Imagine four people in a room. The first is a powerful dictator who rules a country. He commands armies, directs the lives of millions, and his wishes become law and are enforced. He possesses a brutal power.

Next to him sits a gifted athlete at the pinnacle of his physical prowess. This is one whose speed, strength, and endurance have few equals. His is a graceful power for which he is much admired and envied.

The third person is a rock star whose music and charisma electrify sold out arenas. Her words can become the anthem for a generation. Her power is the soulfulness of the muse.

The fourth person in the room is a newborn, a baby, lying in its crib, unable to clearly ask for what it needs.

The irony is that the baby ultimately wields the greatest power. The infant can touch hearts in a way that a dictator, an athlete, or a rock star cannot. Its innocent, wordless presence, without physical strength, can transform a room and a heart in a way that worldly powers cannot. The powerlessness of a baby touches us at a deeper moral place. It is as though a baby has the power to do an exorcism. It can cast out the demons of self-absorption and selfishness in us.

• We welcome the child.
• We care for the child.
• We clothe the naked child.
• We feed the hungry child.
• We willingly visit the child in the crib.

These are the things we do for the least among us, the most helpless among us.

Even though at times we want God the dictator who will right wrongs and establish justice by showing some raw muscle power and banging some heads here and now, such is not the true power of God. The true power of God, in the person of His Son, Jesus, was born as a baby, lived a life apart from worldly power, and he died hanging helplessly on a cross with bystanders mocking his powerlessness. Yet both his birth and his death manifest the kind of power upon which we can ultimately build our lives. The powerlessness of Christ touches us at a deeper moral place. It has the power to cast out our worst demons.

Worldly power imposes. Divine power proposes. It is the proposal of the helpless child, arms raised upward, inviting you to embrace innocence and love.

As the Southern author Annie Dillard noted, Christ is always found in our lives just as he was originally found, a helpless baby in the straw who must be picked up and nurtured into maturity.

Welcoming, caring, clothing, feeding and visiting – things we do naturally for the infant. Things we do willingly for God. Our challenge lies between the infant and God, in all the people we encounter in this life.

In the second reading, St. Paul offers: “so too in Christ shall all be brought to life.”  We know of the great effort required to bring a child into life. We know the even greater effort to bring that child to the fullness of life such that the word of St. Irenaeus are evident and plainly true. Irenaeus wrote that the glory of God is the human person fully alive.

What Christ the King asks of us is to remember to embrace the power of the Christ child and nurture that power and grace into the lives of those needing welcome, caring, clothing, feeding and visiting – that they be brought to life and those lives (and yours) reveal the glory of God.

Such is the power of Christ the King. That power can touch hearts in a way that a dictator, an athlete, or a rock star cannot.

Amen.

Image credit: Christ the King, Dome of the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls, Rome | PD-US