[AI translation] On this Good Friday evening, I would like to talk only about the phalliras that Pilate had nailed to the cross as the reason for Jesus' condemnation, according to the custom of the time. This inscription has since become known simply as INRI, Jesus Nazarenus, Rex Judeorum. Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews. Nothing stands in such stark contrast to this shameful execution scene as this inscription. King, now, of all times, when he is being tortured by being nailed to the gallows? If I could at least proclaim him king when he rises with majestic power above the raging waves, and calms the storm with a single word! Or stands before Lazarus's open tomb, and at his command the dead come to life. Or when, with divine calm, he distributes five loaves and two fishes to five thousand hungry people. Or when, at the touch of his hand, a legion of devils flees from a tortured human heart. Yes, there are royal scenes in his life, but what happens here on Calvary is anything but royal! Where is there royalty, where is his kingdom, where are his adoring subjects? To call Him King, now, just now, nailed to the tree of shame: the cruelest mockery! It was meant to be!And yet here the truest King is Jesus of Nazareth! Not because anybody considers him so, but because he himself, in full agreement with the Father, considers himself King. Only His kingdom is not of this world, but for that very reason it is stronger and more enduring than all the kingdoms of this world! So much so, that even the haughty governor of the mighty Roman Empire, against his will, serves Him! In his wounded vanity, he meant this folio as a mockery to the Jews, and yet proclaimed in it eternal divine righteousness! When no one would have believed that this Jesus of Nazareth was the long-awaited Messiah-King, when He Himself was already dumb with the agony of crucifixion, when His vitality was waning, when He could no longer proclaim His own truth, when death by torture was slowly approaching: behold, His enemy was proclaiming to the world who this man on the cross was! Pilate, against his will, is serving Him by posting the banner in three world languages, Hebrew, Greek and Latin: Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews! It is as if he were proclaiming with the authority of the pagan Roman Empire: let it be known to all the world at large that this crucified, mocked man is none other than the Messiah-King of whom the prophets spoke, whom the fathers were waiting for, whom God sent into this world! Against his knowledge and against his will, Pilate proclaimed a revealed secret into time and history. What power can there be that so freely places even his enemy at his service, proclaims with him that he is indeed the King of the kingdom of grace and glory! It is as if the whole scene were being directed by a higher power, with attention to the minutest detail, according to an eternal plan. That is how truly supreme a King this Jesus of Nazareth is!
Sometimes we are overcome with doubt and think: it is still possible to imagine a God who is roughly in control of the world, but to imagine a God who cares about the concerns, the passions, the often small details of human life: it is hard to imagine. Well, here it is precisely how much the directing power of Christ is involved in Pilate's - that is to say, a man's - act of offended vanity, of fear of power! There is no corner of the heart, and no region of the world, over which He is not supreme ruler! This Jesus of Nazareth is indeed, crucified, King! King of kings and Lord of lords!
And His Kingship, His glory, is not contradicted by the cross. In fact, it is here that He is truly glorified as King! For it is precisely here, on the cross, that He is most strikingly shown to be King, not in a human way, but in a divine way. He Himself said, "The princes of the Gentiles rule over their own people, and the great men rule over them, but not so among you, but let him who would be great be your servant." In His kingdom it is just the reverse of what it is in the world: true greatness is not in direct proportion to ascending the ladder of power, but to humble descent into the depths of service. He is greater and stronger who stoops lower in service. And therefore He is greatest and strongest, because in service to others He has descended the deepest. It is precisely in this that He has power above all things, that He is powerful in a way that is different from the world, powerful in a way that is different from the world, in a way that is diametrically opposed to the world: in a divine way! That is why it is precisely in the inertia of the cross that divine power is most manifest. That is why it is when he hangs naked on the tree of shame that he is most glorious. In the deepest humiliation it is exalted to the highest.
It is in his very vulnerability that divine power is found, and in his helplessness that power is found! His hands and feet are nailed to the rude beams, he is surrounded on every side only by mocking abuse, yet I could not believe the omnipotence of the living God so fully and surely if it were not represented on earth by the crucified Jesus! Here is God exalted highest above the world! It is precisely because Jesus on the cross cannot be resisted, cannot be exalted, because it is here that he is so infinitely different from the world, from us, from me! It is precisely here on the cross that the whole world has been conquered. Golgotha, this unknown hill in the suburbs of Old Jerusalem, will be the point where the awesome power of the kingdom of God will penetrate the earthly lands. This mocked, tortured King represents there on the cross a power that will sooner or later bring the whole world to its knees.
