Thought for the week: God will judge with mercy and compassion
The story has it that when South African leader Nelson Mandela was in prison one of his torturers said to him: “Don’t you know I have the power to kill you?” It was more or less the same question which Pontius Pilate once asked Jesus. Mandela replied: “Don’t you know I have the power to go to my death freely?” That, too, was the response of Jesus to the power of this world.
Tomorrow, is known as 'Christ the King Sunday', a day on which we focus on the Second Coming of Jesus as King and Judge, at a date known only to God. In the gospel reading for tomorrow, from St John, chapter 18: 33-37, we see that Jesus is nothing like the kings of this world, and His power is not the sort of power this world understands. He came not to establish a political sovereignty, but to bear witness to the truth of God’s reign in the Kingdom of Heaven which is not of this world.
In His days on earth, Jesus Christ faced the same injustices, dangers, threats and suffering that we all face.
I am familiar with a most beautiful east window in a parish church which depicts the 'Risen Christ'. He is dressed in a splendid red robe – a kingly figure. But there is no throne on which a king may sit - just a cross to which this king was nailed. There is no heavily jewelled crown, but a crown of thorns which hurt and drew blood when it was pressed down on His head. There is no one gold ring of power for his finger, but nails which were hammered through His flesh.
The window is a reminder that the victory of love over death was won only after much suffering. Jesus is the Son of Man, who carries the marks of whips, thorns and nails. But He is also Christ the King who reigns over all in His eternal kingdom. And if Christ the King is also a Son of Man then so too is Christ the Judge of all whose judgment will be shown with the mercy and compassion of one who understands from experience what it is to be human. When we tell him the story of our lives we will find ourselves loved, accepted and healed.
Christ the King is still Jesus, the Son of Man, who walks with us and reaches out to us with hands which still bear the marks of suffering. He is with us throughout our earthly pilgrimage and will be with us in the world to come, when we shall see Him face to face in the company of all our loved ones now in His eternal Kingdom.