Christ The King

CHRIST THE KING SUNDAY
Readings:  Jeremiah 23:1-6, Colossians 1:11-20, Luke 23:33-43
Preached at First Presbyterian Church, Baldwin, NY, on November 24th 2013

A printable PDF file can be found here

Jesus on the Cross. A sign placed over His head: “The King of the Jews”. In Luke 23:39 we read; “One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at Him: "Aren't you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!" A criminal facing death alongside Him showing nothing but contempt. He sees nothing in Jesus. His claims to be the Messiah are laughable.  Save the people? He can't even save Himself! If He can't even save Himself, what kind of Savior can He be for anybody else?

In complete contrast, Paul, a one-time disbeliever and mocker himself, writes to the Church of Colossae, that Jesus is the One:-  “In whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in Him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.” (Colossians 1:14-17)

To one Jesus is a tragic failure. To the other He is the cosmic savior. To one He doesn't mean a darn thing. To the other He is every-thing. To one He is an object of derision. To the other He's the Son of God who demands decision.

The criminals complaint is simple. If Jesus was God's chosen one, then how come He had chosen to do nothing about the suffering, evil and hatred that inhabited all of creation. Why had He allowed it to overwhelm Him? Some King!

Such questions have surely crossed our minds. Where is God when suffering comes? Why, if God is God, does God allow disasters and tragedy? Why, if Jesus is the healer, do we continue to live in a world where cancers take our loved ones? Why if Jesus is the peace maker do guns and bombs talk louder than words? Why, if Jesus is the just King of all creation do the rich get away with murder and the hungry die for lack of sustenance?

Indeed there are those who today ascribe significance to writings such as Richard Dawkins 'The God Delusion' and the late Christopher Hitchen's 'God is not Great', who would suggest that not only are we Sunday by Sunday perpetuating a dangerous and illogical myth as truth but that we are deluded idiots to believe that Jesus Christ is anything more than the ultimate invisible friend. For them Paul's portrayal of Jesus as the King of all Creation, the One who can bring forgiveness and turn life around,  is nothing more than misguided and potentially hazardous, wishful thinking.

Today is Christ the King Sunday. We may, like the thief on the Cross, be wondering, 'What kind of King is this, who does not use His power to get Himself off the cross? What kind of King is this who does not use His connections, influences, and resources to get you and me off the crosses we face? What kind of a King is this who allows so much immense suffering on this planet earth?”

Today we are at the very mystery of God, the mystery of the universe, at the very heart of the mystery of love. God chose to experience the place of the greatest pain, the cross. At the cross, we glimpse the mystery of God. At the Cross God chose not to avoid the suffering of this world. It has been said, “Where suffering is, love is. And where love is, God is.”

We are not God. We try to avoid suffering. When we are assaulted by forces beyond our control we complain, “Why me, God? ” We get angry at God; we become depressed, we become hurt, we no longer believe in God or that God intervenes in our lives.

One of the quirks of being human is that the whole world can be suffering, and we never ask the question, “Why?” but when something goes wrong with me, or with my family, or with my friends, or with my loved ones; when something goes wrong with my life, I then ask the question deeply and personally, “Why God? Why me? Why us? Why my loved one?”

The nature of God is not to avoid suffering. The nature of love is not to avoid pain or the places of pain. That’s the way love is. That’s the way Jesus has revealed God to us, He did not avoid pain, nor avoid the places of pain.

Loving people do not use their resources and connections to avoid the pain of their loved ones. The loving thing to do is to enter into the pain of those we love in order to help them bear it.  That’s the way God is. That is the nature of love; to go and be with people in the midst of their pain and suffering.  Such is at the love revealed to us through the Cross, the cross that had nailed to it the designation 'The King of the Jews'.

By becoming King, Jesus challenged the very notion of Kingship. He overturns our whole notion of power. His power is not dominating or controlling. The power He expresses is the power of redemption, the power to enter into another persons situation so totally and completely that their situation becomes a place, not of defeat, but of possibility. Paul states it clearly in Colossians. Jesus is the One 'In whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.'

