Christ the King C

Todd Cook

Sermon • Submitted a year ago

0 ratings

· 2 views

Notes

Transcript

Christ the King Sunday, Year C

In the name of the Father, and of the +Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Brothers and Sisters in Christ: grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Savior and King, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Christ the King Sunday. This is the Sunday that we have been building toward since late Spring. All those weeks with green paraments on the altar were leading us to this, when we celebrate the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Interestingly, this feast day was not always celebrated in the Western Church. In fact, it was begun less than 100 years ago - when Pope Pius XI released an “encyclical” on Dec 11, 1925, declaring the last Sunday in October as its observance. “From 1970 it has been kept on the last Sunday before the beginning of Advent.” This feast celebrates the “the all-embracing authority of Christ which shall lead mankind to seek the ‘peace of Christ’ in the ‘Kingdom of Christ’.” [F. L. Cross and Elizabeth A. Livingstone, eds., The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 335.]

I think we have a weakness when it comes to this thought. By “we” - I mean American Christians. We reject the idea of a king. The closest we have to an understanding of a monarch is how we view the royal family in England. Queen Elizabeth, for all of her elegance and grace in how she served her country from her throne, was often viewed as a figurehead, having no real power - that decisions were really made by the Prime Minister and Parliament. The “throne” of England has been viewed by many as just something our British brothers and sisters hold onto for old times’ sake.

Following the queen’s death in September, her son Charles was crowned. The last king to reign in England was her father, King George VI. And now we have King Charles III. All of my life, I’ve looked at the monarchy in England with curiosity - who’s really in charge over there? Is it the throne, or parliament? The King or the Prime Minister? Of course there are other kings and queens around the world, but can you name any of them? A quick Google search says there are 26 monarchies in the world. Besides England, there’s the Netherlands, Jordan, Belgium, Denmark, Japan, Cambodia, Luxembourg, Spain, Sweden, Thailand, Norway, Monaco, Swaziland, Morocco… Yeah, I couldn’t name any of them, and when I looked at their names, I didn’t recognize them either. They just don’t have any influence in our lives. Or at least in my life.

As Americans, we’re known to speak proudly about how we kicked King George III out of the colonies and declared our independence. We still celebrate that. Why would we want to do that? “Taxation without representation”, right? Eliminating the corruption that comes with absolute power like the king has. Certainly elected leaders won’t be as corrupt as royalty, we thought. We want to have a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. That will be so much better than being governed by one king who was born into the role. We wanted to be in control of our own destiny. We wanted to make our own rules. We wanted to keep our tax money for our own purposes, not to add more gold to the king’s treasury. It sure was a nice idea, huh?

Some of our ideals were noble and good and worth pursuing. Corruption, unfortunately, still found a way in. Such a shame. But, we’re still left with the bad taste in our mouths for any talk of royalty, kings, and queens. Americans just don’t like that kind of talk…and the reason goes back to our roots. Ol’ George did NOT treat us well.

But as Christians, we talk about Christ as our King. How do we handle that? I hope that we don’t see him as we do Charles III in England - living in the beautiful castle, making nice speeches and speaking with great eloquence, but not having any real power or legitimate authority over his people.

If Christ is our King - truly our King - that means that we are his subjects. We are subject to his authority over us. What does that mean? We should think of this as the definition of “king” in the Bible. The King of Israel in the Old Testament was the absolute authority, second only to God. The King was responsible for enforcing the law justly and keeping the peace - you know, governing. Before Saul, the first king, God was the King of the Hebrew people. He didn’t want to give the people a human king, for reasons that are now obvious to all of us - we’re just too vulnerable to temptation and corruption. Even Solomon - the wisest man who ever lived - even Solomon became corrupted by his power and wealth as king…and it came from what God had given him. God made a much better king for the people than any of the mortal kings.

As you read through the books of the Old Testament, it seems there are more kings who “did evil in the sight of the Lord” than those who feared and obeyed God. Even the good kings had their share of problems and weaknesses. But, since God keeps His promises, and He promised that King David’s line would rule Israel forever… God gave Israel a king to sit on that throne forever. God gave us His Son - the Messiah. Jesus.

But he wasn’t really received as a king. Well, there was that brief moment on the Sunday before the Passover where they put him on a donkey and threw palm branches in front of him. That’s the traditional welcoming for a new king in Israel. After that, calling him “king of the Jews” was either done mockingly (as in today’s Gospel reading) or it was used to convict him of treason and justify his execution on a Roman cross. No one was reading that inscription on his cross as affirmation of Jesus’ royal claim.

