Christ the King

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Today is Christ the King Sunday. This is a relatively new feast day. It is 100 years old this year, having been introduced in 1925 by Pope Pius XI in the face of chaos in the world, tyrannical leaders and the beginnings of communism and fascism. Though this feast day is not found in Scripture, it serves to point us to Christ’s reign, today and forever. Christ is King. Christ the King Sunday is on the last Sunday of the church year, which is so beautiful. Christ is the beginning and the end, Christ is the focal point of our Church year, and even more, He is the center of our very lives and the whole of humanity. Christ is the centre, and He reigns.

Today we heard the crucifixion account from Luke. Is it strange to be hearing about this Gospel reading on a day that is not Good Friday? Why are we hearing the crucifixion account on Christ the King Sunday? When we think of Christ as King, we might think of His divinity, of His reign with the Father in Heaven, of His person as fully God, fully divine. Why don’t we hear accounts of His miracles? I mean, Jesus raised people from the dead, He healed the sick and blind and paralyzed, He turned water to wine, he fed thousands with a few loaves and fishes. Doesn’t that say “king” a little bit more than the crucifixion? Or at least shouldn’t we be hearing about Him being raised from the dead? Easter Sunday rather than Good Friday? Or maybe Ascension?

Instead, on this Christ the King Sunday, here we are with Jesus at the place called the Skull. Jesus, hanging on the cross. Jesus, being mocked, being whipped, being tortured, and ultimately put to death. Complete humility. God Himself, who took on flesh, was lowered to the absolute lowest of lows. Is this what a king is?

The rulers and the soldiers and the criminal on the cross mocking Him would all say, decidedly, no! Jesus is no King! The rulers scoffed at him, and they are the leaders, members of the Jewish High Council, the legalists, the law. They are the law. And this Jesus was going around saying stuff about being the King of the Jews–this Jesus was a heretic. He is getting exactly what he deserved! He wa a citizen who has abused the law! He had broken the law. They hated him. They wanted to crucify him. They called out for his crucifixion and wanted to let Barabbas go. And the soldiers - they are also enforcers of the law, and they too mocked him, saying, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!” They also believed that Jesus was getting what he deserved.

And the criminal on the cross. As the criminal hung there, beside Jesus, he too mocked Him. “Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!” The guy is literally hanging on the cross beside Jesus, and yet, he too joins in on mocking Jesus. He’s rejoicing in the law, praising the law, even as it’s killing him.

Jesus, on the cross, is under the full force of the Law. The Law, which taunts us, makes us think we can achieve it if we try hard enough, but tells us that if we do something perfectly 100 times but mess up once, we’re done. In my preaching course this past week, we thought of the Law like a police officer. A police officer doesn’t care if you stopped perfectly at every red light every other day of your life. They care that you ran it this time. You have broken it. You’re done. The Law requires perfection, absolutely and completely, from the moment we are born until the moment we die. And not only do our words and actions have to be completely perfect, but so do our thoughts, our intentions and our hearts. The Law cannot save us. It can only show us our sin and our brokenness.

This is the Law that the criminal on the cross is praising, mocking Jesus for being under its punishment, even though he is under the exact same punishment.

Don’t we kind of do the same thing? When someone wrongs us or makes choices we disagree with or messes up or says something we don’t like or rubs us the wrong way, don’t we consider them vindictively? Don’t we seethe with anger when we think someone has done wrong to us? Don’t we withhold forgiveness from others because ‘they don’t deserve it’, even though, if it were not for grace, we too would be without forgiveness? And ultimately, the punishment that we would face if we got what we deserved is exactly what this criminal faced? What Jesus faced?

In Matthew, Jesus tells us a parable about a servant and a king. The servant owed the king all this money, ten thousand talents. More than someone could ever repay. So the servant fell on his knees, imploring the king, and said, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’ And out of pity, the master forgave him all his debt and released him. That same servant, who had just been forgiven, went out and saw a fellow servant who owed him only one hundred denarii, thousands of times less than what he had owed his master, and began to choke the other servant, saying, “Pay what you owe.” And the second servant said, “Please, be patient with me, and I will pay you back.” The first servant, the one who had been forgiven, refused and put the other servant in prison until he could pay the debt. The king, the master, found out, and said, “You wicked servant. I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. Should you not have had mercy on your fellow servant as I had mercy on you?” And the master delivered him to the jailers until he could pay all his debt.

When others wrong us, we wish they would be punished for what they have done wrong. But if we were punished for what we had done wrong, we would be under the same condemnation. Like the criminal on the cross, we praise the Law! We think to ourselves, I’m not so bad! In fact, we think we’re pretty good! We come to church on Sunday and we think we’re great Christians. We compare ourselves to others - I’m more involved than them or more knowledgable or I give more. We take what Christ did on the cross and try to take it back into our own hands. We feel proud of ourselves for the good that we do, with our chests puffed up, when really, without Christ, our good works are dirty rags before the Lord, as Isaiah says.

