Reconciliation and Serenity
It is from today’s reading in Daniel that Jesus claimed the title “Son of Man” for himself. The most literal translation of the Hebrew is “son of a human,” not son of a male, thus the NRSV’s “human being.” It is a human being that Daniel saw being brought to the “Ancient One,” who we rightly see as God. And it is to that human being that God gives authority over all peoples, nations and languages.
We believe and trust in Christ Jesus as the Son of God. But when he claimed the title, “Son of Man,” he was not in that particular term claiming divinity. Those claims are made elsewhere in the New Testament. But by taking Daniel’s “son of a human” and turning into the title, “Son of Man,” Jesus was claiming the be the perfect human being and the perfect King.
And now here is Jesus, having claimed the title “Son of Man” and not denying his royalty — or better yet, sovereignty — standing before another Gentile king in his representative Pilate the Governor. This Feast of Christ the King is not about any effort on our part to vindicate Jesus’s claims to royalty or legitimacy or conquest. Our already sovereign King is not claiming the kind of vindication that Gentile and Jew so often prefer, the vindication of superior numbers, superior firepower, revenge and destruction. Jesus will absorb and endure the worst that the Gentiles can do. But instead of confronting the Gentiles, Jesus will simply testify to the truth. And by passing through death and rising from death, his truth will be vindicated, not by confrontation, but by an everlasting invitation to trust Him.
The serenity that Jesus displays here is truly god-like. On trial for his life, facing crucifixion, Jesus becomes the interrogator — Do you ask this on your own account, or have others spoken to you about me? And then Jesus speaks of his “followers.” But elsewhere in this Gospel John uses the Greek word to refer to the Temple police. So it might be better to speak here of Jesus’s “officers.” And if we consider ourselves “followers” of Jesus, then we might also need to claim ourselves as officers, testifying to the truth in serenity.
That’s a lot to ask, God. There’s the old Reinhold Niebuhr Serenity Prayer: God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Now there’s “A New Serenity Prayer” by Fr. James Martin S.J.
God, grant me the serenity to accept the people I cannot change, which is pretty much everyone, since I’m clearly not you, God. At least not the last time I checked.
And while you’re at it, God, please give me the courage to change what I need to change about myself, which is frankly a lot, since, once again,I’m not you, which means I’m not perfect.
It’s better for me to focus on changing myself than to worry about changing other people, who, as you’ll probably remember me saying, I can’t change anyway.
Finally, give me the wisdom to just shut up whenever I think that I’m clearly smarter than everyone else in the room, that no one knows what they’re talking about except me, or that I alone have all the answers.
Basically, God, grant me the wisdom to remember that I’m not you.
Amen.
In the words of today’s collect, it is God’s will to “restore all things in your well-beloved Son, the King of kings and Lord of lords,” not destroy them. And God’s will be done. That invitation is to be convicted by the truth that restores, not destroys. That invitation is to be conquered by the truth that does not condemn, but sets us free.
We may choose to respond, as Pilate did, by asking, “What is truth,” perhaps in cynicism, perhaps in genuine questioning, perhaps in fear of being asked to share in Christ’s sovereignty that absorbs, not avoids, death. But the voice of our sovereign King, the risen Jesus still testifies to the truth of invitation not confrontation, the truth of reconciliation not vindication, the truth of salvation not condemnation. Can you hear it?