Sermon: Christ the King/Reign of Christ/Last Sunday after Pentecost, Luke 23:33-43, November 20, 2022 + Faith Lutheran Church, Pastor Jonathan Linman

Sermon: Christ the King/Reign of Christ/Last Sunday after Pentecost,

Luke 23:33-43, November 20, 2022 + Faith Lutheran Church,

Pastor Jonathan Linman

Today is the last Sunday after Pentecost, the last Sunday in the church year. Advent, a new year, begins next week. And today is known as Christ the King Sunday, or the Reign of Christ, a culminating day, having celebrated the events of Jesus’ life, death, resurrection and ascension throughout the previous year. Christ as King, as sovereign, monarch, a royal figure. What do we make of all of that, especially since we don’t have kings and queens or royalty in the United States?

To be sure, we look with some fascination at royalty in other countries, especially England given the recent death of Queen Elizabeth II and all the royal pageantry that accompanied her funeral. How many of you watched any of it on TV or followed the stories in the news? Just curious….

While we don’t have kings and queens, princes and princesses in this country, we do have prominent people whom we follow and who fascinate us and who captivate loads of media attention: celebrities of all kinds, rock stars and movie stars, professional athletes, billionaires, the techno whiz kids of Silicon Valley, people like Elon Musk.

All of this fascination generally focuses one way or another on fame and fortune, power, prominence, and prestige.

On the darker side of things, now there are cult followings of dictators, autocratic strongmen (and they’re almost always men and usually white) here and around the globe.

What is it about human beings that prompts us to be drawn to rich and powerful people like kings and queens and their surrogates in countries that don’t have a monarchy? Maybe we’re not that far from the animal kingdom where alpha males (and sometimes females) command attention and are leaders of the pack.

I confess to not understanding or relating to popular preoccupations with the rich and famous. But upon introspection, to be honest with you, I am not free of preoccupations with monarchial figures. I do have a thing for bishops, the church’s version of royalty! I am drawn to bishops. I worked for a bishop for ten years – where I was a player in the king’s court, as it were. I married a woman who would become a bishop. I confess to having aspired to being elected bishop myself.

Human beings tend to be drawn to monarchial figures of one sort or another. Maybe it’s the sense of safety or security that such figures promise. But then they often fail spectacularly actually to deliver the safety and security we crave….

The Hebrew tradition had its historical period with kings. There were King David and King Solomon. And others. David had been a shepherd, so one of the images for Hebrew kings has been that of shepherd. We see that in today’s first reading from Jeremiah where God himself promises to become the shepherd of the people since Israel’s kings had abused their authority and had scattered their flocks. The reading from Jeremiah concludes with the promise of a coming king, whom we understand as a prophecy concerning Jesus Christ: “The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, who shall reign as king and deal wisely and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.”

Such thinking evolved into expectations of a coming Messiah, an anointed one, to usher in the fullness of God’s kingdom. The Messiah, though not a king strictly speaking, was nonetheless kingly and more so perhaps because the reign of the Messiah is in fact God’s kingdom.

Which brings us to Jesus Christ, whom we confess is Messiah for us as Christians. One of the messianic titles associated with Jesus is that of king – hence Christ the King Sunday. Sometimes it’s King of the Jews, as we see in today’s gospel reading. Or King of Kings and Lord of lords, and so on.

But let’s be clear: biblical kingship, especially that associated with Jesus Christ, has nothing to do with the kind of royal pageantry we see in England with now King Charles III. And Jesus’ kingship has nothing in common with celebrity athletes and movie stars and wunderkind CEO’s and billionaires and strongmen dictators.

Which is to say, let’s take a closer look at today’s gospel reading. Those who put together the lectionary chose a passage from the Passion according to Luke for the gospel reading on Christ the King Sunday. At first glance it may seem quite odd to choose Luke’s crucifixion story for this festival day that honors Christ as King. But as we’ll see, such a choice makes perfect sense.

Amidst all the hubbub of the horrific spectacle of Jesus’ execution on the cross, there’s a lot of talk among the religious leaders and soldiers and criminals who were crucified with Jesus about claims of Jesus being the Messiah and King of the Jews. So, a focus in this gospel story is on kingship in relation to Jesus.

But consider the scene. Jesus is on the cross, not on a comfortable, beautifully decorated seat in a palace. So, if Jesus is a king, his throne is the cross.

