CHRIST THE KING?
Landy, Thomas M.
CHRIST THE KING? The unexpected power of a symbol Thomas M. Landy In my office at home, to the left of my desk, straight up against the wall, hangs a bronze corpus without a cross behind it....
...You're not going out of this house dressed like that\" I know that some people still hold the image of the Infant of Prague dear, but it remains difficult for me to grasp what it communicates about the mystery of Christ...
...Its kingship over my heart could never be twisted to oppress...
...Why should my singing so make me to weep...
...On his head, this Christ figure wears a thick, banded crown—not elaborate, but an unmistakable sign of kingship...
...A joke I heard later: "What did Mary say when she first saw Jesus dressed as the Infant of Prague...
...Commonweal I I December 17,1999 I loved the whole poem, and its setting, but found special resonance in the last two lines...
...The notion of kingship was not simply triumphal...
...One of them stood on my mother's dresser as long as I can remember...
...not to be Out of hell by loving thee: Not for any gains I see...
...The Infant of Prague stands on his own and apart...
...Years later, traveling in Prague, I saw in a store window a large poster depicting at least a hundred regal outfits that could be purchased to dress the statue...
...How should I know what to sing Here in my arms as I sing thee to sleep...
...The crown speaks to me of strength and opportunity, glory perceived and promised...
...The just one who is rejected, betrayed, tortured, slain...
...More recently I came across two other images of Christ as king that brought tellingly different responses...
...Their messages of power or prescience—in an infant, no less—showed no signs of human vulnerability...
...The torso and limbs speak of surrender and loss...
...I had never before seen a crucifix depicting Christ with a temporal crown, and had never thought I'd want to...
...Jesus was shown to be king through his "nails and lance," "Sweat and care and cumber...
...Over the long haul, I believe the images that will resonate most fully and deeply in us will probably be those that embody the deepest paradoxes, seeming contradictions, truths that overwhelm logic, probability, experience: The vulnerable infant who is almighty God...
...Any image of God yields only limited insight about who God is...
...Kings may have wonderful jewels to bring, Mother has only a kiss for her king...
...I knew that it communicated something of value, although it simply did not say enough...
...I would expect to be deeply bothered that a symbol of earthly power had replaced the crown of thorns...
...Impiously, I saw it as a comical "Jesus-as-Barbie" sort of religiosity...
...Not for heaven's sake...
...Hushaby low, Rockaby so...
...On first seeing this corpus ten years ago, I was drawn to it in a way that I could not quite explain...
...Those critiques make sense in terms of most of the ways I had seen Christ's kingship depicted...
...The one which stood out with the most power was Hopkins's poetic translation, O Deus, ego amo te: O God, I love thee, I love thee — Not out of hope of heaven for me Nor fearing not to love and be Thomas M. Landy, lecturer and assistant to the dean at the College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, Massachusetts, is the founder and director of Collegium...
...who was then and is now our worthy king, who conquered death and is our hope...
...The first was a lullaby—the most gorgeous of lullabies—an early Samuel Barber song that was recently rediscovered and recorded...
...Nail holes in the hands show where a cross, the instrument of suffering and salvation, would usually be...
...Yet at different moments in our lives we all probably need to call upon one single face of God—as Protector, as Wisdom, as Rabbi, as foe of injustice, as the resurrected One...
...In the everlasting burning...
...A decade later, it continues to draw me with no less power and immediacy...
...Driving past an imposing red-brick church in Boston, I noticed what I'd probably seen many times before, a life-size statue of Christ the King...
...Feminist theologians have rejected kingly images of God as distant and patriarchal, misplaced at best, distorting at worst...
...The corpus always quiets me when I look up to it from my work...
...A few years ago I found a recording of several poems by Gerard Manley Hopkins, set to song by Benjamin Britten...
...Painted white and gold, it depicts a strong, healthy Christ wearing a crown and kingly robes, holding an orb in his left hand and raising his right hand in a sign of blessing and peace, his expression pure wisdom, knowledge, and reassurance...
...Sleep, little king, I am bending above thee...
...Shortly after I heard the "Slumber Song" I encountered one more image of Christ the King that stood out, precisely because it was so different from the previous three...
...But on the body of this wasted king, this crown signifies cause for trust...
...I've increasingly come to believe that capturing the mystery of God, including the mystery of Jesus, takes an ability to recover and honor a wide variety of the images of God that we are heir to...
...Thou, thou, my Jesus, after me Didst reach thine arms out dying...
...The arms are outstretched wide...
...His body was emaciated—ribs showing, eyes cast down, belly distended like a child's ravished by famine, wrapped only by a remnant of kingly robes that covered his loins...
...It is a museum reproduction of a Romanesque crucifix...
...Only to know that I love thee, I love thee, Love thee, my little one, sleep...
...Over time, other works of art have spoken to me similarly...
...The suffering eyes and face call forth a sense of longing...
...It's not a great piece of art, but my indifferent response was not a matter of aesthetics...
...Quite the contrary, it told a story which made the image powerfully paradoxical...
...Commonweal 13 December 17,1999...
...Jane Redmont, writing of her struggle with depression and mental illness, has recounted how it was—to her great surprise—the overwhelming Old Testament image of God as shield that got her through it...
...The feast of Christ the King is built on scriptural references and an interesting history, but it never occupied much of my religious imagination...
...The crucified Jesus is the king of the Jews, and of us all...
...It was a taken-for-granted part of my religious world, but not one to which I related...
...Set to a poem by Alfred Noyes, "A Slumber Song of the Madonna," it surprised me by its power to draw me into a paradox that had not quite fit my own Christology: Sleep, little baby, I love thee...
...I never put energy into overthrowing them...
...In contrast, I found these newly encountered images of Jesus to be deeply compelling, drawing me into the reality of Jesus' Passion...
...Whenever I'd seen images of an infant king in the past, I was always put off a little...
...The crown on the corpus in my room is no mistake...
...Yet this image was by no means triumphalistic...
...This is a real baby and, as such, in the eyes of a mother, a king...
...Strength and loss at the same time...
...Barber and Noyes's song of a mother, so moved by the gift of her son, embraces paradox and promise straightforwardly...
...But just the way that thou didst me I do love and I will love thee: What must I love thee, Lord, for then?— For being my king and God...
...But those images never appealed to me...
...For my sake sufferedst nails and lance, Mocked and marred countenance, Sorrows passing number, Sweat and care and cumber, Yea and death, and this for me, And thou couldst see me sinning: Then I, why should not I love thee, Jesu so much in love with me...
...Sometimes our hearts cannot absorb any more complexity or paradox...
...Had I not been puzzling over my attraction to these other kingly images, I don't know that this statue would have even penetrated beneath the surface of my consciousness...
...The Gospel of John tells us of the inscription on Jesus' cross: I.N.R.I., Iesus Nazarenus, Rex ludaeorum...
...Amen...
...If this had remained my primary religious image of divine kingship, I'd never have been drawn to the same level of reCommonweal I 2 December 17,1999 flection, in the way my corpus of the emaciated king has drawn me...
...This crown on this body has a power over me that I never could have expected...
...Images of Christ the King have long been used by monarchs and would-be kings to dominate and oppress...
...Most puzzling were statues of the Infant of Prague...
...the kingship of the "Slumber Song" is grounded in relationship, made real in the love of a mother who cradles him and who sings out of hope at such new promise, and out of sorrow at her knowledge of life's difficulty and her own poverty...
...I had a sense that it too was a piece of my own religious tradition, not to be scorned...
...What we need then is to see God in God's utter simplicity...
Vol. 126 • December 1999 • No. 22
