Anatolii is a seventy-year-old pensioner…

who lives in a village in eastern Ukraine.

He enjoys fishing.

He also enjoys filming things with his video camera.

When the Russian forces came to his town…

early in the invasion…

he videoed their tanks and uploaded it to YouTube.

A few days later, eight Russian soldiers came to his home…

confiscated his camera…

beat Anatolii…

and dragged him off to the garage of the local council chambers.

There, electric cables were attached to his bare feet and he was tortured.

After the third bout––

during which he fainted––

he admitted that a Ukrainian army officer had contacted him after seeing the video…

and asked which way the tanks were heading.

After that, things got much worse.

Beaten again, he was dragged off to the police station in the nearest town…

and locked in a dark, cold, unventilated, and over-crowded cell…

with just a bucket for a toilet…

and the abuse continued.

At one point, the Russian guards put him in a room with camera equipment…

and demanded that he record a video extolling Putin and the Russian invasion…

as if it were a liberation.

He refused.

He was told he would be executed if he didn’t.

Bravely, he said he would not dishonour his deceased parents…

or shame his family…

by being a traitor.

So he was dragged back to his cell and told that he would be shot in an hour.

Three weeks later, they returned…

and the whole macabre exercise was repeated;

as it was a number of times…

during the remainder of his one hundred days of confinement.

But he was one of the lucky ones.

Some of the stories of the senseless brutality inflicted on innocent Ukrainian civilians are horrifying.

Others, in Anatolii’s position, didn’t just have electrodes attached to their feet…

but to their genitals;

some were even castrated before being shot;

and many of those who were executed were simply thrown into the town’s garbage truck…

before being buried in a mass, unmarked grave.

 

It’s hard to comprehend such senseless brutality;

such utter disregard for human life;

or such a complete lack of decency, morality, or even humanity.

What would make someone treat another person like that?

Sure, there are some very psychologically-damaged individuals.

But this goes beyond that.

This is not just the work of a few deranged individuals.

According to the United Nations investigators… 

the war crimes being committed by the Russians in Ukraine are “systematic”.

In a sense, it reflects a widespread mentality…

we could even say a “culture” within the Russian military.

In one sense, they do it because they can.

But, according to the anthropologist, René Girard, at the heart of all human violence is desire and envy.

When a powerful society;

or a powerful majority in a society;

or powerful individuals;

are unable to obtain what they desire or think that they ought to have––

they direct their frustration and anger at a less-powerful minority…

or a powerless individual…

and the violence that they inflict on them results in a temporary psychological release.

So they keep doing it.

It’s what’s known as the “Scapegoat Mechanism”.

 

And, let’s be honest… 

that’s what we humans do, isn’t it?

We pick on the powerless.

We exploit the defenceless.

We abuse the weak.

We seek security through violence.

We maintain our structures through manipulation and abuse.

That’s how our world works.

That’s how we preserve our safe and privileged way of life.

We have done it throughout history.

Not just the Russians in Ukraine;

or the Afrikaaner with black South Africans;

of the Nazis with the Jews.

We have certainly done it here, too, in our own country…

and throughout our national history:

the genocide of Aboriginal Australians…

the White Australia Policy…

the exploitation of Timor-Leste…

the ongoing inhumanity of our treatment of Asylum Seekers;

not to mention the domestic violence epidemic.

We’ve done it throughout our history…

and we’re doing it still.

Abuse, exploitation, violence––

they’re innate and intrinsic to our very way of life.

Our peace and our prosperity, 

our comfort and our security, 

are all built upon it.

 

That was just as true in the first century. 

In that world, the Romans believed that their Emperor—

in league with the Roman gods––

was the bringer of peace to their world.

But it was their peace––

a “peace” that benefitted them;

along with those well-to-do provincials who aligned themselves with Rome…

often at the expense of their own people.

And it was a ‘peace’ that was maintained through fear, power, exploitation, and abuse.

The cross––

an instrument of degradation and dehumanisation;

and hideous violence–– 

was an archetypal symbol of that peace.

The cross was a punishment that was reserved for those who challenged the Emperor;

for those who threatened the peace and their privileged way of life.

 

On the other hand… 

in this morning’s reading from Colossians…

the author––

writing in the name of Paul, but probably a generation after Paul’s death–– 

deliberately contrasts Christ and Caesar.

Unlike Caesar…

he affirms that Christ brings peace––

but not through fear and intimidation;

and not through the shedding of anyone else’s blood––

but by offering himself;

by demonstrating that the way of God’s Kingdom is not through domination and dehumanisation;

and certainly not through victimisation.

Rather, the way of God’s kingdom is through forgiveness and reconciliation––

which enable new relationships of mutuality and creativity;

which enable us to be truly, authentically, human;

which enable us to be who we were created to be…

and to live as God intends us to live.

According to the author, the Kingdom of God––

the reign of Christ––

is utterly at odds with earthly rule and power…

as we so frequently experience it.

Indeed, the way of Christ––

the reign of Christ––

critiques the moral expediency…

the acquiescence…

the abuse…

the victimisation and violence…

that we use to structure and sustain our socially-constructed world.

 

Therefore… 

whenever we affirm and declare that Christ is King…

we are announcing that we belong to a very different kingdom…

with a very different set of values;

and…

by implication… 

that we are repudiating the values and structures that our world takes for granted.

By affirming and declaring that Christ is King––

rather than Caesar,

whoever literally or figuratively that may be–– 

we are committing ourselves to be agents of peace, justice, love, and reconciliation…

not of domination and victimisation.

Whenever we affirm and declare that Christ is King…

we are choosing to stand with Christ…

and to stand against all earthly powers and authorities…

whenever they wield power abusively;

whenever they exploit, dominate, and intimidate;

whenever they destroy and dehumanise;

whenever they deal in death and not life;

whenever they prevent any human being from living as freely and truly as God intends;

and whenever they prevent anyone from realising the image of God in which they are formed.

 

So, today, in celebrating the festival of “Christ the King”—

if we are serious about it––

we are committing ourselves to struggle and to strive;

to realise Christ’s peaceful reign for all humankind…

and to continue to do so until…

“earth and sky and ocean ring

with joy, with justice, love, and praise”.