KING OF DUST AND STARS
readings for Christ the King, Nov 24th: Jeremiah 23: 1-6; Psalm 46; Colossians 1: 11-20;Luke 23: 33-43
AS CHRIST BLEEDS TO DEATH on the cross, Luke’s Gospel tells us that one of the two men of violent rebellion crucified on either side of him added his voice to the noise of the mocking executioners and spectators, ‘Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!’ His voice echoes the very conceptual understanding of reality of those he had sought through violence to depose of power. The Christ/Messiah/King for him is one who mimics and endorses self-motivated, self-resourced, systemic and/or institutionalised power. If the man Jesus nailed to two planks of wood a few feet from him is this thing, then why is he not liberating God’s chosen people Israel and putting those who had struggled for the cause on his right and left to administer the one true kingdom?
Christ’s body is collapsing in on itself in the most excruciating pain that the self-important noise of the world could possibly inflict on it. Christ’s brain must be screaming in the agony of it. Yet, in that darkest, most blood draining moment, there comes the voice of the shepherd king, who loves all humanity still and weeps for us in the sweat and dirt of our non-understanding, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.” Through the noise, Christ has not lost touch with יהוה YHWH/ I Am, The Being.
And here we are now, Christ’s church surrounded by the noise and sometimes mocking of a world that still doesn’t know. Much of institutional religion within the church as well reflects and manifests the noise! We are called to speak of God’s Love and to show the way to the Kingdom. How can we be the shepherd of the King? By returning to the Kingdom in us. By learning again how to pray as Christ prays and so let his Light freely flow…
Tonnau Duw ('God's waves') Fr Tim Ardouin 