Jesus Christ | King of the Universe

— AUDIO ESSAY —

How Big Is His Kingdom?

Every year, at the end of the Catholic liturgical year, we celebrate the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe. I had heard that title countless times: “King of the Universe.” But one year I found myself stopping on those last three words: “...of the Universe.” What exactly are we saying? The question becomes especially interesting when we consider when the feast was established. Pope Pius XI instituted the Feast of Christ the King in 1925. His purpose was not astronomical. He was responding to a world increasingly pushing God out of public and private life, and he wanted Christians and all humanity to recognize again the sovereignty of Christ. In “Quas Primas,” he wrote of Christ’s dominion ultimately extending over all created things.

     But something extraordinary had just happened in astronomy. Only a short time before, astronomer Edwin Hubble had helped settle one of the great scientific debates of his age. Those faint, cloudy objects in the night sky that astronomers called spiral nebulae were not simply objects within our own Milky Way. Some of them were entire galaxies far beyond it. Humanity’s universe had suddenly become enormously larger.

     So there is a remarkable historical juxtaposition here. Just as the Church was formally proclaiming Christ as King, astronomy was beginning to reveal how astonishingly large the universe over which that kingship extends might actually be. That became the starting point for the song Jesus Christ | King of the Universe:

On that last Sunday of the year

We crowned Christ King of all that's here —

As Hubble studied distant light,

Vaster realms came into sight.

     Of course, the universe itself did not suddenly become larger. We simply discovered how small our understanding of it had been. And we have been repeating that discovery ever since.

A Universe That Refuses To Stay Small

The numbers are almost impossible to comprehend. The observable universe contains at least 100 billion galaxies, while our Milky Way alone contains at least 100 billion stars. Thousands of planets beyond our solar system have already been confirmed, and astronomers expect that our galaxy alone contains billions more. Those numbers stop behaving like numbers after a while. The human mind simply isn’t equipped to visualize them.

     So perhaps the better way to think about the universe is to look upward on a clear night and realize that nearly everything we can see with our naked eyes belongs only to a very small part of our own galaxy. Then imagine billions upon billions of other galaxies, and around those stars, worlds. Rocky worlds. Gas giants. Frozen worlds. Perhaps worlds with oceans, atmospheres, continents and weather. Perhaps worlds on which chemistry made the transition into biology. And perhaps, somewhere, worlds on which biology became consciousness. That possibility is where this song really begins to move beyond astronomy:

Some bear mountains, air, and seas,

Lives awakening to mysteries

Souls who wonder, as we do,

Who shaped their sky and loves them too?

That last question fascinates me. What if someone else is asking it?

What If Someone Is Looking Back?

We have spent generations wondering whether there is intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. Usually we approach that scientifically. Is liquid water present? Is there an atmosphere? Are there chemical signatures associated with life? Could we detect a technological civilization through radio signals or some other evidence?

     Those are important questions. But as a Christian, another question naturally follows. Suppose someday we discover not merely bacteria or some primitive organism, but beings capable of reason, self-awareness, moral choice, relationship, and love. What would that mean theologically? If such creatures are truly persons, then surely God already knows them. They would not become important because we discovered them. They would have mattered to God all along, perhaps for millions of years.

     That changes the familiar question, “Are we alone?” For me, the more interesting question becomes: If we are not alone, what is their relationship with God? The chorus of the song grew out of that thought:

You are King of the Universe —

Of every planet and starburst.

Every heart that comes to be,

Every world across vast galaxies.

     If Christ really is King of the Universe, His kingship cannot end at the edge of Earth’s atmosphere. It cannot even end at the edge of the Milky Way. The phrase “King of the Universe” must mean something far larger than our human corner of it.

Must Every World Have An Eden?

This leads to a much more provocative question. Christians understand our own human story through creation, freedom, sin, and redemption. Humanity turned away from God, and in Jesus Christ, God entered human history to reconcile us to Himself. But why should we assume that every sentient species would have exactly the same history? Perhaps some would:

Worlds may falter as we have done,

Stray from grace like the setting sun.

     A civilization capable of moral freedom might also be capable of pride, selfishness, violence, and rebellion. Perhaps what Christians call the Fall reflects something about the danger inherent whenever truly free creatures can choose themselves over their Creator. But another possibility intrigues me even more:

Others walk in You unshaken

Never fallen, not forsaken.

     What if another intelligent species never fell? Imagine encountering beings who had developed science, art, language, and civilization without separating themselves from God. What would they be like? Would they experience death as we do? Would their relationship with creation be different? Would technology develop differently in a civilization in which intelligence had never become separated from wisdom?

     We simply don’t know. But the possibility turns the universe from empty space into theological wonder.

Would We Recognize Him?

Then comes the most difficult question in the song:

If You have come to them in form

Unlike the flesh that You have worn,

Would we know You, face to face —

One Lord revealed through different grace?