Like the criminal on the cross, we praise and love the Law even as it declares its judgment upon us: guilty and sentenced to death. But Jesus Christ was perfect, the only man to ever be without sin, and He took that sentence upon Himself. In the eyes of the world, He was no King. In the eyes of the world, he was a pathetic heretic who made lawless claims of grandeur, and in the end, couldn’t even save Himself.

But. But there is another set of eyes that, when they look upon this man, bloodied and humiliated in one of the most gruesome forms of death, see something different. These eyes see the King, and these are the eyes of faith. Faith is an incredible gift that God gives us by the Holy Spirit working through the Word and Sacraments to see the things of heaven that our eyes would be completely unable to see on their own.

These are the eyes that look upon Christ as he hangs on the cross and say, Jesus, remember me when you come into Your Kingdom. The second criminal knew that Jesus didn’t deserve to be hanging on the cross, but that he did. Jesus would not have looked very promising. He was moments away from death. But through the eyes of faith that he was given, the criminal recognized that Jesus’ kingdom was of another kind. He hung on the cross, face to face with death, a convicted criminal who deserved to be there, and he turned to Jesus, with nothing to offer, saying, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”

And Jesus breathes out the Gospel: Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise. This sinful man, with nothing to offer, received the promise of life from Christ as he hung on the cross. Stop and consider this for a moment. Jesus, as He was being crucified, spoke out life and forgiveness and promise to this sinner. “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” What an incredible, unbelievably amazing promise. And guess what - Christ speaks this same promise to us. For us, it might not be today - but we will be with Him in Paradise. And Paradise here is the same word used in Genesis, taking us back to the Garden of Eden. Restoration. Fulfillment. Perfection. Peace.

Christ, on the cross, spoke mercy and forgiveness graciously to this sinner, and not only to the one who believed that what He said was true, but also for the ones who crucified Him. As they crucified Him, as they mocked Him and cast lots for His clothing, Jesus, said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Can you imagine being so gracious to people who hate you, who are going to kill you?

This is our King. This is our King who loves sinners so much that He died for them, and thanks be to God, because that means He died for me and you.

Christ reigns. Christ is King. Today and yesterday and tomorrow and forever. “He has delivered us from this domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” We have been transferred into Christ’s Kingdom! The Kingdom of God is now. Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father. And yet, we still live here. We live in this earthly kingdom. This is the same sinful, earthly kingdom that Pope Pius XI was experiencing 100 years ago when he instituted Christ the King Sunday, and the same earthly kingdom we heard about in Malachi this morning, where the arrogant are called blessed and the evildoers not only prosper, but they put God to the test and they escape. Not much has changed. The struggles take on different forms in every age, but the cause and the outcome remains the same: sin. But the Lord speaks of those who fear Him: “They shall be mine, says the Lord of hosts, in the day when I make up my treasured possession, and I will spare them as a man spares his son.”

Christ Jesus is the fulfillment of this promise. We have been spared. Christ the King Sunday has traditionally been about the judgement day and about preparing for the final days and the coming of the Kingdom of God. And that’s what this is about, but the good news is this: you have been prepared. The judgement day has already come and gone. It happened in the crucifixion. You were judged guilty, but you are now judged righteous, washed in the blood of the Lamb, pardoned from all of your mistakes, all of your selfishness and pride. It hung on the cross with Christ. He paid the price. It is finished. You are spared.

In Colossians we read: “This Christ is the image of the invisible God. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities–all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” In him, all things hold together. Christ holds all things together.

As we live in this earthly kingdom, with the problems of every age, full of sin and brokenness and struggle and despair, as we make mistake after mistake, as we fall down, we do not fall apart, for Christ himself holds us together. Maybe you feel like you have to be everything for everyone. 

Maybe you are worried about the future, about your health or the health of your loved ones. Do you ever say to yourself, “Just keep it together!” Christ keeps you together. You can rest assured in His promises that the One who is the very image of the invisible God, the One in whom the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, the One through whom all things were created, also created you. Also knows you. And holds you together.

You are God’s child, a rightful citizen of His Kingdom, which is and is to come. The promise is for today. You have been spared. You have been set free. And now you get to live as a child in God’s Kingdom, to seek to help in the growing of it, to care for those in need, to forgive as you have been forgiven, to rejoice in God’s promises, and to rest, knowing that you are being held together by Christ Jesus Himself, who holds all things together.

When the world says that Christ is nobody and nothing, we cling to our faith, which gives us the eyes to see, not only that He is somebody and something, but that He is everything, and He is King. I thank God for this Christ the King Sunday, as our church year ends and we look forward to the joy of advent and Christmas, that we get to end our church year with this reminder of hope and promise that in all things, from our individual lives to the whole of the universe, Christ is King.

Praise be to God. Amen.

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https://standrewslutheran.ca 

Watch this sermon presented live here: https://youtu.be/IK4g0tMGTBI