I.N.I.
a sermon
for Christ the King Sunday, 20 November 2016, to be preached at
Christ Church, Accokeek, Maryland, and based on verses from all three
of the appointed lessons for the day, i.e., Jeremiah 23:5; Luke
23:36-38, 42-43; Colossians 1:12-14
Grace,
mercy, and peace be yours in Christ Jesus, our Lord.
Dear
Friends in Christ,
Our
elections are nearly two weeks past, but I daresay we are still very
much in a political season. That is not,
however, why the Church calls today Christ the King Sunday (as if to
differentiate political offices from kingship). We Christians have
been observing Christ the King Sunday for years as a special time to
mark, remember, and celebrate Jesus's role as our chosen and anointed
Leader, as Christ the King. And while, of course, Jesus Christ is
King all year long, it is fitting to remember it today on the last
Sunday in our church's liturgical calendar.
Now,
when I was young the last three Sundays in the Church year zeroed in
on the last things that will come at the end of time. The lessons and
hymn and sermons focused on the coming judgment. End of Church year
equaled end of time. It was all about Christ's Second Coming. That
was to prepare us for Advent and Christmas, our Lord's first coming
into the world. We don't have quite that emphasis today. Today we
meditate on Christ's role as King in preparation for re-living His
first revelation as our King when He was born in Bethlehem.
In
coming weeks we will be walking though some of Isaiah's prophecies of
the Lord's coming. Today's Old Testament lesson, though, is from
Jeremiah, who came along a little after Isaiah. He spoke in troubled
times. Israel had been a divided nation for generations, and the
northern kingdom, Israel, had been snuffed out. Then as Jeremiah
proclaimed the Word of the Lord, the enemies of God's people were
gathering to do the same to the southern kingdom, Judah. Babylonian
power was growing, and Jerusalem was about to be overrun and
destroyed. In that dark and dreadful time the Word of the Lord came
to Jeremiah. About the middle of his book we read: "The
days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will raise up for David
a righteous Branch, and He shall reign as king and deal wisely, and
shall execute justice and righteousness in the land." (23:5)
Anyone
who heard him share this word probably said something to the effect
of "I sure hope you know what you're talking about." David
had been promised a forever kingship and his descendants had pretty
well wasted away his patrimony. The divided kingdom and loss of the
northern kingdom was the least of it. Most of their kings throughout
their history were on the 'bad kings' list; few were on the 'good
kings' side of the ledger. Most of their leaders had not
been righteous. Most had not
dealt wisely with their people and the challenges that faced them.
Most had not executed
justice throughout the land. The remaining faithful descendants of
Abraham and Sarah who were there to hear Jeremiah would have been
eager to see a "righteous Branch" spring up from the root
of Jesse. That is, they'd have been most happy to finally live under
a good king descended from David.
At
the beginning of this chapter 23, Jeremiah proclaims woe to the
faithless shepherds who had scattered the flock of Israel through
their rejection of God. God's Law proclaims their destruction. But
then, of course, Jeremiah proclaims the Gospel, the good news, that
the Lord will break into this pitiful history and raise up a
righteous Branch to reign as King. Not like kings of the past and
present, but One who will be faithful, one who will deal wisely, one
who will execute justice and righteousness in the land. Rely on the
promise, is what Jeremiah wants his hearers to do. The Lord has
promised it, and when this Branch, this righteous, wise, and just
King comes, then God's people will be saved and will live in safety
(23:6).
The
promised King did come along. But not immediately. As I reminded you
a bit ago, we are about to enter the season of Advent in which we
reenact our preparation for the coming of that King, born of the
Virgin in Bethlehem. But as we know -- and as we're reminded in
today's Gospel -- the King was not warmly welcomed with open arms,
hearts, and minds. Half a millennium after Jeremiah announced this
promise, Jesus the righteous Branch did rise up. And then for a whole
raft of reasons He was cut down shortly thereafter. When this Branch
was hung on the tree of the cross at the place of the Skull, Calvary,
the Roman soldiers who had nailed Him to it joined the leaders of the
people in mocking Him.
We
don't know these men. We don't know their names or their histories
and biographies. But we can maybe be safe in describing them as
typical military men who followed orders first and then only later
(if then) thought about the implications of what they had done. Here
they have nailed our Lord and King to the cross, and maybe one of
them asks their sergeant 'What is this one being crucified for?' The
sergeant answers something like 'I don't know. All I've got is the
usual sign to post over his head. I guess the lieutenant was being
sarcastic; this one says "This is the King of the Jews."
Probably means the guy is a rebel leader. Or wanted to be.' So the
soldiers, loyal Romans whose job it is to defend Caesar from
rebellion out there in the hinterlands, the soldiers take to mocking
Jesus with their "Hey, if you really are
the King of the Jews, save yourself why don't you?"
And
Jesus ... Jesus the righteous Branch, the true King who deals wisely
and executes justice and righteousness ... Jesus extends His love
even to these soldiers, praying to the Father that He would forgive
them. Jesus knows that these soldiers are just dumbly following
orders, that they - in His words - didn't know what they are doing.
