Christ the King Sunday (John 18:33-37)  My kingdom is not of this world.

Jesus is the rightful king of this planet. Jesus is also not what anyone expected in a king.

All governments on earth are temporary. At some point in the future, Jesus will return to Earth personally. When he returns he will not select any one nation, form of government or political party to rule. He will rule directly and personally. And, he will rule from the place of divine love and holiness.

People in Jesus day as in our day looked for a king to impose rule. They looked for a leader who would decide which religious faction, political party, and economic system was ordained by God.

Everyone then as now had their own idea about how that would look. Most people thought in terms of power. The right leader imposes the right religion, government and economic system. He doesn’t argue.  He doesn’t discuss. He certainly does not compromise. He does not govern- he rules.

Jesus did none of this. He doesn’t have to. There are two ways Jesus exercises sovereignty. One is in the impersonal aspect of Law. The other is in the personal aspect of love. Both aspects are grounded in the reality that Jesus is the pattern for life, the universe and everything.

In His impersonal aspect Jesus is the pattern for the laws of nature. Fundamental to the laws of nature is the structure of cause and effect. Sadly, most people most of the time engage in what the Bible calls “magical thinking.”

Magical thinking is based on the demand that the universe revolve around me. This way of thinking is most obvious in children. No one ever completely grows out of this way of thinking about life, the universe and God.

Magical thinking seeks to cheat the very fundamental laws of cause and effect by asserting the human will to power. For some, this will is expressed in the categories of knowledge. Some say that if I only acquired more knowledge, superior knowledge, perhaps even secret knowledge, then I could bend and shape the universe to my liking.

For some, the will to power takes a religious form. Some say that if I exert my will to follow the right religion then God is obligated to give me what I want.

For some, magical thinking takes form in pride. Pride simply ignores all data contrary to my beliefs and asserts my will to power to define other people, nature and God.

For those who attempt to assert the will to power in the categories of human knowledge, religion or pride there is an ever present undercurrent of fear. There is fear because the laws of nature are immutable. Sadly, fear leads to blame. For, if you are a true believer in knowledge, religion or pride then any failure to get what you want when you want it is someone else’s fault.

This was, and is, the condition of the human soul that Jesus met when he came into the world. People were willing to acknowledge him as a teacher who brought right knowledge, a prophet who brought right religion and even a Messiah who brought right use of national pride and power.  They were not prepared to accept him for who he really was.

Jesus did not come into the world to rule the world from a marble throne in a granite palace surrounded by guards and supported by armies. Had he attempted that he could have succeeded for a short time. He could have defeated Rome, enslaved the nations and rebuilt Jerusalem into a fortress of wealth and power.

Moses and the prophets clearly observed and recorded their observations that such an approach was a dead end. It always failed. Empires rise and fall. They never address the real problem confronting our species.

Jesus rules from His impersonal aspect in the Law of Cause and Effect.

Jesus rules from His personal aspect in his universal invitation to all people everywhere to receive reunification with God the Father and transformation in God the Holy Spirit.

Jesus rules from the place of love. The place of love is always the place of real choice. Choice for us as human beings enters into the world of cause and effect and produces a result that is always consistent with the fundamentals principles of God.

There is no condemnation in Jesus. There is truth. The truth is that if we live from the place of pride and self will we will live in fear. That fear will distort our perceptions and relationships. Left alone, fear kills both in this world and the next.

Jesus can, if we choose, transform fear into faith. The process is not magical thinking applied by right knowledge, right religion or right power. The process emerges in the context of right relationship.

Our Heavenly Father sent the co-eternal Son into the world to reestablish right relationship on three levels. The first is our relationship with God. The second, our relationships with other people, the third is our relationship with the truth of our own unique personal identity. Jesus reestablishes all three relationships for us in his own person then gives the Way of experiencing these three relationships to us as a gift.

The gift is free. It cost Jesus unimaginable pain on the cross. It costs us nothing. We don’t even need to give up our sins. We only need to yield those sins to the Triune God to be transformed in the fires of love and holiness back into their original virtue. We lose nothing in Jesus. We gain everything in Jesus.

The Kingship of Jesus in his impersonal form is absolute. No one can ever break the laws that govern the universe. We can try. We can deceive ourselves for a time that we can succeed. But, those Laws are absolute.

The Kingship of Jesus in his personal form emerges in relationship. As the very pattern of human nature, Jesus is the best way of being human. Jesus is the only way of being human according the plan and purpose of God.

God created this universe of matter, energy, time and space according the pattern of the Son. The Son not only invites us to enter into the plan and purpose of the pattern as a matter of law, he offers us his friendship and love to help us move away from magical thinking into the new life of faith. Jesus reigns as King from the pathways of human choice and in the consequences of those choices.

On this Christ the King Sunday, Jesus calls to us from the Blessed Sacrament of the altar. In the Real Presence of Christ the King at our altar, Jesus offers himself to us as our forever friend who can and will transform our lives. The general pattern of transformation is recorded for us in the Bible. It involves five basic categories:

Worship

Evangelism

Discipleship

Fellowship

Service to others

Do you believe Jesus is Lord?

Do you believe Jesus is the King of Kings?

If you do, come to the altar and ask Jesus to restructure your life according to the original pattern of human life. That original pattern is Jesus. It starts here at the altar. What begins here continues forever.

Jesus said and continues to say: my kingdom is not of this world. It is of the infinite and eternal realm of the Triune God of love. It is the emerging and unfolding pattern of love in your soul as you respond to Jesus and say: Behold, I am the Lord’s servant. Let all things be for me in accord with your sovereign love.