Powerless against Him the world, the most powerless of all, for He opposes violence to self-sacrifice, mockery and reviling to patience, our sinful pleasures to divine suffering, our rebellion to His obedience, our hatred clashes with His love, our harshness breaks with His gentleness, our envy with His unselfishness, every prick of conscience with His free grace, every sore sin with its deadly poison with His divine pardon.Against all human wickedness, the perfect goodness of God is realized in Him. Therefore He is a triumphant King, a most mighty King there on the cross, because He has conquered all earthly evil by its perfect opposite, the heavenly good, violence not by still greater violence but by the giving of Himself, the flame of hatred not by still greater fires of wrath but by the unquenchable fountain of His love, sin not by punitive power but by forgiveness of sin! Darkness with light. It is impossible to fight against such a king, for he has already won. There is only one thing to be done here: to surrender to Him who has already surrendered Himself to me in full. To begin to love Him who has loved me so deadly before. To thank Him for the forgiveness of sins for which He gave His divine life unto death. To live gratefully with and from the grace that God has just proclaimed in the world through the cross! To bow before the Crown of Thorns as one who is truly the King of Heaven on earth!
A conquering King, a King in his own right, without an army, who establishes a new empire in the land of rebels just as he is being executed, who ascends to his unshakable throne just as he is being crucified. He could look at the mocking sign and inscription with the same eyes with which we can look at it after two thousand years, because He knew then that out of this humiliation the Church would be born, out of this abduction His kingdom on earth would also be dismantled. It is precisely around His cross that He will gather subjects, a worshipping people, waiting for protection, help and blessing from His pierced hand. It is that very bloody cross that will be the royal throne, under whose mighty protection His people will find refuge against all the enemies that assail them from within and without. Around which people of every country, tongue, race, social class, a new humanity will gather, held together by the cohesive power of His redeeming death. Around His cross will be woven communities stronger than all class interests and social differences, fraternal relationships, true threads of love, where the weary will come to be renewed, the burdened to be relieved, the sick to be healed, the weeping to be comforted, the afflicted to rest, the sinners to be cleansed, the poor to be enriched. Here will be mercy for kings and beggars, lords and servants, the mighty and the oppressed, until the end of time. Today! You too! Me too! This Jesus of Nazareth is indeed the Messianic King who conquers us, even now, by proclaiming divine amnesty to bind us forever with his forgiving love.
Some say that Christ is now a spent force in the life of humanity. A scientist once, passing a cross on the roadside, shook his head and said to himself: 'Poor man, your time is up! He thought, as you know, that Jesus was speaking to a simple age, but we are living in a complicated, scientific age, and He was good then, but not good enough for us! Well, the time of Jesus Christ is really just beginning. The Christianity that failed - it was a miserable caricature of the true one, not the point. Jesus is the creator and sustainer of what is most beautiful and best in humanity: love, forgiveness, pure joy, peace, true brotherhood, selfless service - in short, the kingdom of God on earth. Through His person, God flows directly - His very being - as power and love into the world. Whoever truly submits to Him, whoever takes His lordship upon himself with a heart ready to obey, will have his life transformed, renewed, exalted. His truly royal power is the only untapped power in this world!
It is recorded that the priestly princes protested against the inscription, saying: Do not write, King of the Jews, but that He said, I am King of the Jews. But Pilate would not yield. "What I have written, I have written," he says firmly. This cannot be changed, for it was the living God Himself who wrote it with Pilate's hand. Let him write in our hearts with his own hand, just as irrevocably and indelibly, "This is Jesus of Nazareth, your King!" Come, let us confess Him together:
O Holy Church, happy kingdom of believers!
How sweet is the kingdom of Jesus!
It is meek, poor, and humble,
But mighty and wonderful.
It is true and deliverer from sin,
Conqueror of sin, death and nations;
He wields his enemies with an iron rod,
But gently guards his heritage.
Canto 331, verse 2
Amen
Date: 16 Apr 1954 Good Friday afternoon.
Lesson
Jn 19,16-37