I have been in ministry long enough to have witnessed the power of God at work in desperate situations. I know that prayer can change things and that trust in God can turn peoples lives around. When people are desperate for direction, when people are in the midst of pain or turmoil, even that mysterious moment when people are transitioning from this life to the next... in these situations I have witnessed the grace and peace of our Lord Jesus Christ entering in and bringing hope when... logically... there should be none.

To the mocker, to the unbeliever, to those who suggest that spiritual realities are false simply because they cannot be recreated in a laboratory or proved by statistical analysis, I have to wonder if they truly have ever experienced the deep mystery of love. And I don't mean the 'wishy-washy' emotional experience that the Western world defines as romantic love. I mean the depth of love that is found at the Cross.

There is an adaption of Psalm 23 that is found in our hymnbooks - Hymn 171 . I like it so much that Yvonne and I had these words as a hymn in our wedding service. (Though to the tune 174 – 'Dominus Regit Me', rather than  'St Columba' to which it is set  in the Blue Hymnal – a much better match in my opinion – but I digress!)

The King of love my Shepherd is,
Whose goodness faileth never;
 I nothing lack if I am His
 And He is mine forever.

When we allow the 'King of Love', the Shepherd-King, the Servant-King, to take charge of our situation, when we allow Him to enter in, when we give up on thinking we can be in charge and allow Him to take charge, everything changes.

There is another criminal in our reading from Luke.  Ch 23:40-43 “The other criminal rebuked him (that is, rebuked the one who mocked Jesus...) "Don't you fear God," he said, "since you are under the same sentence?We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong." Then he said, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. " Jesus answered him, "Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise."

This second criminal, warped, compromised, sinful as his life may have been (and we have no way of knowing what crime he had committed) at least recognizes that there is an integrity to the life of Jesus that he had not seen in others. He recognizes in Jesus a deep connection to God and the Kingdom of God. He somehow understands that what was happening then and there, at the moment, would not define how events would eventually turn out. He says to Jesus 'Remember me when You come into Your Kingdom'. In Jesus he sees hope beyond what was logical!

This mustard seed of faith the man has discovered in his final moments of life on this earth is enough for Jesus to promise him, "Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise."  The word 'paradise' is only used three times in the New Testament, and in each case is associated with a state of being. We may be more familiar with the imagery of paradise from 17th Century poet John Milton's epic work 'Paradise Lost', in which the fall of humankind, and the loss of the innocence of the paradise of Eden, positions humanity in a state of experiencing guilt and shame.

What Jesus is promising the man is that through faith in Him, his state of being can be transformed – he will move from paradise lost to paradise gained. In our own lives, faith can also be a transforming experience. Indeed the faith we have encourages us and empowers us to seek transformation in our wider community.

On Christ the King Sunday, we are invited to remember that the 'Kingdom of God', to which Jesus constantly pointed, is as fully available now and always as it was 2,000 years ago. The question that remains is whether we will choose to live within it's boundaries, something we can only do through trust and faith and by nurturing our lives through the regular disciplines of worship and study, service and prayer. 

Our readings today lay before us choices. We are offered a picture of two criminals. One cries out “Some King! Can't even save himself”. The other only asks to be remembered.  We can choose to stand with the mockers, the disbelievers and the scoffers or we can put our trust in Jesus, that He was who He claimed to be and is still able to bring about transformation. 

The questions will always remain with us. The 'why?' of suffering and the 'why me?' are not going to go away. But if we recognize that it is the nature of love to enter into suffering, and if we can sense that such is exactly what Jesus has done at the Cross, then maybe we'll even be moved to consider, as Paul does in Colossians, that the dimensions of the love of Jesus are greater than we could ever conceive.

We also have the benefit of the rest of the New Testament witness. We know the story didn't end with three crosses. Our faith also talks of the empty tomb and the resurrection and the gift of the Holy Spirit. We proclaim Jesus to be King, over all the forces of life that cheapen, destroy and disfigure, even King over death itself.

In Colossians 9:17 Paul writes that 'In Him all things hold together.'  My belief is that if we put our mustard seed of faith and belief in Christ as King, then such becomes a reality for our  lives. Beyond logic, beyond understanding, our experience becomes that through faith in the rule of Jesus over our lives 'All things hold together'. And to God's name be glory. Amen.

The Reverend Adrian J. Pratt B.D.