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In the best sense of the word you can say this of the Three Kings, who recognize in Jesus the highest king, even before they have found him on earth:

“Where is the newborn child who is destined to be king of the Jews? We saw his star in the realms of the East and have come to bow down to him.” (Mat.2:2)

As a king, you don’t bow down to another king—unless he has the highest power, as King of Kings. The three wise men, priests, recognize this power, long before John in his Apocalypse has his vision of the highest King (Rev. 19:16).

In the Act of Consecration of Man there is one sentence that brings this power to perfect expression. Rarely or never do we realize the reach of this one sentence, which sounds repeatedly in every communion: “You, who bear and order the life of the world…” Christ is the key to the life of the world. Everyone and everything that lives in the world owes his existence to Him. Can we ever imagine that He bears the life of billions of people on earth, even the unbearable? Can we ever imagine that He orders all life on earth, even when it shows chaos and destruction?

Now that is a real King, who permeates all that lives in His realm with His bearing and ordering force! Christ penetrates so deeply into us—even though we do not know it, even though we do not want to know it—that all that lives on earth is His flesh and blood. That is how Christian Morgenstern expresses it in one of his most dramatic poems, in which Christ speaks:

All of you belong to me, in me,                                     Alle gehőrt ihr mit hinein.
All of you in my great being!                                          Alle mit in mein grosses Sein!
For no one am I overweening                                        Will mich vor keinem ȕberheben,
For he is life of my life.                                                     Denn er ist Leben von meinem Leben.
Whoever he is and whatever he does,                         Wer er auch ist and was er auch tut,
He remains my flesh and remains my blood.             Bleibt er mein Fleisch und bleibt er mein Blut.

Christ came into the world in order, lifelong, throughout life, in all future cycles of time, to bear and order the burden of life. But His task on earth can only be completed if we, each one of us with the means at our disposal, help Him bear and order—we, together with Him. Christ came into the world to rescue what could be rescued, to redeem what longs for redemption: in us, through us, with us.

-Rev. Bastiaan Baan, January 9, 2022

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