Then
Luke takes the focus off the soldiers and moves it to the criminals.
Don't you think it wonderful how Luke's telling of this whole scene
in Jesus's life doesn't include His disciples or even the adoring
crowds that so often followed Him? In Luke's Gospel, Jesus on the
cross prays, of course, but it's Roman soldiers and convicted thieves
whom we hear talking to Him. It's the outsiders, the foreigners, the
ones rejected by society who interact with Jesus. And so the first
thief -- who comes across to me as one who must have been pretty
disagreeable in life -- joins right in with the soldiers in mocking
Jesus: 'Hey, you! You're supposed to be king of the Jews, right?
Well. I'm a Jew and I need you to do something kingly for me. Get us
down off these crosses already!'
But
the other thief, listen instead to him for a moment. After rebuking
his partner in crime he says to the Lord, "Jesus, remember me
when you come into your kingdom." What a simple and profound
prayer! Spoken in a time of deepest need. Direct. Full of faith and
hope. And acknowledging Jesus's kingship. We don't know where this
faith came from. Maybe he had been in the crowds that heard Jesus
preach. He may have witnessed some of Jesus's miracles. (Either of
these could have been great settings for him to snatch a purse off
someone's belt.) Or he may just have noticed the way Jesus acted as
the 3 of them had been brought out of Jerusalem to the execution
site. He may have only then
seen and heard and reflected on the things Jesus said and did. He may
only then have let the
Holy Spirit work faith in his heart. This thief may have had a
conversion there on his own cross shortly before his death and
realized that, yes, Jesus IS the King we Jews have been waiting for
all these centuries.
And
then Jesus speaks. In Luke's Gospel, again, this is the only time
Jesus on the cross speaks other than in prayers. Jesus replies to the
thief, "Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in
Paradise."
So
Jesus equates the Kingdom of the thief's last request with God's
Paradise. But don't forget to focus a moment on the possessive
pronoun "your" in what the thief says: "your
Kingdom." The faithful witness of the dying thief is that Jesus
is King. He is saying that Jesus is the One who reigns. And if he had
learned his Scriptures -- as he well might have before committing his
crime -- he just may have thought of the prophecy of Jeremiah. He may
have had an insight right before his death of the way he could enter
into the Kingdom of wise dealing, of justice, and of righteousness.
Justice
would have called for punishment on account of his crimes. He had
been caught in the Roman judicial system and knew in his body their
brutal system of justice. Now this thief wanted God's
justice. And he wanted to live in the Kingdom of righteousness, all
his sins paid for. He believed, he knew, that Jesus was an innocent
man, that -- as he told the first thief -- "we are condemned
justly, but this Man
has done nothing wrong." And from what he said to Jesus, he knew
and believed that God forgave his own sins in Christ. This dying
thief knew in other words, knew by faith,
what Saint Paul would later write about Christ the King in today's
epistle.
There
in Colossians 1:12-14, Paul writes that he's "giving
thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the inheritance
of 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."
This morning I have to wonder whether when they were traveling
together Luke told Paul what he had learned about the crucifixion.
Maybe at that point in their lives Luke had already started outlining
his Gospel and had notes on eyewitness accounts from Mount Calvary.
Maybe even, pious legend might express, the centurion who was in
charge of the soldiers there (the one who saw Jesus die and exclaimed
"Surely, this man was innocent.") had talked with Luke. In
other words it seems to me possible that this scene from the
crucifixion is the backdrop to what Paul then wrote to the
Colossians. The thief on the cross was enabled by the Father to share
in the inheritance of the saints of light ... just as all of us
thieves in this church are enabled to share in that inheritance by
our Father. God has rescued us,
Paul writes, from the power of darkness. No matter what our
background and personal history, God the Father has reached into our
lives and rescued us through the preaching of His Word and the
administration of His sacraments, rescued each of us from the power
of darkness. And after our rescue we are not deposited in some
dreadfully uncertain limbo of a refugee camp somewhere. No, Paul
tells us, we have been 100% rescued and transferred into the Kingdom
of God's beloved Son. That
is where our real citizenship is registered: The Kingdom of God's
beloved Son, Paradise, Heaven itself with Jesus Christ ruling as our
one and only King, that
is where we now really belong. Our King, Paul tells the Colossians
and all us fellow believers with them, is the one in whom we have
redemption and the forgiveness of sins.
Until
we can fully realize that hope, we live here praying with the thief
that King Jesus remembers us when He comes into His Kingdom. But
until we walk into Paradise, we work with King Jesus here on earth to
execute justice and righteousness in the land. The power of darkness
from which we have already been rescued still surrounds us in this
life to be sure. We don't need to look very hard to find evidence of
it. But you and I have the power of God's Word to keep this darkness
at bay. We have our baptisms assuring us that we now already belong
in the Kingdom of light. We have the strength of God coming to us in
Holy Communion. We shall
overcome the evil of this world because you and I are children of
God, fellow heirs with St Paul, the thief on the cross. and all
believers across time. We are members of Christ the King. Amen.
May
the peace of God that passes all human understanding keep your hearts
and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.
S.D.G.