The Solemnity of Christ the King, November 22, 2020

Matthew 25:31–46

Jesus said to his disciples: “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit upon his glorious throne, and all the nations will be assembled before him. And he will separate them one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will place the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. Then the king will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.’ Then the righteous will answer him and say, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? When did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? When did we see you ill or in prison, and visit you?’ And the king will say to them in reply, ‘Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of the least brothers of mine, you did for me.’ Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, a stranger and you gave me no welcome, naked and you gave me no clothing, ill and in prison, and you did not care for me.’ Then they will answer and say, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or ill or in prison, and not minister to your needs?’ He will answer them, ‘Amen, I say to you, what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me.’ And these will go off to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

Customarily, when we read this part of the Gospel of St. Matthew, we focus on the moral theology contained in it.  Indeed, the simplicity of the lesson we can find in it makes it very attractive and easy to keep in our minds.  Those who feed the poor, feed Jesus.  Those who refuse or neglect to feed the poor, refuse or neglect to feed Jesus.  Some very holy people, like Mother Teresa, embraced this words and made them their way of life.  Yet inasmuch as these verses are used for the Solemnity of Christ the King, we must examine them to see what they tell us about the Lord Jesus.

First of all, the occasion for this reading is the Lord’s entrance into Jerusalem, that is, his conquest of it, and the cleansing of his Temple. But at what must have seemed the moment for him to proclaim himself as the Messiah and that the kingdom of Israel was reestablished in him, the Son of David, he speaks of the end of Jerusalem, the end of the world, and the final judgment.  Indeed, he is a King, but of the universe.  “All things were made through Him, and without him was made nothing that was made” (John 1, 3), and now he reveals that he brings all things to an end.

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit upon his glorious throne, and all the nations will be assembled before him.”  We should imagine the scene in which the Lord is speaking.  It takes place later on Palm Sunday, the victorious entrance of the Lord into Jerusalem, accompanied by his followers, and he has cast the money changers out of the temple: “Jesus being come out of the temple, went away. And his disciples came to show him the buildings of the temple” (Matthew 24, 1).  That is, his disciples were admiring these buildings, impressive as they were in their size.  The Lord then begins to speak of the end of these things.  He speaks both of the end of the Temple, the city of Jerusalem, and of the whole world.  Matthew records it as though it were to happen all at the same time.  His teaching culminates in the parables of the Wise and Foolish Virgins and of the Ten Talents, which clearly deal with the end of time.  From there, he launches into a detailed account of the final judgment.  We should note here how he very definitively states, “When the Son of Man comes in his glory.”  This is a very propulsive beginning, made possible by the use of the participle, and very different from the rather prosaic, “The Son of Man will come in his glory and then, etc.”  The very first words here sweep us along.  The Lord intimates, A staggering event is occurring but you have no time to stare at it: here is what happens next!  

“And all the angels with him.”  The Lord does not need the angels to be present here, but he calls them to appear with him as a sign of his power and might, as witnesses to his righteousness, and as our supporters, for among them will be the guardian angels of all who ever lived, those angels in charge of the reconstituting of the human bodies from the dust that remains of them, and those whose worship we joined at Holy Mass, signified by our praying their prayer, the Sanctus.  We will marvel at their faces and forms, and if it were not for the presence of the Son of God in their midst, we would weep at their beauty.

“He will sit upon his glorious throne.”  This is the throne which he shares with his Father, sitting at his right hand.  Here is how St. John saw this throne in his vision of the heavenly court: “There was a rainbow round about the throne, in sight like unto an emerald . . . And from the throne proceeded lightnings and voices and thunders” (Revelation 4, 3, 5).  The sight will be breathtaking.  We might prepare for it all our lives and it will still dazzle us when we see it.  For the Saints, the sight will bring joy and triumph, but for the wicked consternation and despair.

“All the nations will be assembled before him.”  The angels will gather the peoples of the world before the Lord in order to hear their sentences.  The Fathers understood the location for this gathering and judgment as in the Valley of Jehoshaphat, from the Lord’s words through the Prophet Joel: “Let them arise, and let the nations come up into the valley of Jehoshaphat: for there I will sit to judge all nations round about. Put ye in the sickles, for the harvest is ripe: come and go down, for the press is full, the fats run over: for their wickedness is multiplied. Nations, nations in the valley of destruction: for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of destruction” (Joel 3, 12-24).  Since the name of the valley means “the valley of decision”, these verses can be understood in the spiritual sense as indicating not so much a physical location as what will be done there.

“And he will separate them one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.”  It is the Lord who separates the people.  And so we see the progression of verbs in this reading: “He comes . . . He will sit . . . He will separate . . . He will place . . . He will say.”  The Lord dominates the scene and there is no question of anyone interfering.  This dominance may bring to mind the image of Christ the Judge in Michelangelo’s Last Judgment, in which he pronounces innocence and guilt with his arm upraised, and even the Virgin Mary at his side seems to shrink from him.

“Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”  The Lord pronounces his irrevocable sentence, and the just are taken to their reward.  Though his words to the just are kind, even tender, there is no doubt that he is the invincible Ruler.  “Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.”  The Lord explains the reason for his judgment to the damned, who already begin to bellow and howl in their despair and agony — not to console them or to offer some ground for discussion, but to add to their torment.  This said, he turns his back on them forever, as they had turned their backs on him during their lives.

Because we have not grown up in a world of absolute monarchy, the idea of what it means to be a “king” is foreign to us.  In addition, our current culture rebels against any notion of a proper authority.  As a result, we struggle to appreciate what it means that Christ is King.  Only through prayer and holy lives can we begin to know it.