First Lutheran Church

November 20, 2022 + Christ the King Sunday Year C

Thankoffering Sunday

Luke 23:33-43When they came to the place that is called The Skull, they crucified Jesus there with the criminals, one on his right and one on his left.  Then Jesus said, "Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing." And they cast lots to divide his clothing.  And the people stood by, watching; but the leaders scoffed at him, saying, "He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Messiah of God, his chosen one!"  The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him sour wine, 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 there kept deriding him and saying, "Are you not the Messiah? 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 have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong."  Then he said, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom."  He replied, "Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise."

Sermon

“The King on a Cross”

Pastor Greg Ronning

Next Sunday we begin a new church year with the Season of Advent.  But before we can do that, we must properly conclude this current liturgical church year, and as always, we do this by celebrating “Christ the King Sunday.”  Traditionally on this day the church celebrates the Kingdom of God and its King, Jesus the Christ, seated on the throne at the right hand of God, the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end, the sovereign ruler over all creation.  Christ the King Sunday, a grand and majestic conclusion to the liturgical church year!

However, the Royal metaphor, kings and kingdoms, just doesn’t carry the weight it carried hundreds of years ago. As Americans we severed our relationship with Kings and Queens some 250 years ago.  As a nation we don’t have a king or a queen and we don’t really know what it means to have a literal “royal family,” it’s not part of our experience. 

Yet, in some ways, the royal image is still popular, the “myth” is still with us in our culture.  We love watching “The Crown” on Netflix. We still imagine and dream about “Camelot.”  Just down the road at Disney there are all kinds of Kings, Queens, Princes, and Princesses running around to the delight of everyone.  And with the recent passing of England’s Queen Elizabeth, we were able to witness all the tradition, all the majesty, all the pomp and circumstance, that goes along with having royalty.  Kings and Queens are still all around us.

So it is that on Christ the King Sunday, even though it is not part of our daily experience, our democratic system of government; we can begin to imagine Jesus as our King.  And given what we know from England, and shaped as we are by Disney, we might expect the appointed biblical readings for this Sunday to reflect some of that pomp and circumstance, some of that majesty, some of the qualities of “the magic kingdom,” the awe of Windsor Castle, and the wonder of fairy tales; all that we might imagine.

For instance …

Something from the Book of Revelation would be nice, like this description of the throne in chapter four, “At once I was in the spirit, and there in heaven stood a throne, with one seated on the throne!  And the one seated there looks like jasper and carnelian (crystal), and around the throne is a rainbow that looks like an emerald. Around the throne are twenty-four thrones, and seated on the thrones are twenty-four elders, dressed in white robes, with golden crowns on their heads. Coming from the throne are flashes of lightning and rumblings and peals of thunder, and in front of the throne burn seven flaming torches, which are the seven spirits of God, and in front of the throne there is something like a sea of glass, like crystal. ”Glorious!

The ninth chapter of Isaiah is majestic and poetic, “For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders, and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Great will be his authority, and there shall be endless peace for the throne of David and his kingdom. He will establish and uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time onward and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this. ”Majestic!

And perhaps the Transfiguration story from the Gospel of Matthew, “Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became bright as light. Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. …  suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!”  Vivid and Incredible!

But that’s not what we get on Christ the King Sunday. Not even close!  We don’t get an incredible story, a majestic story, a glorious story; - No, we get the crucifixion.  We get someone who has been stripped of his clothes and his dignity, someone who is mocked and tortured, someone struggling in pain, someone who is about to die.  We get someone condemned by the state, someone hanging on a cross between two common criminals, a dead man walking.  We don’t get the fanfare of England, we don’t get the magic of Disney, we don’t get a fairy tale ending, - we get the so called “folly” of the cross.

Theologian Debbi Thomas writes, “Can we pause for a moment and contemplate the paradox that is at the heart of our faith?  This is our king.  This is our king.” 

Yet it is this paradox that saves us!  Because when it comes down to it, we don’t need royalty, we don’t need a King or a Queen, we don’t need a sovereign proxy to intercede on our behalf, we don’t need someone who pities us from up on high; - we need someone who is very present in the midst of our life!  I am not going to be saved by a crown of jewels, I need the crown of thorns.  I am not going to be saved by someone who doesn’t know the struggles of life, I need someone who knows what it’s like to struggle, to be alone, even to die.  I am not going to be saved by a royal proclamation, I need a radical divine incarnation, intervention, that begins in the dust where I live, is present beside me, reaches out to me, and lifts me up.  We need a God who knows what it’s like, a God who has suffered, a God who has endured despite the pain.  We need a God who reigns from the cross, who reigns in humility, suffering, and weakness.  We need a God who reigns in such “descent .”As St. Paul proclaimed, “For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” (1 Corinthians 1:18)

God’s people, the saints of old, have always found God present in such “folly,” in “descent, ”in the midst of life’s great struggles, in the midst of the human condition, in the midst of it all, in the heart of the cross. Mountain tops always seem to fade, but those who have been found by God, those who sense God’s strange peace and strong love in the midst of the hardest times, never forget that deep and strong presence.  Yes, God is present always, in our joys, in our everyday moments and places, but God is most profoundly present, encountered, and experienced when things are not going so well, even falling apart. So it is that God reigns from the cross.

Today’s “Christ the King” gospel reading comes to us unexpected and perhaps even unwanted.  We’d probably rather have the glory, the majesty, the pomp and circumstance, and the awe. Who wouldn’t, it’s the first impulse of our human nature.  Yet the promises that flow from the cross, the promises of love, grace, mercy, and hope; in the end are more wonderous and everlasting.

Listen to the promises found in today’s Gospel ….

 "Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing." A radical word of forgiveness for all of us still caught up in sin and brokenness, for all of us struggling to do the right thing, for all of us, a forgiveness, that is without condition, only a powerful word of love, a word of love that can truly set us free.

One of the criminals asks Jesus, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." And Jesus replies, "Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise."  How good it is that Jesus “remembers.”  Be assured that as you walk the road that is your life, a road that is full of ups and downs, a road that can be hard and long, a road the Jesus too has walked; -Jesus remembers you.  And in this re-membering you are gathered up, and re-membered into love, re-membered into relationship, re-membered into the Kingdom.

And of course, “Paradise.”  Christ, the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, holds all of life in his outstretched loving arms, and in those outstretched loving arms he will hold us in this life and in the next, now and forever. God has the last word, a word that conquers fear and death, a word that is life, a word for each of us, a word for all of us.

This morning God invites us to trust and believe in the paradox that is our faith; to trust and believe in Christ, who exchanged a golden crown for a cross made of wood.  Christ Jesus, who reigns from the cross, who reigns in humility, suffering, and weakness, who reigns deep among us in wonderous descent.  May we be blessed with the courage to do the same, to lay down, to enter into our own humility, suffering, and weakness, and in faith discover the God who awaits us with the fullness of abundant life.

Christ reigns from the cross.  Thanks be to God, Amen.