It’s striking that Jesus is crucified between two criminals, one on Jesus’ right and one on the left. Remember that a couple of Jesus’ own disciples begged this of Jesus: “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” Jesus’ reply: “You do not know what you’re asking….” (cf. Mark 10:37ff.) James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who asked this, did not have the throne of the cross in mind…. But Jesus did.

Look what else happens in this scene: they cast lots for Jesus’ clothing. That’s not how kings are treated. The soldiers offered him sour wine. But kings, according to our understanding, should get the very best vintage of wine, not the dregs reserved for the poor.

The religious leaders scoffed at Jesus – that is, they arrogantly and dismissively turned up their noses at him. The soldiers mocked him – that is, they made sport of Jesus and his sorry state. One of the criminals crucified with Jesus derided him – that is, he blasphemed Jesus, sacrilegiously slandered, or profaned him. Again, this is not how you treat a worldly king!

In short, humanity throws its worst at Jesus. In our sin and ignorance and arrogance, we cannot seem to do otherwise. Even as we esteem the rich and powerful, we humans tend to treat the weak and vulnerable with contempt. That’s the human condition.

But while humanity gave Jesus its worst, God gives humanity God’s best in Jesus Christ.

Listen to Jesus’ words from the cross as if they are a royal decree, spoken by a king on his throne: “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.” This is Christ the King’s royal pronouncement from the cross. And what a king says goes, right? If the king utters it, it becomes the law of the land. That’s what a royal decree is.  This is good news. This is gospel. It is love, mercy, grace, not vindictive grievance in reaction to the horrible things they are doing to Jesus. This is what it means for Christ to be King.

And from the throne of the cross, Christ dies, and a dead king is taken to the royal bed chamber of a tomb, from which three days later Jesus emerges as a cosmic Christ, another image of kingship faithful to the themes of this day.

Here’s how the apostle puts it in the reading from Colossians for today – an early hymn of the church that sounds in many ways like a creed, an affirmation of faith in Christ who died and was raised by God: “Christ is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in Christ all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him. Christ himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together. Christ is the head of the body, the church; Christ is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. For in Christ all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through Christ God was pleased to reconcile to God’s own self all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.” (Colossians 1:15-20)

Here, Paul, echoes themes similar to those in the first chapter of John: in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God… And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us full of grace and truth…. (cf. John 1:1ff.)

And what was in the beginning at creation? Paradise. The Garden of Eden. When the repentant criminal beckons, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom,” Jesus replies, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.”

Christ the King returns us to the paradise known at the beginning at creation.

And the resurrected and ascended Christ returns to his Father, the Creator God, and is integral to the life of the Trinity – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Now this cosmic, kingly Christ rules universally, everywhere all at once, in the fullness of the Trinitarian life and mission of God. And because the crucified and risen Jesus is Christ, our sovereign, his rule, his reign is the only one that ultimately will not disappoint us and ushers in our ultimate security and safety, that is, our salvation. Thanks be to God.

And Christ reigns now in our lives locally, even as his rule is also cosmic and universal.

Christ is King and reigns at the time of baptism, when we are adopted as God’s children, Christ’s loyal and royal subjects as disciples, followers.

Christ our King reigns and holds court in the proclamation of his holy Word and continues to pronounce us forgiven, even when we don’t have a clue about what we’re doing.

Christ our King hosts us at the royal banquet which is the Eucharist, giving us the gift of his very self and real presence, saying in essence, “friend, come up higher.”

And through these means, Christ our King generates and renews our faith to rule in our hearts, to reign in us, and among us, his loyal and royal subjects.

In fact, Christ’s rule reigns us in, keeping us tethered to the values of God’s dominion. Values which are not of the world of power and prestige, fame and fortune and rule by violence and force.

No, just the opposite. Christ rules in humility, love, mercy, grace, forgiveness. Christ reigns by attraction, not by force. Just the opposite of what we might expect from kings from the human vantage point warped by sin.

And we as disciples, as followers then become royal subjects, a priestly people, to serve our sovereign by serving each other and all of humanity in the humble, loving manner of our sovereign whose throne is the cross, whose royal bedchamber is an empty tomb.

Such a Christ, such a monarch, is the one whom we worship and extol and adore on this triumphant day, the last Sunday after Pentecost as we enter into a new year, spiraling on our way to the fulfillment of God’s consummated reign in Christ. Amen.