Sermons for the Month
Snapshot of the King
DATE: November 25, 2001
TEXT: Luke 23:33-43“To all of you Saints here this morning, grace and peace to you from God our Father, from His Son, Jesus Christ and His Holy Spirit. AMEN
Today is the last Sunday of the Christian year, which means that this is the "New Year's Eve" of the Church. Another year in the story of the Church is coming to an end; a new year, God willing, to begin next Sunday. Like any New Year's Eve, this day in the liturgical year is partly looking back and remembering, partly looking forward and anticipating. Like every New Year's Eve, it is in part a time for festivity, celebration, fellowship, and in equal measure a time for reflection, perhaps for regrets; a time to recognize again the unstoppable passage of time, and the losses that entails. To call this day "the Festival of Christ the King" is a relatively recent development. Back in the 1920's, Pope Pius gave that name to this Sunday in the calendar of the Roman Catholic Church, and other Christian traditions including the Lutherans have been adopting it gradually ever since. In that era in between the first two world wars, with communism, fascism, socialism, capitalism, militarism, and various other "-ism's" competing for power in a newly-emerging world order, Pope Pius thought it important for Christians to remember and to state openly to the world that above and beyond whatever government we live under and whatever political ideology we espouse, it is to Christ the King that we ultimately pledge allegiance. Certainly it's no less important today, as the competing "-ism's" may change over time, but the struggle for control and for ultimate allegiance continues. There are any number of Gospel stories we could use to celebrate the power and authority, the Lordship of Jesus Christ over all the kingdoms of this world and over the spiritual powers of darkness. Jesus, stilling the wind and waves - driving out demons - restoring health, ability, sanity with a single word - multiplying loaves and fishes to feed a multitude - calling a dead man out of his tomb - stories that you might think would even impress a Hitler, a Stalin, or a Hussain. But the Church, with all of its failings, in spite of all the times over the centuries that it has bought into the world's quest for power, also has always maintained the upside-down logic, the cockeyed view of reality that it is in a dying man on a cross that we see most clearly what it is to be "the King." And so today, THAT is the image held up for our consideration and for our worship. There probably were a large number of people who observed at least a portion of the events on the hill called "the Skull". Some were directly involved in the action, like the soldiers of the execution detail; the Jewish leaders who had plotted to bring down Jesus and wanted to watch it happen; the handful of his supporters who stuck it out to the finish; the two unfortunate fellows who died alongside him. Others were just going about their business, passing in and out through the gates of Jerusalem, some wincing and looking away from the ugly scene, some slowing down to gawk at the spectacle. Most of them, even Jesus' own followers, saw either a good and God-fearing man who ran afoul of the wrong people; or a poor deluded fool who had to be sacrificed to preserve the tenuous status quo. But there was at least one there who recognized in some sense, to some degree, that he was in fact in the presence of royalty. Some have speculated over the centuries that the two men crucified with Jesus were being executed for treason, that they were "Robin Hood" types, of the sort that are either freedom fighters or terrorists, depending on whether they're on your side or not. But in Luke's Gospel, he describes them with a word that just means they were common crooks; pickpockets, burglars, stick-up men, with nothing dashing or noble about them, sentenced to death because no one wanted to bother with feeding and housing them any longer, and no one thought they might be worth the effort of rehabilitation. One of the criminals, overwhelmed with pain and frustration, enraged at his fate, joined in the scornful mockery of Jesus by his enemies, by the soldiers who had done this dozens of times before and would again, by passers-by who thought the world would surely be a safer place for the removal of crooks and kooks. "O.K., Messiah, if you're so important to God, let's see him send a legion of angels to rescue you! Or better yet, how 'bout you just save yourself? Hey, King Jesus, co-ome o-o-on down! And bring your buddies with ya!" I can't imagine a lower "low", can you? To be in a torment of pain, staring death in the face, stripped of all comforts, stripped of simple human dignity, exposed to the scorn and the pity of any who wished to see --- that's commonly called "torture," and is just about the most horrible thing we humans can do to one another. Can we have the slightest conception of what that hour was like for the almighty and eternal Son of God, who had been there for the initial design and ongoing creation of the world and it inhabitants, who could have brought it and them all to nothingness with a single word? Instead, he quietly endured; he allowed himself to be sacrificed; he handed over his life; he forgave the bystanders and the perpetrators; and to His last breath, he never stopped reaching out to gather in all comers. It's the greatest Kodak moment this world has ever known; it's the snapshot that defines "the King." One dying crook saw it; one man, a nobody, an "expendable," recognized royalty, recognized his King in the face of the man dying next to him. One man, condemned and abandoned, his life a wasted exercise and his death equally without meaning, saw the power and in the presence of God, caught a glimpse of the Almighty King of the Universe in the One who had been willing to descend to his own level in order to reach him. What he, and what we see in a dying man on a cross is what it truly is to be God and Lord, to be the King. "Kingship" is here defined -- to be the King is to willingly and lovingly put aside the authority, the power, the trappings of leadership, to give up dignity and pride, in order to protect, to rescue, to save. The King - the Lord - the Shepherd of his people is the one who runs INTO a burning, collapsing, dying world instead of staying safely outside. In our celebration, in the festivities that honor Jesus the Christ as King of Kings and Lord of Lords, it is good and right and proper that we sing and rejoice in the awesome power that belongs to Him as the only Son of God. But how wonderful, how awesome to remember that Jesus comes to us at our level; in the regrets, in life's losses, in the transitions that mark the passage of time, and even when we sink to what seem to us to be new lows. He suffers right alongside us; and while he does not magically spare us from the pain, he does find a way to redeem the situation by His presence, and to lift us up with the promise that as the King has been with us in our deepest sorrows, in our fiercest struggles, so He will make sure that we are with Him in the hard-fought peace that He has won. God in Christ has rescued us, and changed us, and charged us with the task of being His Body in the world, to live and love just as the King himself. We are asked to pledge allegiance to King Jesus, and to a way of living that is not "all about me," but is always about reaching out, gathering in, welcoming home; all about providing, protecting, rescuing, and cherishing. Not at all an easy task; but then Jesus doesn't ask that we get it perfect the first time, just that we risk giving it a shot, letting him meet us where we are and trusting on him to move us forward. The clock is running out on this year, and what an unexpectedly eventful one it's been, for us as a nation, for the congregation, for many of us as individuals and as families. Milestones of growth - unsettling transitions - painful losses - satisfactions, and regrets. Jesus Christ, our King, meets us in all of them, seeing us through and helping us to learn life's lessons, we pray, before the 11th hour; high-fiving us when we get it right, picking us up and dusting us off when we land on our faces in the dirt. We truly can look forward to a the new year, whatever it brings, foreseen and unforeseen; we can look forward to the unexpected things that God will do with us, to us, through us, as He wills. We follow Christ our King, with the promise that he is always with us, that we are forever on His mind and in His heart, and eternally at His side. AMEN