Roman Catholic Church sought to remind the Faithful of their true and ultimate allegiance. So, for reasons both political and theological, we arrive at a renewed emphasis on Christ the King.

It may come as a surprise that the Church felt the need for another occasion on which to acknowledge the kingship of Jesus Christ. From the 4th century, much of the Church had effectively been celebrating Christ’s kingship on the Feast of the Epiphany, reflecting on the familiar words from St Matthew’s Gospel:

In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, ‘Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage.

What does a king look like? In this instance, a new-born child.

In contrast to humble Bethlehem and the humble stable birth of the one born King of the Jews, this evening’s first reading from the Prophet Daniel takes us straight into the heart of power. Here we find a more predictable, and a more expected, exercise of kingship playing itself out in full splendour.

King Belshazzar has declared a feast in which the powerful and well-connected of Babylon are invited. Surrounded by his grand retinue, wine is consumed in abundance from the sacred vessels pilfered from the Temple in Jerusalem. But we aren’t afforded too extensive a look into the halls of power before the writing appears on the wall for the first time. Pale-faced at its message, the king calls in the wise men of Babylon to interpret the writing, a task of which they were incapable. Belshazzar was terrified. The queen then attempts to reassure the king, and she suggests that Daniel be consulted. Daniel, well-known to us from the accounts of the fiery furnace and the den of lions, had been well-regarded during the reign of Belshazzar’s father, Nebuchadnezzar, and he seemed the most promising solution to the problem.

Summoned before the Babylonian king, this young Jewish prophet duly appears. The king extols Daniel’s reputation and, full of hope, awaits a wise word. What follows is hardly what the king had been expecting. Daniel proceeds to rehearse a series of criticisms of the wicked reign of the king’s father, which wicked reign Belshazzar has continued. Daniel’s contribution to the dilemma concludes with another message appearing on the wall.

Belshazzar’s kingdom has come to an end – as would his life later that evening. The feast was in celebration of something that has already failed; it represented nothing of value and, worse, was but an outward expression of the corruption and wickedness that had underwritten it.

The account of Belshazzar’s kingdom, with its manifestations of prosperity and power and success, and the ruthlessness with which it was maintained – and the mention of its swift end – is placed alongside the account of the assembly of hungry people gathered outside, on a hillside, with no food and no money to purchase food. ‘What are they among so many?’, Andrew asks about the five loaves of bread and two fish on offer – and the 5,000 plus people standing around him.

But, like the kingdom of Jesus Christ more generally, the abundance was to be revealed and experienced not in what was obvious before them, but in what was less so. Their king was among them as one of them; and, unlike Belshazzar’s feast, the hillside meal, with all that was so obviously unpromising about it, the vastness of its provision was to be found, because it had its origin, deep within the heart of the One hosting the feast.

When, in response to the great feeding, the people declared Jesus to be the ‘prophet who is to come into the world’, they had not grasped the nature of the kingdom that was breaking in around them. It was too subtle; it was too at odds with the predictions and expectations and the hopes of generations; too at odds with their understanding of kingship. Jesus knew that they were intent on making him a king – but a king in their own image. Christ’s kingdom, and his kingship, was already present and active among them, because he was among them – as prophet, priest, and king.

St John uses the account of the miraculous feeding as an introduction to what, thematically, will occupy the remainder of the sixth Chapter of his gospel, namely the Bread of Life discourse. Of course the 5,000 were fed, because in Christ’s presence there can only ever be an abundance, and a fullness, of life. His kingship is exercised in serving and in giving himself for the life of the world. The invitation to the feast, the One hosting the feast, and the feast itself, are as one in him.

As next Sunday we move into the season of Advent, with its themes of judgement and expectation, we may also consider just how often the exercise of power, in many of its human forms, is selfish and coercive and destructive. And in case we are tempted to consider this only in relation to the highly publicised narratives playing themselves out before us – the stories which make the news and fuel the conversations – in other words, lest we make this solely the fault of others, we are encouraged to reflect on our own propensity to misuse power closer to home, whichever the circles we move in. We are invited to spend at least as much time being self-reflective, taking critical stock of our own situations, as we spend concerning ourselves with the transgressions of others.

Jesus Christ, the firstborn of the dead and the ruler of kings: the One who loves us; the King of Love who invites us to live as part of a newly fashioned kingdom where expectations are upended; where, mercifully, things aren’t as they seem; where power finds its expression in ways that seem hardly worthy of our notice, much less our admiration; and where death is the gateway to fullness of life.