Christ Reigns – The Mystery of Our (Hidden) Resistance Revealed…

On this great feast, the Church proclaims that Jesus Christ reigns over all, and rules from the Cross (INRI). Crown him with many crowns, the Lamb upon his throne… This proclamation can be so potent that it could elicit adolescent responses from you and me: “Whatever you say, Jesus, I’m all for it.” And, “You talking to me?”

Such responses are very significant. They locate us within the mystery of Christ and point us to the very place from which we can pray fruitfully, from our vulnerability and clarity.

For example, when I pray these two psalm texts, I mean them. I want to be led into truth by God in Christ through the Spirit. Teach me wisdom!

Psalm 25:5            Lead me in your truth, and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all day long.

Psalm 51:6             You desire truth in the inward being; therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart.

Yet, at the very same time I want to be led and to gain wisdom, I don’t want to pay the price for receiving these gifts. It’s more like, “Teach me, God, but I cannot give up…, I cannot forgive…, don’t take away my…” These are wonderful examples of a creature of God bargaining with God about how much change I believe I can endure now.

God be praised that in Christ Jesus, the Spirit speaks to us in our inward beings, calling us out of our comfort zones (in which you and I rule!) into the zone of the glorious living in the freedom of the children of God!

“And has fashioned for us a remedy out of mortality itself that the cause of our downfall might become the means of our salvation!”