The homilist this morning insightfully stated that Christ wants to establish his kingdom in our hearts. And he asked if we will allow Christ to do so? For often our hearts are compartmentalised not allowing Christ to rule over every aspect of how we live. 

I would describe myself as such, often living along the borders of the kingdom, dashing in only when I am in need of divine intervention; strongly desiring for an outcome or desperately struggling in a crisis. There is quite a lot of fun living outside the kingdom and I am close to the border line because I live in ways often comprising the laws of the kingdom (in plain terms, ‘sin’).  

I flirt with the possibility that one day, while outside, the door back into the kingdom will be shut in my face. How is it that I can be so foolishly brave?  

I live with a complacency that I have inherited through my faith in an always loving God, a belief stretching into the assumption that forgiveness is always available to me. I only have to knock on the door of mercy.

Today’s second reading spoke of giving thanks to God the Father, who has even open the possibility for me to join the saints and with them inherit the light. “Because that is what he has done: he has taken us out of the power of darkness and created a place for us in the kingdom of the Son that he loves, and in him, we gain our freedom, the forgiveness of our sins.”

As I venture further into my complacency, and further away from the kingdom, my lifestyle reach a border where the world is darkened, brightened only by the neon lights of deception. Over this border, my faith in God is jeered, my belief in his existence mocked. I have reached the secular world of today.

As I reflect on the meaning of God’s kingdom reigning in my heart. I ask myself “do I want to allow this earthly world to consume me?”

“He is the image of the unseen God”

The image of the crucifix. A King with a crown of thorns. A body scourged and bloodied. Nailed to a cross. Hung to die. A sorrowful sight, but an act of love defying every border of human understanding, every limit of pain in the name of Love. The power of Love. The image of the resurrection: “He was first to be born from the dead”.

Behold the sight for this was the ransom paid for me to live my complacent lifestyle. Is this how I have chosen to repay my King?

It is time to give thanks and knock foolishness out. And allow access to all of my heart for the Kingdom of God to reign, and have a lifestyle to witness for Christ the King.

 

 

 

The Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe