Christ the King Sunday
Proper 29
Jer 23:1-6; Ps 46; Col 1:11-20; Luke 23:33-43
"What kind of King"
"And when they came to the place which is called The Skull, there they crucified him, and the criminals, one on the right and one on the left. And Jesus said, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do." And they cast lots to divide his garments. And the people stood by, watching; but the rulers scoffed at him, saying, "He saved others; let him save himself, if he is the Christ of God, his Chosen One!" The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him vinegar, and saying, "If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!" There was also an inscription over him, "This is the King of the Jews." One of the criminals who were hanged railed at him, saying, "Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!" But the other rebuked him, saying, "Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly; for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong." And he said, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." And he said to him, "Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise."" Luke 23:33-43, RSV.
Grace and peace to you from our Lord and Saviour, Jesus who is the King. Amen
Our gospel lesson seems out of place as it describes the crucifixion of Jesus. It is more of a Good Friday text, not the kind of text one would see on Christ the Kind Sunday. But is it?
Jesus came as a different kind of King. Not the kind that most people thought of.
A poem says it well:
Title: They Missed Him
They were looking for a lion,
He came as a Lamb, and they missed Him.
They were looking for a warrior,
He came as a Peacemaker, and they missed Him.
They were looking for a king,
He came as a Servant, and they missed Him.
They were looking for liberation from Rome,
He submitted to the Roman stake, and they missed Him.
They were looking for a fit to their mold,
He was the mold maker, and they missed Him.
What are you looking for? Lion? Warrior? King? Liberator?
What are you looking for?
They were looking for their temporal needs to be met,
He came to meet their eternal need, and they missed Him.
He came as a Lamb to be sacrificed for your sin.
Will you miss Him?
He came to make peace between God and man.
Will you miss Him?
He came to model servant hood for all mankind.
Will you miss Him?
He came that we might have true liberty.
Will you miss Him?
He came to give you eternal life.
Will you miss Him?
When we submit to the Lamb, we will meet the Lion.
Join with the Peacemaker, and we will meet the Warrior.
Work with the Servant, and we will meet the King.
Walk with the Submitted, and we will meet the Liberator.
Concern ourselves with the eternal, and we will have the temporal.
If Jesus is not fitting into the mold you have, then come to the mold
maker and get a new one. Submit to His plan for your life and you will
see the eternal need met first; then all the other things you have need
of will be taken care of as well.
--Author unknown (1)
They missed him. People saw the Christ through their own eyes and missed him. They wanted a warrior and he came as the king of peace. They wanted a lion , he came as a lamb. Jesus was not the kind of king that most people thought. He came as a suffering king and many missed him.
So I do think our text is appropriate for today, because Jesus came as the suffering Messiah and they missed him.
All of our lessons this morning speak of this king who many missed.
In our lesson from Jeremiah, the kingdom of God is described in terms of justice and righteousness. This kingdom is described as something different than usual something different than the world is used to. In Isaiah 61:1-4 the kingdom of God is described in this manner: "He has chosen me and sent me to bring good news to the poor, To heal the brokenhearted To announce release to captives, And freedom to those in prison He has sent me to proclaim, That the time has come, When the Lord will save his people..." or as Jesus says In Mark 1:15 "The right time has come, and the Kingdom Of God is near Turn away from your sins and believe the Good News!"
The kingdom of God which broke into this world through Christ brought a different order to life. The broken, the hungry, the poor, were released from their guilt and the burden rested on those who were blessed to be fair, to live with justice and righteousness all their days.
This radical kingdom of God was brought to earth by Christ and is now carried on through His body, the church, you and I. Paul reminds the Colossians of that in our second lesson. He says: "He is the head of the body, the church, he is the beginning,the first-born from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent." Through Christ, the visible part of the body of Christ is manifested through the church. Luke 17:20 says, "Do not say "Look here it is or There it is because the Kingdom of God is within you, among you.
The kingdom of God, the rule of Christ as the King of Kings comes to bring justice and righteousness into the world. We are to bring justice and righteousness in to this world because we are the body of Christ. We are to bring righteous and justice int o this world because Christ lives within us as we are the body of Christ, the church.
What does it mean to bring justice and righteous in to this world? I think it means that we are to feed the hungry, visit the lonely, visit those in prison, in a way bring the peace of Christ in to the brokenness of this world.
Not only are we to bring justice and righteous into this world, but we are to worship and praise Christ as we are the body of Christ, the church.
As the body of Christ, you and I have the responsibility to worship, to praise, to bow, to bend our knees in honor and respect to this King of kings. Worship is a duty, a right and a privilege for each of us.
However, many see this time as useless or unneeded. Why worship? Why sing praises? Why follow the custom of the early church? Because we are commanded, we are duty bound to worship this King. Worship is a form of love and Jesus says we are to love the Lord our God with all of your heart, soul and mind.
A sheep rancher in the remote mountains of Idaho found that his violin was out of tune, and, try as he would, he was unable to make the instrument sound the way it should. A frequent listener to a radio station in California, he wrote the station concerning his problem, asking these good people at a certain hour and minute on a certain day to strike the right note for him.
This they did: stopping everything else, silencing all other sounds for a moment, they struck that note. In his shepherd’s hut in the distant mountains, the shepherd heard
that sound, and from that single note he put his instrument into tune again.
Thus is the hour of worship, a special time of being in touch with God. Here we listen for the signal-tone He strikes for our lives, for the pitch He gives by which our hearts may be put in tune.
Worship is the time for us to get in tune with Christ and then to go and serve others. as he would have us do.
And that brings us to our gospel lesson the story of Jesus death. Now you might be thinking this text is out of place as we celebrate the kingship of Christ, but not so. What better way to see the truly radical nature of his kingship than the cross? What better way to see the suffering nature of our King? What better way to see the truly radical nature of this gospel message than through the cross? Yes, the cross is the sign and the symbol of the kingship of Christ.
Here on the cross in his conversation with the convicted criminal we see the kingdom in action. We see the suffering servant Jesus Christ bringing the good news, the gospel to this man in all of its splendor and wonder.
I have three ideas that I think describe this action of the gospel in this man’s life. To him, Jesus was declaring him not guilty as he repented of his sin, Jesus was with him in suffering so Jesus was also a victim and through Christ they both received victory. Let us look closely at these actions of Christ.
When the man said, "And we indeed justly for or we are receiving the due reward of our deeds:" that was his act of repentance. He knew he had done wrong. He was sorry. Then because of his repentance, he saw Christ for who he was and asked, "Jesus remember me when you come into your kingdom." He wanted to be part of that kingdom. And Jesus answered saying, "Truly, I say to you today you will be with me in Paradise."
In answering the man, Jesus was relieving him of his guilt as it says in Romans 4: 5 " and who believes in God who declares the guilty to be innocent, it is his faith that God takes into account in order to put him right with himself." This kingdom of God causes one to examine himself/herself and then repentance comes. Jesus is there to declare the person not guilty because He paid the penalty for our wrongs through the body broken and blood shed on the cross. Notice that Jesus does and will continue to do the work of forgiving, not us. He declares us so by His work of salvation, not ours.
The act of mercy on the cross that Jesus did for us is sometimes difficult to understand. The following my help:
Pastor Page says in his sermon on this text in a religious journal: "A copy of Sigidmundis Goetze’s art work, "Despised and Rejected of Men", has helped me understand the crucifixion in a more relevant light.
The painting centers around the thorn-covered and spear-riven Son of Man. The setting, however, not normal. The crucifixion takes place in one of the busy highways of this world. Like Times Square in New York. The people are of this world working putting up new buildings, business people rushing here and there, window shoppers walking slowly by store fronts, a football player in uniform, a scientist in his lab, a mother and child and a news boy selling papers on the corner. Even a church and its pastor are found in the picture. But out of all of these people, only one is looking at the Christ on the cross. It is a nurse looking at him not out of concern, but alarm.
Page says this painting serves as a reminder to me that I often thumb through the Christian faith and never spend the time to look at THE event. Perhaps each of us are in that picture passing by never seeing, never looking, never accepting the centrality of our faith, a crucified, and broken Christ."
Don’t we want to glorify Him so that we too can feel glorious?Don’t we want a Christ who can perform miracles at our whims, instead of a Christ who allowed the will of His Father to be performed through Him by dying on a cross? Aren’t we today more interested in glory than service, more interest in feeling good, than worshiping a God who reminds us of our brokenness as He died on a cross? Aren’t we more interested in a bed of roses than wearing a crown of thrones?
Jesus is the different kind of King who died on a cross and then rose so that we might have life eternal. So we see not only the the suffering on the cross but the victory of new life as well.
We do see the victory of Christ as he says to the criminal, "Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise." Yes there is a victory for us in Christ, but at His choosing, at His time, in His kingdom.
On Christ the King Sunday we do celebrate this different kind of King.
Amen
Written by Pastor Tim Zingale November 19, 2007
(1) from illustrations_clergy@onelist.com
