Year C Solemnity of Jesus Christ, King of the Universe

Readings: 2 Sam 5:1-3; Ps 122:1-; Col 1:12-20; Luke 23:35-43

In Samuel Beckett’s most famous work, the play Waiting for Godot, one of the two main characters, Vladimir, asks the other main character, Estragon, if he’s ever read the Bible. Estragon says: “I must’ve taken a look at it.”¹ Then Vladimir asks him if he remembers the Gospels. Specifically, he asks if he remembers the story of the two thieves. Estragon replies that he does not remember this story.²

My friends, we live in a time of forgetting. But one of the most important aspects of Christian faith is remembering. For example, throughout this month, the final month of the liturgical year, we’ve been remembering our beloved dead whose names are written in our Book of Remembrance at the foot of the chancel. Part of our remembering includes praying for them in the hope that God will remember and have mercy on them.

There is a part of each Eucharistic Prayer known as the anamnesis. Anamnesis, as you might’ve guessed, is a Greek word. In the account of the Last Supper found in Luke, when Jesus breaks the bread and gives it to his companions, he commands them “do this in memory of me.”³ In this verse, the word “memory” is the English translation of the appropriate form of the word anamnesis.

Not just in a certain section of the Eucharistic Prayer but throughout its entirety, the Mass is an exercise in anamnesis. For Christians, this means calling to mind God’s saving deeds. But anamnesis means more than simply remembering, is not passive. Rather, in each Eucharist, we call to mind in-order-to-make-present. By our active participation in Mass, we enter into the Paschal mystery of Christ’s birth, passion, death, and resurrection.

Today, the last Sunday of this liturgical year, the Roman Catholic Church celebrates the Solemnity of Jesus Christ, King of the Universe. This prompts the question, What kind of king is Jesus?

Jesus is not a tyrannical king. How could he be when his throne is the cross? To quote words from a contemporary worship song: “To see You high and lifted up/shining in the light of your glory/pour out your power and love/as we sing holy, holy, holy.”⁴ This is what we see each time we enter our parish Church. Seeing Jesus high and lifted up should fill us with awe, gratitude and love for such a marvelous Savior.

Jesus was not the Messiah the Jews of the Second Temple period expected. What they expected was a new King David, who would rally Israel, route the occupying Romans, and establish independent Jewish rule in the promised land with the law of God as the law of the land. This is not only an inaccurate understanding of Messiahship but one that is antithetical to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Like the prophet Samuel, through whom God castigated ancient Israel for demanding a king, Jesus explicitly rejected becoming an earthly ruler.⁵ Nothing could make this rejection clearer than the Lord enduring the taunts as he hung on the cross. The taunts mocked him for his powerlessness after claiming to be the Messiah. This seemed proof enough that this Jesus, this rabble-rouser from a Galilean backwater, was a fraud, an imposter, a pretender- his followers fools.

Saint Olaf Parish, Bountiful, Utah. Photo by author

Jesus’s clear, persistent, and adamant rejection of worldly power began when, just prior to the start of his public ministry, he resisted the temptation to be made ruler over “all the kingdoms of the world.”⁶ This is an important lesson for the Church in every age. The lowest ebbs in Church history are when we have forgotten this lesson. It is relevant now for those who pine away for the restoration of a lost Christendom. This is not to say that Christianity doesn’t have a political dimension. It does. What is important is not to compromise the Church’s prophetic call to speak truth to power, especially on behalf of the poor and marginalized.

To answer the question “What kind of king is Jesus?” in a positive way, we need to look no further than today’s Gospel. After rebuking the other thief, who makes the same demand of Jesus I suppose I might make in that situation, the so-called “good” thief, turns to the Lord and says: “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”⁷

There’s that word “remember” again! The Greek word the inspired author of Luke puts in the mouth of the “good” thief is not anamnesis but it has pretty much the same meaning. The “good” thief, who recognizes the nature of Jesus’s kingship, makes his plea for the King not to forget him. Jesus demonstrates the kind of king he is- a gracious king, who is full of grace and truth- by promising this criminal eternal life.

The Church reveres the “good” thief, upon whom tradition has conferred the name Dismas, as a saint. Yes, a saint! By the grace of God, expressed as Jesus’s promise to remember and not forget him, this self-admitted criminal becomes a saint! My dear sisters and brothers, Dismas’s plea is our plea.

Returning to Waiting for Godot, Vladimir wonders why Jesus’s promise to save one of the thieves is found only in one of the four Gospels. This bothers him. His inference that because Jesus only explicitly “saves” one of the two thieves the other is damned also bothers him a great deal. The relevant question becomes, Is this an accurate inference?

Beckett wrote Waiting for Godot in 1948. In an interview he gave in 1956, he shared this line from Saint Augustine: “Do not despair, one of the thieves was saved. Do not presume, one of the thieves was damned.”⁸

Two weeks ago, I mentioned the Cistercian monks who were made martyrs in Algeria in 1996. As danger closed in on them, the youngest of the monks, who also served as abbot, Father Christian de Chergé, wrote a letter to his family in France. He told them to open it in the event of his death. After the Islamists announced they had killed the seven monks, Father Christian’s family publicly released the letter. The first paragraph demonstrates what it means to acknowledge Jesus Christ as King:

If it should happen one day—and it could be today—that I become a victim of the terrorism which now seems ready to encompass all the foreigners living in Algeria, I would like my community, my Church, my family, to remember that my life was given to God and to this country…I ask them to pray for me: for how could I be found worthy of such an offering? I ask them to be able to associate such a death with the many other deaths that were just as violent, but forgotten through indifference and anonymity⁹

In imitation of his King, Abbot Christian understood how important, how salvific, this act of remembering is.

The final two paragraphs of Father Christian's letter are addressed to his murderer. His final line expresses his faith in Jesus’s promise of life eternal: “And may we find each other, happy ‘good thieves,’ in Paradise, if it pleases God, the Father of us both. Amen.”¹⁰

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1 Waiting for Godot, Act I, in I Can’t Go On, I’ll Go On: A Samuel Beckett Reader, Ed. Richard W. Seaver, 374.^↩
2 Ibid.^↩
3 Luke 22:19.^↩
4 Michael W. Smith, “Open the Eyes of My Heart, Lord.” ^↩
5 1 Samuel 8:1-9; John 6:15. ^↩
6 See Luke 4:5-8..^↩
7 Luke 23:43.^↩
8 Dirk Van Hulle and Pim Verhulst, “Happy Birthday, Samuel Beckett,” on Bloomsbury Literary Studies blog, 13 April 2019.^↩
9 “Last Testament: A Letter from the Monk Tibhirine,” Trans. Monks of Mt. St. Bernard Abbey, in First Things.^↩
10 Ibid.^↩