Bloody king

Bloody truth. Bloody love. Bloody King. To testify to the truth is to be king, according to Jesus. And what is the truth? It is to love at the cost of one’s life. No less! (From today’s Gospel reading, Mk. 18: 33-37).

The power of love, not love of power. Christ the King in the truest sense of the word was never the king wearing a bejeweled crown and royal robes, lording it over his subjects who served him constantly. Christ was the king of the very opposite kind.

He was born and raised among ordinary people. He worked as a carpenter to earn a living. He never wore a bejeweled crown nor royal robes. He was one among the common people. In other words, his way was not one of "upness" but "amongness." So when you see a statue or picture of Christ bedecked and garbed like a medieval king, be aware that such is the product of distorted imagination, and a worldly way of "honoring" Christ. The artists and leaders who portrayed him that way may have had the best of intentions, but such portrayal was farthest from historical truth.

It may have been a way of rationalization on the part of those who believed in the love of power. Sad to say, the institutional church in those times was influenced by such a leadership of kingly power. Today, the church embraces Christ’s "kingship" of amongness and power-for-others. Moreover, it advocates inculturation and contextualization. But traces of European medieval kingship and pomp tend to hang on, like the kind of central governance, which the late theologian Bernard Haring called "spiritual authoritarianism." Such remnants of the past are what turn off many of the faithful today, especially the young.

The power of love, not the love of power, was what made Christ a king. The power of reaching out to the sick and the poor. The power of forgiving repentant sinners, the power of loving even the most unlovable. Such was his power to love. Selfless, vulnerable, to the point of giving his very life in the process.

He was resisted because of this power of love. He was persecuted by the holders of power-over-others. They deprived others of the truth – that all men were created equal, and that the Creator’s resources and blessings were meant for all – not just for those who wielded power without love. "For this I was born and for this I came into world, to testify to the truth." (v. 37).

Christ relentlessly testified to this bloody truth, which he fearlessly witnessed to, with his bloody love. Thus, he was the bloody king, and still is, and forever will be. The cross is his throne. The cross is the apex of the power of love. In contrast, the worldly king shuns and runs away from this. "My kingdom does not belong to this world." (v. 36).

Each one of us is challenged to be another Christ the king. To be a bloody king in my personal state of life, in my work, in my community. To be king of my power to love. Otherwise, I will be sucked in by the love of power and become a worldly king.

Just this past Tuesday, the Phil. STAR had as one of its headlines: "SWS head: Economic growth not being felt by the poor." According to the latest survey of the Social Weather Stations, "a great challenge to meaningful economic research is to determine why hunger actually worsened tremendously despite GNP growth of recent years." One undeniable cause is our liberal, capitalistic economic system that continues to widen the gap between the minority rich and the majority poor. We must definitely move toward a democratic-socialist system to effect a more equitable distribution of God’s resources.

In our country today, the Partido-Demokratiko-Sosyalista Ng Pilipinas (PDSP) and its citizens’ movement, Aksyong Sambayanan, are precisely working for such a change in our socio-economic system. The national leadership of GMA is open in supporting the national goals of the PDSP. Moreover, the social teachings of the Catholic Church precisely favor socialism and condemns the abuses of both capitalism and communism. Overall, then, I discern this direction as God’s will for our people. Let us courageously and fearlessly give it our all-out support and cooperation.