A Different Kind of King

 

Luke 23:33-43

There are moments when you look around and see some very clear signs that all is not right with the world. Actually, at these moments, that might be an appalling understatement. One might rather say that all is messed up with the world. At times.

In our Bible study we saw it this past week as we journeyed through the book of Judges, watching how Israel fell further and further into madness and darkness – maybe hurtling back toward that condition where Genesis begins, when God began to create the heavens and the earth, the earth was complete chaos, and darkness covered the face of the deep –

Before the time when God began creating order out of chaos.

We see it again in this story from Luke’s gospel.

We have heard this story so many times, haven’t we? Every year during the season of Lent we travel down this road with Jesus, descending with Israel into such unspeakable harm, such unreasonable actions. In fact, we have heard it so many times we might have become numb to it. We might have one eye on the journey up to Golgotha and the other eye on the day of resurrection we know is coming soon – with colorful dyed eggs, chocolate in baskets, a good ham dinner and pleasant company.

It's an odd story, really, for this time of the year. I listened to a colleague object to it being in the lectionary right now. He said, “We covered that ground already this year, didn’t we? I see no reason to go back and revisit it.”

Is there any good reason to revisit it?

It’s a story of a world gone mad. An innocent man is arrested, beaten, tried, and convicted to death. He is about to be executed in a wildly cruel manner – for what? And while this innocent man bears the suffering in his body, he is relentlessly mocked, ridiculed – even by the people he loved, it would seem. I suppose they took some pleasure in having power over someone – these people who had very little power over anything in their lives. But to abuse this man? Someone who did no harm? For what reason?

This is a world in disarray, a people in deep pain who really, truly, do not understand what they are doing.

And Jesus recognizes this.

“Father, forgive them,” he says from the cross, “For they do not know what they are doing.” And here we see, shining bright as the sun, a different kind of king. Here we see a kind of power that is rare on earth.

What we know about kings, although not much, is nothing like this. When we think of kings, or queens, we think of someone who covers themselves with gold and precious gems. Someone always accompanied by an entourage of helpers, scrapers, fawners, sycophantic flatterers because they know what they need to do to stay in the king’s good graces. We think of pomp and circumstance, red carpets, and thrones, because kings and queens must be pampered. Coddled. They need to be treated like royalty.

When we think of kings, we don’t think of a crown made of thorns. We don’t think of a man stripped and whipped and nailed up on a high cross for all to jeer and mock.

We don’t think of a person who speaks words of forgiveness from a place of persecution. We don’t imagine a human being who chooses to use his divinely appointed power in this way.

This last Sunday in the church year is known as Christ the King, or Reign of Christ, Sunday. It is a celebration that was established only one hundred years ago, in 1925, at a time when fascism was rising in Europe and the world was growing increasingly secular in our values and habits. It was an attempt to set a yearly reminder to the church that our allegiance is to our spiritual ruler in heaven – not to any earthly supremacy. God is our king. Christ is our king.

As a pastor, I have often approached this day with ambivalence. I have had a hard time finding meaning in it, understanding why it matters – to us.

We, in the United States, fought a revolution to be rid of kings, and the idea of kings makes us instinctively bristle – so there’s that. But also, I often think, how is this different from any other Sunday in the church year? As Christians we worship and serve Christ. We confess our belief that it is only through Christ that we are forgiven and redeemed. We pray the words, “Thy kingdom come on earth, as it is in heaven.”

I couldn’t quite figure out how I was supposed to feel on this day, what I was supposed to do on this day, that wouldn’t be like any other day. Does it matter that we have a day called Christ the King?

But I am thinking this year, on the 100^th anniversary of Christ the King’s inception, that it matters.

It matters to us because whoever we give our allegiance to is setting the tone by which we will live. Whoever we regard as our authority – in heaven or on earth – is determining what is valued, who is valued, and how we will live with one another.

And I am thinking that in a world where we can look around us and see how power and authority are exercised in ways that would make Jesus weep; where men and women in seats of power may choose to openly flaunt their corruption because their experience tells them there will not be any adverse consequences for it; where powerful people perform cruelty simply because they can, and they really don’t need to make the effort to be kind – I am thinking that a world like this is infected by darkness and chaos.

And if the ones in authority bear this kind of darkness, it becomes contagious. It affects us all.

The celebration of Christ the King – perhaps this works as a gentle reminder that the reign of God invites us all to live in a different kind of kingdom, where the questions of who is valued, what is valued, are answered quite differently.

And if we choose to live in this kingdom, where Christ is King, we will not jeer and mock immigrants who are in desperate situations. We will not feel righteous about pulling humanitarian aid to struggling nations or feel satisfied when food benefits are taken away from poor children in our own nation. Because if we live in the kingdom where Christ is King, we know that these little ones, the vulnerable ones, matter.

In this world there is always a danger that we will fall into that deep darkness, where we might even grow deliriously giddy about someone else’s pain, their “comeuppance,” we might have it. And we might not even understand what we are doing.

But then, may we remember that Christ is our King, and we live in a kingdom where there is a different kind of rule, a different way of being. We live under a ruler who will turn to the least ones, even the worst ones, and say, “Come and be with me – in paradise – today.”

Photo: Churchart.com