“King of the Jews” had become not his title of authority, but the sentence that convicted him. “His true royalty, though, shines out in his prayer and his promise, both recorded only in Luke. Unlike traditional martyrs, who died with a curse against their torturers, Jesus prays for their forgiveness.” [Tom Wright, Luke for Everyone (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 2004), 284.]

Ironically, the only one in the passage today who gets it is a criminal - the second thief to speak. The first one is thinking only of himself; but the second one acknowledges Jesus’ innocence as compared to their obvious guilt. He follows that with a very simply request: “remember me when you come into your kingdom.”

What do you think of Jesus’ response? “And he said to him, ‘Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.’” Like a king on his way to enthronement, Jesus promises a place of honour and bliss to one who requests it. [Wright, 284.] Not Heaven, paradise. Yes, there’s a difference. ‘Paradise’ in Jewish thought wasn’t necessarily the final resting place, but the place of rest and refreshment before the gift of new life in the resurrection. (ibid.) We won’t be in the “final” resting place until everything in Revelation takes place. But Jesus assures this thief that there is something good to look forward to, and it is Jesus who grants that to him.

We could all take a lesson from this thief. Acknowledge our own guilt, and ask Jesus to remember us when he comes into his kingdom. Not too complicated. Not necessarily easy, but simple, yes. It’s hard because it requires humility on our part. We don’t “take” when we’re talking to Jesus. We ask, and we ask humbly. Why humbly? Because we don’t deserve anything we ask of Jesus. We don’t deserve to go to Paradise with him, or Heaven, or eternal communion with God. We deserve exactly none of that. We don’t deserve to be forgiven. We don’t deserve to have God’s love. We deserve the consequences of our sins.

And brothers and sisters: this is what makes the Good News so good. God loves us anyway. God made CERTAIN that we would get what He wants us to have, and NOT what we actually deserve. And God picked up the tab - HE paid the cost to make that happen…the cost that was paid on that Roman cross, between those two thieves, with that inscription over Jesus’ head. The King of the Jews took that beating and those spikes in his hands and feet and that crown of thorns and allowed himself to be killed in the most brutal way. And in that death the cost of all the sins of everyone in God’s creation for all time…that cost was paid. Once that was done, then he showed us that death is not the final answer. He walked out of that tomb and left it empty.

Jesus set an example for us in so many ways. Some of those examples are terribly hard to follow. Forgiving those who beat and killed him. I have been thinking about this for a long time - quite a bit this week especially. I still can’t wrap my head around that. I don’t know if I actually could. Of course Jesus expects us to. It’s easy to forgive those you love and care about. It’s MUCH harder to forgive someone who hates you and has caused you pain. And yet, we’re called to do that.

Forgiveness is not really something our society is into nowadays, is it? Think about it: all the awfulness people talk about each other - there’s no forgiveness in any of it. “Cancel culture” as they call it now, people who find themselves on the national stage will get their entire life put under a microscope, and any misbehavior anywhere in their history will get put on center stage, and they’ll be tried and convicted in the court of public opinion and dethroned so fast your head will spin. Remember the approval process for Judge Brett Kavanaugh? He was declared guilty of something they couldn’t prove (no evidence, no witnesses) that was supposed to have happened when he was in high school, and they are STILL saying he’s guilty of it - and it’s a false accusation! Where’s the apology? Where’s his forgiveness?

So much of what happens in political discourse today becomes personal attack, and whatever you’re accused of, you won’t be forgiven. So the question before us then is: can we be the first to offer forgiveness? What would happen if we - the Christians in this country - could inject forgiveness into this equation, when it’s been missing for so long? Would it make a difference? Jesus is telling us it would. I can’t help but agree.

NT Wright says that “Forgiveness brings the life of heaven to earth, God’s future into the present.” [Wright, 284.] If we want to be God’s loyal subjects…if Jesus is really our King, and we are to be obedient to Him, then this is one example we must try to follow. A little more kingdom of God sounds pretty darned good right now, if you ask me. It’s on us to carry that out into the world. Just as the acolyte takes Christ’s light out of the sanctuary at the end of the service, we too are called to carry Christ’s light out of the sanctuary and into the world around us. One way to shine that light is through forgiveness. Watch for opportunities to forgive someone. When the opportunity presents itself, do it. As we are forgiven, so we are called to forgive. See what a difference it makes in that relationship. Let the healing begin, and let us all get a foretaste of the feast to come, when all brokenness will be healed.