Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom.

We have for our Gospel today the story of the crucifixion. It is rather strange that the scene of the crucifixion is one of the best ways to understand Jesus’ kingship.

When Jesus stands shackled and beaten before the people, clad in a purple mantle, crowned with thorns, and holding a mock scepter of reed, Pilate says, “Here is your king.” Without being aware of it, Pilate speaks the truth. Jesus confirms this truth, “Yes, I am a king. For this I was born and for this I came into the world.” Again without knowing it, all those who mock him give the right answer when they say, “He saved others.” But when they add, “He cannot save himself,” they are utterly mistaken. Jesus does not have to save himself. In royal freedom, he has declared his solidarity with all people who suffer, with all who are humiliated and beaten, with all who are marginalized. It is to save these people that he came. This is how he shows himself as the Son of God.

We know how Jesus’ life ends. It would seem as if Jesus has taken a gamble and lost. The world rejects him. Of course, we know differently. We know that only some reject him and that even their rejection is turned to the advantage of the whole of humanity. If this great feast of Christ the King is a recapitulation of our fundamental beliefs about Jesus, we have, in the touching encounter between the man we call the good thief and Jesus, a beautiful expression of what we should really want to say to him, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”

If we were to make no other prayer to Jesus, we could not do better than to make these words of the good thief our very own, “Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” And in a message of hope, Jesus responds to the good thief, “Today, you will be with me in paradise.” In uttering these words, Jesus confirms his kingship. The kingship of Jesus consists in forgiving sin and in granting eternal life.

Jesus testifies that his kingship is not of this world. But it can begin in this world, and it is capable of changing society to its very foundations. This kingdom begins wherever people begin to live according to the style of life of Jesus. As today’s Preface says, it is a kingdom of truth and life, a kingdom of holiness and grace, a kingdom of justice, love and peace. All these we greatly need today.

It is no mistake that the Church chooses the words “Today you will be with me in paradise” to be the very last words of the Gospel on the very last Sunday of the liturgical year. These words which are the fulfillment of all we could ever want, all we could ever hope for, ring in our ears. May we also cry out with the very same words of the people who welcomed Jesus into Jerusalem, “Hosanna in the highest, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest!”