Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the universe.

November 20, 2022

2Sam 5:1-3; Col 1:12-20; Lk 23:35-43
Delivered and transferred into the kingdom of Christ
“He delivered us from the power of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved
Son.”
A few weeks after I emigrated from Nigeria to the United States, I had to take a driving test to
secure my driving license. My Nigerian friend who had been in the United States many years
before I arrived offered to help me prepare for the test. These were his words to me on the first
day of our driving lessons, “All that you know about driving from your years of driving in
Nigeria, I want you to forget it all.” I was a little bit offended and asked why. He answered me,
“This is a different country. If you drive here in the United States the same way you drive in
Nigeria, you will be in jail and I do not have money to bail you out.”
He might have been exaggerating a bit but there was truth in his words. I had to put aside old
habits to learn a new way of driving in a foreign country. His point was clear to me: a new
country demands a new way of acting if I wanted to enjoy the freedom of that country.
Because of Christ’s death and resurrection, we Christians belong to a new kingdom, the
kingdom of Jesus Christ, the king. God has graciously done what no one could do. From
hopeless and helpless slaves to sin, He has made us His children in the kingdom of Christ, the
King. In the words of St. Paul, “He delivered us from the power of darkness and transferred us
to the kingdom of His beloved Son.” (See Col 1:12-20)
Being delivered and transferred into this new kingdom of Christ also demands new and
improved behavior on our part. Because God has delivered us from the power of darkness,
darkness and evil do not have power over us anymore. The darkness in us and in our world, no
matter how strongly we may experience them, cannot and should not control our actions.
Because God has transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, we too can choose to act
out of love for God and neighbor all the time, no matter the darkness that we may be facing.
We can choose to do the will of God and serve our neighbors in this life.
The dying Christ faced a myriad of evils as He hung on the cross – abandonment by His
disciples, the shame of the crucifixion, mockery and taunting by His executioners, excruciating
pains, blasphemies, insults, etc. He did not curse or threaten them but offered forgiveness and
everlasting union to the good thief, “Amen, I say to you, today you will be with me in
Paradise.”(Lk 23:43) In Jesus Christ, love prevails in the midst of darkness and evil.
Delivered from darkness and transferred into the kingdom of Christ, the king! In moments of
darkness, do we hold on to these truths about what God has done for us in Jesus? When we do
not realize this truth of faith and hold on to it, we live as if we were still under the dominion of
evil. We continue to live the same lives of hopeless submission and cowardly compromise with
evil because we are oblivious of our new kingdom and identity in Jesus’ kingdom.
There are four ways in which we show that we truly belong in the kingdom of Christ today.
Firstly, we are always grateful to God for what He has done for us in Jesus Christ. The
Israelites freely chose David as their king because they were grateful for him risking his life to
fight and win many battles for them. They said to him, “In days past, when Saul was our king, it
was you who led the Israelites out and brought them back.”(See 2Sm 5:1-3)
Though “all things were created through Him and for Him,” Jesus Christ, our king, chose to
suffer and die on Calvary to bring us into His kingdom, “reconciling all things and making peace
by the blood of His cross.” This is the source of deep gratitude of the Christian, a gratitude that
is not diminished by our sins, failures, sufferings, or fear of any of these in the future.  
But are we really grateful for Christ’s sacrifice to bring us into His kingdom? Don’t we tend to
focus more on the struggles that we face with the forces of evil within and outside us? The gift
of being delivered and transferred to Christ’s kingdom is thus ignored.
Secondly, we trust in Jesus completely and all the time. The Israelites also chose David as their
king because he was one of them, “Here we are, your bone and your flesh.” They had this trust
in him because they felt known and accepted by him.
We trust in Jesus completely because He has really and truly become one like us by taking on
our human nature through the Blessed Virgin Mary. He knows and has experienced all the
darkness that we can ever experience. Since He was born in a manger, died on a cross, and rose
from a grave, there is no human experience that He cannot understand, commiserate with, or
relieve us from.
He knows us well and He can supply all our needs, even in the darkest moments of our lives.
Didn’t He grant forgiveness and restore grace to the good thief who turned to Him in trust at
those dark moments of Calvary? How can He do less for us today if we trust in Him completely?
Thirdly, we have loving obedience toward Jesus. Jesus Christ is “head of the body, the
Church,” and also “preeminent Himself in all things.” The church-body and the head do not just
share the same life that is in the head but the body must obey the head and become like the
head in His own attitude of loving obedience to the Father. The members of the body must
mature in obedience “to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.”(Eph 4:13)
As our king, we obey Him above all and in all things. He is both the source and the standard of
our obedience. We do not give this obedience in any way to any person who contradicts the
words of Christ the king. In short, we are ready to disappoint all others rather than ignore or
rebel against the demands and inspirations of Christ the king.
Lastly, we never lose hope in this life. We live in joyful hope all the time because we know that
we belong to a kingdom that will never pass away. Earthly kingdoms will come and go but the
kingdom of Christ the king will endure forever.
We can do so by sharing in the faith of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the words of the angel
Gabriel, “The Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David, and He will reign over the
house of Jacob forever; and of His kingdom there will be no end.” (Lk 132-33)
My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, as we journey through this world, we will still face
moments when darkness and evil seem to prevail in our lives. There will be times when
goodness, truth, and beauty are mocked and rejected in many ways inside and outside the
Church. Those are the moments to remind ourselves of those two words – delivered and
transferred. We have been delivered from servitude to darkness and brought to share in
Christ’s own loving obedience to the Father for the glory of the Father and the salvation of
souls.  
Each Eucharist is an encounter with Christ the king. Let us first of all bring ourselves, everything,
and all our experiences to Him as our king because “in Him, all things hold together.” In Him
everything that we experience finds their true meaning and purpose in God’s plan.
But let us also receive from Him the grace to live as those who are in Christ’s kingdom. It is by
the power of this grace alone that our lives can always show that we do not belong to the
kingdom of darkness anymore but to the kingdom of Christ, the king.
Glory to Jesus!!! Honor to Mary!!!