We End the Year and Celebrate the King

The King shall come when morning dawns
and light triumphant breaks,
when beauty gilds the eastern hills
and life to joy awakes—
“The King Shall Come When Morning Dawns”- Benedictine College Schola Corvorum

He is before all things,
and in him all things hold together.
He is the head of the body, the church.
He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead,
that in all things he himself might be preeminent.
For in him all the fullness was pleased to dwell,
and through him to reconcile all things for him,
making peace by the blood of his cross
through him, whether those on earth or those in heaven.
Colossians 1:18-20

Another Church year is nearing its end. It has been a year of war, famine, disasters, and upheaval. But it has also been a year of hope and joy, goodness and light, of people reaching out to each other not just in times of trouble, but in time of hope.

Hope is what we have, sometimes the only hope. And, with our hope in Jesus Christ, nothing can defeat us.

In this Sunday’s first reading from the Book of Samuel, all the tribes came together to anoint David the King of Israel. The divisions were put aside, the dissension dissolved in the knowledge that the Lord had anointed King David to lead His people.

In Luke’s gospel passage, what seems the end of hope in Christ, now hanging on a cross, is renewed and celebrated, not by those with power and influence. No, the promise from Jesus to welcome the faithful prisoner into Paradise is our promise today that, no matter how difficult, no matter how seemingly hopeless, no matter how cruel the circumstance, God is with us through His son, Jesus Christ.

The Crucifixion was not the end, but the beginning.

This last Sunday of the year is not an end, but the beginning of our hopeful journey to Bethlehem, to be with him in His humility, His humanness, as is our own, and, on that great day, that “ending”, our beginning in Eternity, the most joyous of all outcomes.

The Gospel Acclimation from Mark: “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!

Blessed is the kingdom of our father David that is to come!”