by Brett Manero
November 24th, 2024, marks the annual Feast of Christ the King in the Catholic Church. It is the conclusion of the Church year, as one year ends and another begins with the beginning of the Advent season the following weekend. It’s of course an incredibly fitting way to end one year and begin another, and it’s all the more amazing that so many Catholics don’t understand the significance of this day.
We Catholics, and indeed all Christians, belong to a Kingdom. That Kingdom is the New Israel, the New Judah, the Catholic Church. Perhaps it would be helpful to call the Church the Catholic Kingdom, for that is what it is: a universal Kingdom for all peoples, all races, all social classes, for all time. Our King is Jesus of Nazareth, whom we rightly called Jesus Christ, or rather, Jesus the Anointed One, for “Christ” is the Greek word for the Hebrew Messiah, which means “Anointed One.” Jesus is our Anointed King who has built the most magnificent Kingdom the world has ever known. Nearly two millennia and counting, the Church remains despite incredible ups and downs, drama and politics, enemies outside and within.
Our King, of course, has gone away to heaven, and we joyfully and perhaps impatiently await His return. Thus, we enter into the season of Advent next weekend: Advent looks back to His First Coming in quietness and humility, and ahead to His Second Coming in majesty and power and glory, as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords who will bring human history to its conclusion.
This Catholic Kingdom is deeply rooted in history – in the history of Israel and the Jewish people, of course, but in other kingdoms as well. For anyone who doubts that the Church is the Kingdom of Kingdoms, then one has only to look at its historical roots.
Everything goes back to David. King David is legendary among both Christians and Jews as a father in faith, the Great King who established Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and who became the archetype of everything that a great King ought to be. Like everyone in the Bible, he is not random: his life and existence and kingship are of historical importance. He is the type and quite literally the ancestor of Jesus Christ, who inherits the throne of Israel from His ancient father.
David is not perfect, as we all know. His mistakes and sins cause massive consequences for himself, his family, and his nation. But his inherit goodness always remains, and for this reason he is given the immense blessing of being the ancestor of the Christ. As his kingdom is firmly established and he enjoys his success, he receives this all-important promise from God:
“When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come forth from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom for ever. I will be his father, and he shall be my son. When he commits iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men, with the stripes of the sons of men; but I will not take my steadfast love from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from before you. And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure for ever before me; your throne shall be established for ever’” (2 Samuel 7:12-16).
As with all prophecy, there is a double meaning. The first meaning is: Solomon, son and successor of David, will become King after his father David. Solomon will bring the Kingdom to even greater power and status than that of his father, and will begin and conclude the construction of the First Temple of Jerusalem, the “House of God.” But the meaning must go deeper, for the Kingdom of Israel is tragically split into two separate camps following the death of Solomon. The deeper meaning is thus: David will have another son who will do the same things: He will succeed both David and Solomon as King, and He will build a new Temple.
Jesus is of course, that descendant of David and Solomon. The beginning of the Gospel of Matthew gives us a thorough lineage of Jesus, starting with Abraham – the Father of Israel – all the way down to David, to Jeconiah/Jehoiachin and the Babylonian Exile, down to Joseph, the foster father of Jesus. Matthew makes it clear that, even though Joseph is the foster father of Jesus, it is through this relationship that the throne of David will be inherited.
But what about Jesus being a biological descendant of David? Doesn’t the promise of God in 2 Samuel 7 seem to indicate that the Messiah will be literally descended from David? Yes, indeed. This mystery can be resolved by looking at the lineage of Jesus’ mother, Mary. The third chapter of the Gospel of Luke gives an alternative lineage of Christ, one that not only goes all the way back back to Abraham, but even back to Adam, the first man. This is to emphasize Luke’s focus on Jesus’ universal salvation for all of humanity, not just the Jewish people. What has bewildered scholars for centuries is that Matthew’s and Luke’s lineages are remarkably different. Both Matthew and Luke mention Joseph, and not Mary. But it is almost certain that Luke is showing the lineage of Mary, not Joseph. How do we know?
