Sermon on Sunday, November 21, 2010
There was also an inscription over him, “This is the King of the Jews.”
Reading near the end of the gospel of Luke can feel like visiting a museum for the fiftieth time. We’ve seen it before—walked by this particular display on countless occasions. It’s the gruesome scene—Jesus’ final moments.
I don’t know about you, but I haven’t found too many museums that can hold my attention for much more than an hour, or maybe two. After that, I get glazed over and then it doesn’t matter what I’m looking at—a sixth century sword from the Byzantine Empire? An ancient Roman urn? One of Van Gogh’s finest? It’s not that I don’t appreciate great art and culture—I do. I’ve simply found that I can appreciate it more when I’ve liberated myself from having to appreciate it all at once. Give me one hour to find three or four things that I can truly stop and study any day, but please don’t ask me to try to see it all. I know myself—I’ll lose focus. I’ll get tired and crabby.
Sometimes the twenty-third chapter of Luke can feel like that tableau at the natural history museum that you’ve passed by dozens and dozens of times. We’ve read it. We’ve seen it. The Bible story, the passion play, the TV drama, the movie version… The Good Friday sermons and the Sunday school lessons… We hear the line, “they crucified Jesus there with the criminals, one on his right and one on his left,” and we’re in territory that is perhaps too familiar—familiar enough, at least, so that nothing in the scene is sufficiently jarring enough to stop us in our tracks and make us linger for awhile.
Sometimes just one detail, though, is enough. Just one tiny detail—the inscription on the hilt of that particular sword, a chip in mouth of that urn, the brushstrokes Van Gogh used to make that one sunflower near the top… Sometimes a small detail is enough to draw us in, wondering anew about what it is we’re really looking at. I may not be able to lose an entire day at the museum, but I can get wonderfully lost in the right detail.
So let’s zoom in on our story a bit… See Jesus there, on the cross. He’s between two criminals, and he’s asking for forgiveness for these people who don’t know what they’re doing. Others are there, too—people who came to watch, and they’re just standing there, looking. Picture it all. A few more are grabbing at the clothes that have been stripped from Jesus. The soldiers are mocking him, offering cheap, sour wine. Someone from the crowd, a leader, shouts out, “let him save himself if he is the Messiah of God, his chosen one!” And this catches on. A soldier yells, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!” And then even one of the criminals hanging there with Jesus says, “Yes! Save yourself and us!”
Zoom in a little more, and focus on this one detail. See that above Jesus’ head there’s a little sign hanging there, and it says, “This is the King of the Jews.” Dwell on that detail for a minute. It was a joke, really—a cruel joke someone thought of, maybe at the last minute. Was it one of the soldiers? Did he say to his friends, “Hey, I got an idea. Let’s make a sign and hang it on the cross. What should it say?” Or was he one of those who had been in the room when Pilate asked Jesus, “Are you the king of the Jews?” And maybe he heard Jesus respond: “You say so.” In any case, someone made that sign, the one that said, “This is the King of the Jews” and then attached it to the top of that cross.
Usually, when someone is crowned king, it doesn’t go like that. Recently, with Prince William’s engagement, the cameras have zoomed in on Britain’s royal family, and some of that attention has fallen on Prince Charles, who will assume the throne once Queen Elizabeth dies. When that happens, we can expect an uber-extravagant coronation ceremony—an international television event with all eyes on the crown as it is carefully lowered onto Prince Charles’ head. Then at some point, there will be a grand pronouncement: “This is the king.”
The pronouncement of Jesus’ kingship wasn’t quite so austere. No pomp, no circumstance. Just a soldier’s spur-of-the-moment joke, hand-written on a sign that got tacked to the cross: “This is the King of the Jews.” A cruel, sober reminder that Jesus isn’t like other kings—that Jesus’ kingdom isn’t like other kingdoms. It’s sort of the upside down kingdom—the kingdom where the first are in fact last and the last are first, the poor are rich and the rich are poor, where the meek inherit everything. It’s the kingdom where you love your enemies and pray for the people who persecute you—the kingdom where you are blessed if you mourn, blessed if you hunger, and blessed if you thirst. It’s all upside down. It’s the kingdom where the King refuses to force anyone to do anything, but instead behaves like a servant. It’s the kingdom where the King is mocked as he is crowned.
