Today we celebrate the feast of Christ the King, crowning our liturgical year. When we hear about a king what is it that we think of?

I remember when I was younger a man was considered to “king of his castle”. This however never sat right with me as when we get married it is supposed to be a partnership. This seemed out of balance in that statement, especially in some examples I saw. The man took this literally and ended up a controlling, overbearing, unapproachable person to his spouse and children. What he said was the law. This seems to fall into place with how some monarchs have ruled their countries as well.

Pontius Pilate as an example ruled the kingdom he was given to control by the Roman emperor with an iron fist. This is why the Jewish leaders of the time brought Jesus to him. They hoped he could be convinced to put Jesus to death to keep the revolution from taking hold that Jesus was proclaiming.

As we hear from the Gospel today Pilate is asking if Jesus is his equal, a King, specifically King of the Jews. Of course, in the end he mockingly has this placed on the cross for all to see when Jesus is crucified. This is to remind the Jews of the time that he is the supreme leader of their area of the world. Yet for Jews the prophet Daniel had already described the vision which Christ was referring to. In this vision we hear today all nations, peoples and languages will serve him.

Jesus reminds us that he is a King, but not of this world but of one to come. He knows if he was king for this world his legion of angels would be fighting to keep him from being crucified. We hear in Revelations that everyone will eventually see Jesus. Those who have followed his teaching as well as those who have not.

We all have the opportunity to freely choose to follow the eternal King or to not follow him. In the end this decision will lead to where our everlasting soul will reside after this earthly life is over. There end up being only two choices, one to live forever in the Kingdom of the Son of God. The other is to live forever in the Kingdom of Satan. Many places in the bible do we hear about the lifestyle differences between the two kingdoms.

We have this choice to make every day of our earthly lives. We can choose to serve the Lord, or we can choose not to. As we see in the world today there are many that appear to be turning their back on the Lord. We see it in the loneliness and despair that many people feel. We see it in the way our society views the value of a life.

The catholic faith we will profess refers to this universality of the heavenly kingdom. This is the kingdom we all have the ability to freely choose to serve. Jesus is not like the man who makes sure his household kingdom is ruled with an iron fist. We all have the free will to choose to serve him or to ignore him.

There is no punishment involved from Christ’s viewpoint as we choose freely to belong to his Kingdom or not. When we do choose to belong to his kingdom, we are expected to follow his teachings. While his teachings may seem counter cultural, they are actually for the benefit of each one of us. It has been studied and those who follow their Christian faith they are significantly happier, live a longer life and have a better family dynamic. That study was done in 2008 in Taiwan, but most people probably have not heard those findings.

The issue I see in today’s society though is we chase happiness in the current cultural phenomenon. We can see this evidenced every year on “Black Friday”, which now seems to have morphed into the entire week of Thanksgiving. We do our best to spend money on things we believe we need all the while forgetting those who are less fortunate. It is promoted on TV and by the stores, yet there are many in our country and around the world who would just be happy to know where their next meal will come from.

Now I am not saying that shopping for Christmas and taking advantage of sales to save money is a bad thing. What I am trying to remind myself as well as all of you is that there are many in this world who would just be happy to have the ability to care for their family without stress. Whether that stress is induced by a job loss, war torn areas or discrimination of any sort. This is what it means to follow Christ to view the world not from what it can do to better ourselves, but we can do to make it a better place for all.

This upcoming time of Advent and Christmas are wonderful opportunities for us to check how we live our own lives to see if we have chosen to follow Jesus or not. When we determine which path we are currently on we then have the free will to choose what path we will ultimately follow.

Do we profess our belief in Christ and partake of the sacraments, then go out and lead our lives as if we were only serving ourselves?  This will be brought forth when we see him for our final judgement. The only one who will have a say in that final judgement is Christ as it is his kingdom. The answer to this question may be one we all want to consider during this upcoming Advent season.