Solemnity of Christ the King
11/23/03

CLOUD 99 . . . First Daniel and his visions again. He sees one "like a Son of man" coming on or with clouds: either way it's very heavy stuff, angelic or even divine in its connotation. This is apocalyptic literature, going back hundreds of years. It's a glorying in the power of one's God and a prediction of victory.

WE ARE NOT HOT STUFF . . . Then Revelation, or Apocalypse, in the same vein, now specifically about Jesus Christ as witness, actually martyr, who "freed us from our sins by his blood." Our sins again. We fear to think in those terms: Freud has instructed us not to feel guilty. But emphasis is on freeing us, which leads to diminished sense of one's own grandeur. Is that so bad a thing?

LOOKING AHEAD . . . Then Jesus before Pilate, to whom he says his kingdom is not of this world. Ah. Of what world then? The next. We live for the next world. The passage from John reminds us not to get too comfortable, to keep looking not over our shoulder but ahead to greater things than even the best positioned of us have experienced. Yes. Soon enough on to the next thing.