I PROMISE YOU THIS, TODAY YOU WILL BE WITH ME IN MY KINGDOM

http://frail.deviantart.com/

when I saw you for the first time, you were hanging with a theif
and I knew my hands were dirty
and I dropped my gaze






but you said I was forgiven.

"Frail"

"theif" is purposely done by the artist, Frail,  to add symbolism to the piece.




We heard an OK sermon this morning but like so many others on the topic of Christ the King, it missed a key point that hardly any priest ever, if ever at all, makes.  It is the point that there are some times in the Gospel when a "pagan" converts on the spot before Jesus and begins to see.  It is strange that this miracle which happens three times in the story of the Passion and Death of Jesus is rarely made the centerpiece of a Sunday morning sermon, or Good Friday instruction.  The first one of the three is Pontius Pilate himself.  He calls Jesus, "King of the Jews."  At one point after this, Pilate even gets a little huffy and asks Jesus, "I'm not a Jew, am I?"  Pilate even has it written on the Cross in the three major languages of the day, Latin, Greek and Hebrew.  Furthermore, when he is challenged about what he wrote his answer is a firm, "What I have written, I have written."  Did he convert?  We don't know.  We do know that he fell our of favor with the authorities back at the home office.  After that, no one dared to pursue the argument, neither Roman nor Jew.  The two other conversions take place at the foot of the Cross.  One Roman and the other Jewish.  The centurion who was on guard at the foot of the Cross says, "Truly this man was the Son of God." [Mark, 15; 39]  We are just as familiar with the thief who asked forgiveness and was promised heaven by Jesus Himself.  
The universality of the Power of God exercised by Jesus is on full display in these stories and we rarely hear anyone make the point.
So, today, I am making the point.  So think about it and pray over it.

Paul