Feast of
Christ the King
Cycle B
November 22, 2015 4:00
and 6:00pm and 8:00am
Saint Margaret Parish, Bel Air
He Had God
Recently
a psychiatrist talked about her first appointment with a new client – and, of
course, his name remained anonymous.
This man
had been off of drugs for six months and was living in a sober house. He was working hard to cope with the mood
swings and sleeplessness and other challenges that often come with early
sobriety.
The
issues that had to be addressed to repair his life were overwhelming – depression,
drug addiction, trauma, homelessness, and unemployment. And yet, the client sitting in her office was
very willing and very polite.
The
psychiatrist asked him, “What is keeping
you going?” He said calmly, “Why, nothing but God.”
He appeared
to have turned himself over to a new father – to God. He felt that God would love and manage him
better than his own father had.
At one
point, he, the client, asked her, the psychiatrist, “How were you raised?” “Me?”
He
persisted. “What do you believe?”
The
psychiatrist says that she felt somewhat embarrassed and lonely. It struck her that one of them had a home, a job,
and a family, and the other appeared to have nothing.
Yet the
one with nothing was not lonely. The
psychiatrist said, “I have great respect
for people who believe.”
He
simply said, “Ah!” They then set the next appointment and he got
up to leave.
He
turned to her and said, “I’ll pray for
you, you know.” She says that those
words stayed with her all morning.
This
man, her client, had nothing. But he did
have God.
God Was His All
That
story appeared in The Boston Globe.
For
that man, the client, God was his all, his everything. It was God who was getting him through and
keeping him going.
God Is Our All: Alpha and Omega
This,
as I see it, is the point of what we celebrate today in our Church.
I find the
title of Christ the King a bit
awkward. Jesus is not a monarch like King
Henry VIII or Queen Elizabeth.
Here we
are not talking about power or pomp or politics. Instead, I see the words in today’s second
reading as really opening up what Jesus is for us.
Jesus
himself says, “I am the Alpha and the
Omega.” You probably know that Alpha
and Omega are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet.
So
Jesus is saying that he is the Alpha, the first, the origin of all that
is. He is one with the Creator in
bringing all there is, including us, into being.
And
Jesus also says, “I am the Omega.” He is the last, the endpoint, our goal and
destiny.
What This Means
So, with these words, Jesus gives us a powerful way for
understanding our lives.
He is our Alpha – the One from whom we come – and our Omega
– the One to whom we will someday return.
And, as I see it, if he is that, he is our all, our everything much as
God was for the man in the psychiatrist’s office.
No question, our loved ones are valuable, probably invaluable
to us. In that sense, they are
everything to us.
But, in another way, Jesus is our everything. If he is our origin and our destiny, then he
is also our way and companion for everything in between.
So, the words that I choose to use to express myself maybe
especially when I am frustrated; the decision that we make on how to deal with
a relationship or a marriage problem; how to treat employees or how to do our
job for our employer – my idea is that Jesus is to be our reference point for
all of this.
And, of course, when we are hurting or lost, something like
the man in that psychiatrist’s office, Jesus is our sure foundation. He is the secure base who helps us to get by
and keep on going.
It is in this sense that we can say that Jesus is a
King. This is why our Church honors him
with this title today.