Now today is Christ the King Sunday. In the church year, it’s the Sunday before we do it all over again—Advent, then Christmas, then Epiphany, then Ash Wednesday, Lent, Easter… The message of any self-respecting Christ the King Sunday is, well, that Jesus Christ is King and Lord. It’s really sort of an everyday message, much like “Christ is born” and “Christ is risen,” but if nothing else, Christ the King Sunday gives us a shove towards saying it more intentionally: Jesus Christ is King.
But maybe then the question remains for you and for me: What does it mean to say that? What does it mean to say, “Jesus Christ is King and Lord”?
There’s a great story about George Buttrick, one of the absolute best preachers of all time. I recently came across a list of the top ten preachers of the twentieth century. Buttrick came in at number three, right behind Billy Graham and right ahead of Martin Luther King Jr. He was a force.
Well anyway, Buttrick was on a flight once, heading back to New York City, where he served as a pastor, and he was jotting down some notes for his sermon the following Sunday. The man sitting next to him on the plane looked over several times, and finally his curiosity got the best of him and he said to Buttrick: “I hate to bother you—but what in the world are you working on?”
“Oh, I’m a minister,” Buttrick explained, “and I’m working on my sermon for Sunday.”
“Oh, religion,” said the man, “I don’t like to get all caught up in the in’s and out’s and complexities of religion. I like to keep it simple. ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’ The Golden Rule—that’s my religion.”
“I see,” said Buttrick, “and what do you do?”
“I’m an astronomer,” said the man. “I teach at the university.”
“Oh yes,” said Buttrick, “Astronomy—I don’t like to get all caught up in the in’s and out’s and complexities of astronomy. Twinkle, twinkle little star—that’s my astronomy…” (1)
I suppose that in many ways, we tend to reduce Christianity to something we can manage. Maybe it’s the golden rule. Maybe it’s just trusting God and trying to be a good person. Maybe it’s showing up for church and looking for good advice to get you through the week.
But friends, we are citizens of the upside down kingdom. And central to our identity can be nothing other than this: Jesus Christ is King and Lord. Now maybe that language bothers you. Maybe you’re afraid of sounding like one of those crazy Christians on TV, or like that distant relative who shows up at family reunions and pesters everyone with his religious chatter.
But look at it this way: Someone is “Lord” in your life, or something is “Lord.” If there’s a throne in the kingdom of your life, it’s probably good to acknowledge that it seldom sits empty. Someone or something is always there, ruling over you. Now, in a self-reflective moment, you might say that that “someone” is you, actually. Oftentimes, we are the ones sitting on that throne, attempting to rule the life before us. Though even that is an oversimplification, because usually it’s just a part of us on the throne, calling the shots and attempting to be king.
Which part of you has been trying to rule your life lately?
Which part of your life is king and lord right now?
Is it the workaholic in you?
The voice in you that can’t imagine your life without your job?
Is it the part of you that thinks that a higher salary is your final ticket to joy?
What voice is ruling in your life?
The voice that says that if you could just lose ten pounds, you’d be happy?
Or are you being ruled by that inner voice that keeps telling you, over and over again that your job is to keep everybody happy, so don’t argue, don’t say what you really think, don’t make waves…
What is sitting on the throne of your life?
Is it a wound that you can’t let heal?
A past hurt that you can’t let go of?
Are you ruled by anger?
Or fear?
Is your king an attachment or an addiction?
Or is your “king” a certain belief you have, deep down, that the world would be a wonderful place if everybody could just see things your way?
Or in a strange way, is the king in your life your growing conviction that it just doesn’t matter anymore, so why try?
Today I want to encourage you to make room in the throne room of your soul for the One who turns all that stuff upside down.
If we were another church, I suppose this is where we’d stick the alter call. And if you wanted to publicly acknowledge Jesus as Lord, you could trot on up here and make it happen. But here’s the truth, friends—it already did happen. In Jesus Christ, God has already loved you with a love that you can’t do a darn thing about. You can’t make it more real by acknowledging it, just like you can’t make it less real by ignoring it. That's what grace is, by the way.
The real question is this: what does Christ as King mean for you today? Answering that question is not a once-in-a-lifetime moment, but rather a daily practice that we engage as we live forward in faith. God bless us as we do just that. Amen.
(1) This is a fairly well-known story, but I got it first from my friend Mark Ramsey, pastor of Grace Covenant Presbyterian Church in Asheville, NC, in his sermon "Uncomfortable" on June 20, 2010. You can read it here.
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