November 25, 2007
Christ the King
The Last Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 29, Year C)
Jeremiah 23:1-6; Canticle 16: The Song of Zechariah (Luke 1:68-79); Colossians 1:11-20;
Luke 23:33-43
Today, on this last Sunday of the long season of Pentecost, the last Sunday of the church year, we celebrate Christ the King. The Collect says, “King of kings, Lord of lords, words made famous by Handel. I have to interject, however, that, I find a certain irony in the fact that here in a country founded upon the rejection of a king, we seem to have no greater honor for our God than to call him “King!” Ah, God bless the separation of Church and State! Well, enough of that! Back to Christ the King Sunday! What it is and how we celebrate it, and maybe, why.
And what do we have for an enlightening, uplifting gospel? Something majestic? Full of pomp and Circumstance? Jesus riding amidst cheering crowds into Jerusalem? No! It is the crucifixion!
Does that make any sense? What were the church fathers and/or mothers thinking of as they put together the selected readings for the day? And I have to tell you that I am fascinated by the fact that Years A & B of our three year cycle do not have the corresponding gospels from Matthew and Mark or John, which is usually the case. Instead Matthew speaks of judgment, of gathering the nations of the world before the Son of Man and separating the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. In Year B it is John, not Mark, who tells of Pilate questioning Jesus about his kingship, “So you are a king?” he asks, and Jesus replies, “You say that I am a king . . .I came into the world to testify to the truth.” (18:37) This scene is, of course, a forerunner to, what? – the crucifixion. So, what is the common thread in these three gospels? Passages that refer to Jesus as King? Or as in Matthew Jesus sitting “on the throne of glory”? (25:31) A subtle reference to what kings do!
Three years, three different gospels with three different emphases but I think it is this gospel from Luke, Year C, that really pulls it all together and best expresses the meaning and purpose of this day. Yes, this is the end of the church year, the last Sunday of the church year. So, yes, it makes sense to speak of the end of Jesus’ life here on earth. But we are not about to celebrate Easter and the Resurrection. Instead it is the cross where Jesus was most cruelly put to death; the cross, which, when we view it from the post Resurrection perspective, amazingly becomes the throne from which Jesus will judge the peoples with truth and equity. And Pilate, according to John, unintentionally, unwittingly, testified to that very thing he questioned when he ordered the inscription, “This is the king of the Jews” to be affixed on the cross over Jesus’ head. (John 19:19) And, according to John, that inscription was written in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek, the languages of the day – for all the world to “read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest” as last week’s Collect prayed for “all holy Scripture!”
So, crucified between two criminals – would we have expected otherwise? – Jesus is the King and the Cross is his throne. This is the culmination of his three years’ work as a man living among ordinary people, among sinners, tax collectors and prostitutes, teaching, preaching, walking, talking, feasting, weeping, healing, loving. But today, unlike the last time we heard and meditated on the crucifixion, Good Friday, we are neither contemplating the hopelessness of life without Jesus as did those early disciples on that terrible day, nor are we looking ahead and focusing on the Resurrection and Jesus’ return to live among us in a new way. Instead we are turning the crucifixion around. We are making of it what they could not do on that fateful day. We are making of it what his enemies never imagined and definitely never wanted. We are transforming it, we have transformed it, to quote one of the many commentaries, from “the climax of a ‘status degradation ritual’” into a throne, a place of honor, a place before which we bow our heads and bend our knees.
And what does Jesus do from that “throne?” Does he dwell on his suffering, his pain? Does he rain down retribution on his enemies, those who even then stood mocking him and scoffing at him? Does he blame anyone for the position he’s in? Does he call out to God, his Father, to save him or to destroy those who hate him?
No, none of the above. In a few words he lives into what he has preached all his ministry as he says, “Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing.” He is praying for those who have abused, who are killing him, praying as he told his disciples to do when he addressed them in the sermon on the plain – Luke’s version of Matthew’s Beatitudes – saying, “I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also . . . . . Do to others as you would have them do to you.” His message for then and for today!
It’s as if he is saying one last time, “I have told you all these things and you haven’t listened. Now maybe you will!” How often do we have to go to extremes for the point to get across? The alcoholic who has to hit bottom before acknowledging he/she has a problem! The child who won’t stop misbehaving until he/she is told that there will be no birthday party! The last straw, we often call it. Jesus traveled that road. He can say, “I’ve been there. You will never experience anything worse than I have. I have the suffered the lowest of the low. I have hung on a cross and died for you! And yet, and still, I ask for forgiveness for you.” . . . . . “Do to others as you would have them do to you.”
Yes, on that cross he did die but that death became his greatest victory. By his death he overcame Satan and all things evil. As Jeremiah foretold, a righteous branch was raised up to reign as king and deal wisely executing justice and righteousness. The anointed we have been waiting for, has arrived. The Eucharistic Prayers say it this way, “We are delivered from evil and made worthy to stand before God. We are set free to love God and to love and to serve one another.” By his unequivocal, unselfish, ultimate sacrifice – there was no turning back – Jesus has become Christ the King!
And so, in the words of Paul in his letter to the people of Colossae, let us pray: “May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power, and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light. He has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” (Colossians 1:11-14)
Again, “Do to others as you would have them do to you.”
Jesus IS Christ the King! Alleluia!
Amen.
Sonia F. G. Stevenson, M. Div.
Church of the Good Shepherd