     Christianity makes a very particular claim. God did not merely send information to humanity. God entered our existence in Jesus Christ. The eternal Word became flesh. But we know what “flesh” looks like only from Earth.

     What if God has other ensouled creatures? Would they need redemption? If so, how would God reveal Himself to them? I don’t pretend to know the answer, and the song isn’t intended to answer it. The wonder is in asking.

     Perhaps Christ’s Incarnation on Earth has a cosmic significance we cannot yet comprehend. Perhaps God’s relationship with other rational creatures would be expressed in ways completely outside our experience. Perhaps civilizations that never fell would need no redemption at all, while still knowing the same God we know. These are possibilities, not doctrine, but I don't think faith should be afraid of questions simply because the universe has become larger than the world in which our theology first developed.

Quite the opposite. A Creator capable of making a universe this astonishing should make us expect surprises.

Suppose We Actually Meet Them

For most of human history, these questions could safely remain philosophical. That may not always be true. Our instruments are becoming more capable. The first confirmed discoveries of planets around other stars came in the 1990s. In the years since, thousands of exoplanets have been confirmed. And we are already analyzing the chemical composition of some exoplanet atmospheres.

     Suppose that someday we find convincing evidence of another technological civilization. And suppose eventually, however improbable the distances make it seem today, some form of meaningful communication becomes possible. Then Christians could face an extraordinary moment:

And if our paths converge someday,

Crossing light-years far away,

Will their ancient legends tell

How You walked with them and loved them well?

     Imagine that conversation. We tell them our story: Creation. Abraham. Moses. Israel. Bethlehem. Jesus. The Cross. The Resurrection. And then they tell us theirs.

     Would there be something in their story that we recognize? Would they speak of a Creator? Of moral freedom? Of a relationship broken – or perhaps never broken? Of divine presence? Of someone who came among them?

     And here is the question I find both unsettling and beautiful: Would we recognize Christ in their story? Or would we be so convinced that God’s relationship with humanity must be the pattern for His relationship with every other creature that we would fail to recognize Him? Perhaps they would have precisely the same problem with us. That thought produced another of the central lines of the song:

Truth revealed in ways unknown,

Yet still the Savior on the throne.

Science Has Made Me More Amazed, Not Less

There is a recurring assumption in modern culture that as science reveals an ever larger universe, it somehow makes God smaller. I experience almost the opposite. Science keeps revealing a creation far stranger, larger, and more beautiful than human beings expected.

     We once thought Earth stood at the center. Then we learned that Earth circles the Sun, that our Sun is one star among billions, and that our galaxy is one among billions more. We now know that even the matter we readily observe represents only a small portion of the universe’s contents; dark matter and dark energy remain among the great mysteries of modern cosmology.

     At every stage, reality has told us: “It is bigger than you thought.” Perhaps that is not a threat to faith. Perhaps it is a lesson in humility. Perhaps our understanding of God should occasionally hear the same message: “God is bigger than you thought.”

Small In Size, Yet Loved The Same

Eventually all these enormous questions return to one very small planet. Ours. And to the closing lines of the song:

Here on Earth we praise Your name

Small in size, yet loved the same.

     That may be the thought I love most. For centuries, humanity sometimes confused importance with location. We assumed that being important to God meant being physically central to His creation. Astronomy has taken that privilege away from us. Good. Because Christianity makes a much more extraordinary claim. We don’t matter because we're at the center. We matter because we are loved. Those are profoundly different ideas.

     And if there are other conscious beings scattered among the stars, their existence would not make God’s love for humanity smaller any more than the birth of a second child makes a parent’s love for the first child smaller. Love doesn't work that way. The universe can grow without God becoming more distant. Indeed, the larger creation becomes, the more astonishing divine intimacy becomes.

King Of The Universe

So I now hear the title of this solemnity differently: Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe.

     Universe. Not merely Earth. Not merely humanity. Not merely everything our ancestors could see. Everything…

The galaxies already observed and those beyond our horizon. The stars being born now and those that died before Earth existed. Every planet, every ocean, every molecule, every living thing – and perhaps every conscious creature looking into an unfamiliar sky and asking the same questions we ask: “Who made all this?” and “Does the One who made it know me and love me?”

     I cannot know whether we will ever encounter another sentient civilization. I cannot know whether humanity is one of countless intelligent species or something extraordinarily rare. But either possibility leaves me in wonder. If we are alone, what an astonishing responsibility has been entrusted to us. If we are not, what an astonishing family of creation may await our discovery.

     Either way, when the Church reaches the end of the liturgical year and once again proclaims Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe, I find myself looking beyond our little world. Beyond the Sun. Beyond the Milky Way. Beyond billions of galaxies and trillions of worlds we will never see. And trusting that wherever creation extends, the Creator is already there.

Worlds uncounted, held in love.

Worlds uncounted, held in love.

Held in love.