Reflection - King or king

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/112316.cfm

Revelation 15:1-4
Luke 21:12-19

The end is near.

The conclusion of the Church's calendar year is in its final few days.

Come Saturday, it will be over.

On Sunday the season of Advent begins. 

But the Church is anxious that we recognize the judgement that has come upon us as we renew our annual celebration of Christ the King. In the days leading up to the feast the readings were laced with expectation. They blinked their anticipatory warning like theater lights, reminding us that the final act was about to begin. The feast still resounds in the church's prayers and in the readings selected for this final week. It continues to resonate in the texts chosen for this morning; for this is a momentous event. First, we hear the announcement about the one who is coming, and who is to come.

"Who will not fear you, Lord, or glorify your name?
For you alone are holy.
All the nations will come and worship before you,
for your righteous acts have been revealed.”

Then we are called upon to begin the celebration, encouraging the announcement of the good news to reverberate throughout the mountains and plains, the cities and the countryside. Let everyone know: the end is near; our God reigns.

"Let the rivers clap their hands,
the mountains shout with them for joy.
Before the LORD, for he comes,
for he comes to rule the earth;
He will rule the world with justice
and the peoples with equity."

And, as the whole earth echoes with the proclamation of his coming, we ourselves are to be strengthened by his promise to be with us on that day of judgment. 

"I myself shall give you a wisdom in speaking
that all your adversaries will be powerless to resist or refute."
"Not a hair on your head will be destroyed."

The end is near.

The feast of Christ the King is a relatively new entry in the Church calendar. It was inaugurated by Pope Pius XI in 1926 as a response to the increase in secularism. The papal concern back in the 1920's was aroused by the political scene, not the economic one. As the nations of Europe steadily embraced democratic ideals, they were simultaneously disentangling their governments from their centuries old embrace of religion. The two, state and religion, were increasingly viewed as more properly being independent of one another. 

It's been ninety years since Pius XI established the feast. The separation of church and state is pretty much a done deal in many, if not most nations of the world. From a Christian perspective, however, that separation has not, in the main, been beneficial. Nevertheless, an even more subtle and insidious threat has taken root; that threat finds its origins in the very success of the widespread prosperity created in our own country. Both popes and social philosophers have attempted to disparage its growth and influence. Both have been unsuccessful. And the forceful reminder and reassurance that Christ is King has never been more pressing.

From ancient times peoples and nations have annually recalled and celebrated important events in their lives. Many feasts were religious. Others were clearly political such as the founding of Rome or the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in the battle of Lepanto, or our own Memorial Day. Feast days that originated outside the realms of the religious or the political are scarce in the history of man. The establishment of the Feast of Reason, for example, was a short- lived phenomenon following the tumultuous French Revolution. It was also an anomaly in the record of national feasts.

In our own age, however, a new feast day has been established. It is a feast which is widely celebrated in all the national media. It is a feast that revels in the accumulation of crowds, in the creation of an economic hook, in the gathering of stuff, and in contentiousness among people seek either goods or a parking space. It is the feast of Black Friday! And it has successfully dared to insinuate itself into the consciousness of most Americans, even those who do not have the resources to participate in its festivities. 

Black Friday! Black - the color of shadows, the color of darkness, the color of night, the color of death, the color of despair. Our computer screen fails to produce an image and we say it's gone black? The electric power grid goes down and we have a blackout. Someone does something wrong and he gets a black mark. Yet, when the retailer is successful, we say he's in the black. How marvelously appropriate! How incredibly ironic! Black participates in the name chosen for the biggest feast day of our consumer society. It is a stark reminder of the pervasiveness of the evil that remains among us. Black is the color of the world without God. 

The story of God and his creation begins with "Let there be light." It continued with Light from a burning bush and light from a pillar of fire. For centuries it provided illumination for "a people that walked in darkness." It sought to form them so that they would be a light to the nations. Ultimately the on-going story would even bring light to blind men and seek to make us, the adopted of our heavenly Father, the children of light. But make no mistake: the battle is not over. The fact is, our world is still in darkness. We know it! We don't have to look far to find blindness, death and despair. The light shines but weakly, like a light hidden under a bushel. The evidence of its meander glow is in the barely concealed smirk of Black Friday as it inexorably attempts to redefine who, in fact, is king. 

The end is near. The beginning is near! We end and begin our church year with secular society reminding us that it is so. But nightmares have never had the power of daydreams. They inflict their horror and disgust for a time and then fade into nothingness as the truth of life returns. But daydreams---daydreams live on. From second to second, minute to minute, day to day and year to year daydreams live on in those who persist with the fire of their King in their hearts.