Firstly, this is the ancient world, when the lineages of women was extremely uncommon. Lineage was almost always only traced through men alone. Also, Luke is the Marian Gospel, containing events such as the Annunciation and the Visitation – which Luke would likely have received from Mary herself. It is likely she would have provided him with her ancestry as well. From there we can see that Mary is also descended from David, but through a different line than Joseph: Joseph descends through Solomon, while Mary descends through Nathan, another son of David. There is meaning in the fact that Mary descends not through Solomon, but through Nathan: Solomon, like his father David, represents the peak of the Jewish kings. Solomon also builds the First Temple, and in many ways he represents the peak of Israel itself. He is therefore, the representative of the Jewish people. Mary being descended from Nathan, a lesser-known son of David, shows a certain universality in the family of David, and Mary is the Queen of the Universal Kingdom, the Catholic Church.
Following the exile of the Jews to Babylon in 586 BC, another member of David’s family joins the exiles in life in Babylon: Jeconiah, also known as Jehoiachin, the rightful King of Judah. Despite saying no words whatsoever in Scripture (like his descendant Joseph), Jeconiah is of immense importance, as it is through his lineage that the family of David will continue, despite falling from power as a result of the Exile. The Book of Jeremiah masterfully ends with Jeconiah’s liberation from a Babylonian prison (note: his other name in Scripture is Jehoiachin):
“And in the thirty-seventh year of the captivity of Jehoi′achin king of Judah, in the twelfth month, on the twenty-fifth day of the month, Evil-me′rodach king of Babylon, in the year that he became king, lifted up the head of Jehoi′achin king of Judah and brought him out of prison; and he spoke kindly to him, and gave him a seat above the seats of the kings who were with him in Babylon. So Jehoi′achin put off his prison garments. And every day of his life he dined regularly at the king’s table; 34 as for his allowance, a regular allowance was given him by the king according to his daily need, until the day of his death as long as he lived” (Jeremiah 52:31-34).
Like a post-credits scene in a Marvel movie, this final chapter of Jeremiah brilliantly shows us one important detail: Jeconiah is the hope of the future, and his freedom from prison shows that he will have a son, and that son will have a son, all the way down to Joseph. Though fallen from power, the Davidic line and promise continues.
And that brings us to Joseph and Mary. Mary hands the Davidic throne to Jesus by blood, while Joseph does by his legal fatherhood. Jesus Christ inherits the throne of David His father, bringing the ancient Kingdoms of Israel and Judah to fulfillment in His Church, the Catholic Kingdom.
Our King, of course, is not here on earth (although He is in the form of the Eucharist, yes), for He has ascended into heaven. He has left the care of His Kingdom on earth to the Pope and bishops, and to all of us. As the Kings of Judah had a “right hand man” in the al-habayit of Jerusalem, so the Pope is the right-hand-man of Christ the King (see Isaiah 22 for the Old Testament sources of the papacy). But He will not be gone forever, for He shall return in majesty and glory, as the Prophet Daniel foretold while in exile in Babylon:
I saw in the night visions and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion and glory and kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed (Daniel 7:13-14).
This follows up masterfully with another prophecy from Daniel, about a coming Kingdom which will never die. Daniel speaks to the prideful King of Babylon, whose empire reigns supreme during the time of the prophecy:
“And in the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed, nor shall its sovereignty be left to another people. It shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand for ever” (Daniel 2:44).
Thus, our King is in heaven, but He shall return. He will perfect the Kingdom He has already established, and it will be forever free of pain and death. Our world is passing away and will eventually come to an end – and thank goodness for that. This world is corrupt, cruel, unkind. Just as the human body eventually dies due to sin, so the world will eventually die because of sin as well. But just as the human body will eventually rise from the dead (also foretold by the Prophet Daniel) into a glorified body, so the world too shall rise again into a “new heavens and a new earth” (Isaiah 65:17) which will never pass away. And its King shall be Him: Jesus Christ, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, who will never disappoint.
Amen. Come soon, Lord Jesus.
