Luke 23.33-43 & Colossians 1.11-20
What springs to mind when Kings are
mentioned? Possibly it’s medieval kings with elaborate garments, crowns and
thrones enjoying banquets. These people had real power and privilege often
maintained by ruling with an ‘iron fist’, making unpopular decisions and
passing all this on by birth right to people who may be entirely unsuitable for
the job.
It hard to imagine anyone higher than a king,
the word instantly implies absolute supremacy. After all it wouldn’t have been
the same if they had called Elvis the President of rock ‘n’ roll would it? When
a football team wins the European Championship we often see the headline ‘Kings
of Europe’ if it was Prime Ministers of Europe we’d need to check again to see
if we were really reading the sports pages.
Our lectionary labels this Sunday as ‘Christ
the King’. We could have been reflecting on the time the Magi got King Herod
worried when they asked ‘where is the child who has been born king of the Jews,
or when Jesus was in the wilderness and refused an offer to have all worldly
kingdoms if he would worship the devil. Perhaps the easiest image to conjure is
that of Christ riding into Jerusalem on a donkey as the crowds laid cloaks and
branches in his path ‘Look, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on
a donkey…’
These earlier events have already taught Jesus
followers that this is no normal king but someone who has come to show them
what real kingship is about. So it follows that on the day set aside to
recognise the kingship of Jesus we find ourselves at the cross.
We heard in Luke’s gospel how one of the
criminals being crucified alongside Jesus adds his voice to the abuse, ridicule
and mockery aimed at him but you sense a mood change which would surely have
shocked those looking on as the other criminal calls out ‘Jesus remember me
when you come into your kingdom’.
The criminal has heard Christ say ‘father
forgive them for they do not know what they are doing’. He sees that this is a
king who doesn’t blame the ordinary people carrying out the orders of the powerful,
the carpenters and the soldiers. Even in agony on the cross he can’t stop
caring for others.
The criminal recognises in Christ a power
that sets people free and a truth that doesn’t need to make compromises, surely
this is the sort of kingdom we would all like to make our eternal home.
Those who mocked Jesus might have felt
affirmed if he had replied in a way that confirmed their view of all that was
happening. The opportunity to admit final defeat was there and some of his
followers would even have expected to hear him reply to the call of ‘Jesus
remember me when you come into your kingdom’, along the lines of:-
·
Kingdom
what kingdom, do I look like a king to you, can’t you see that I’m finished
mate?
·
Sorry
who said that, I’ll have to have my crown adjusted as these thorns are so tight
the blood runs through my eyes?
·
Surely
you aren’t taking seriously the inscription stating ‘Jesus of Nazareth, King of
the Jews’ are you? That’s just Pilate having a laugh, antagonising the Jewish
leaders as he scoffed at the idea of me challenging the kingship of Caesar.
·
Who
was the last king you saw that hung around with outcasts, sinners and the oppressed?
·
Didn’t
you see that soldier offering me sour wine from a rag on a stick If I was a true
king wouldn’t I have a royal cup bearer?
Instead we know that Jesus took this last
earthly opportunity to remind us that God never stops reaching out in love to
us, keen to welcome us into his kingdom.
Despite the obvious fact that this man had
done much wrong he receives Jesus personal assurance that he will join him in
Paradise making it clear that it’s never too late to turn to Christ and that
nothing we do can separate us from God’s love.
The Colossians recognise God’s rule in
everything and understand that they are set free by it. It goes beyond the
language of kingship recognising God’s power in creation itself, power that
transcends heaven and earth the visible and invisible. Free to live lives that
understand who is ultimately in charge despite all they see around them.
God’s kingdom isn’t just our hope after death
but we are invited to recognise its challenge to our understanding of human
power.
Its worth us thinking about the things we do
which fail to recognise Gods kingdom, the things that would make God small.
As we begin to understand the type of
kingship we see in Jesus it helps us recognise a clear mis-match with much of
what we value. Many of us will have come across the term ‘empire builder’ in
the workplace the type of person always looking to increase the size of their
team, their budgets, the size of their office until it is clear to everyone
else how very important they must be. We need to think hard about why we are
doing things and if they seem right to pursue them with a degree of humility.
There is a great deal of difference between
those that accept responsibility and service and those that seek
self-importance and power, between those who want to rule over others and those
who want to live in community with them.
We know that there is a great deal wrong with
our world but we also need to be people who can recognise God’s kingdom when we
see it in each other. We get a glimpse each time we see kindness and
forgiveness in action that seeks no reward, even more so when it is for those
we don’t know, find hard to help or even like. Surely these are glimpses of
paradise?
In doing these things we are not keeping
God’s kingdom to ourselves but allowing others to experience it and share in
it.
We recently had a future king recognise the
source of all power as his son George was baptised into our church. The
Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby spoke of how we are all related through
baptism, all part of the same family regardless of ethnicity or class. He was
keen to point out that this is not something only for a future king but
available to us all offering a gentle reminder that titles are meaningless to
God.
We each play a part in building Gods
kingdom every time we refuse to turn our
back on people in need, every time we exercise our capacity for forgiveness,
every time we have the courage to stand up against what we know to be wrong and
every time we try to put God’s desires above our own. We could think of it as
bringing the cross and all it stands for into our world.
It sounds logical but it’s easy to get worn
down and distracted from our good intentions we run into difficulty, disappointment
and even danger for some. It’s therefore important that we support and
encourage each other remembering that we are not alone in this. We, together,
are the body of Christ and we have the potential to breathe new life into all
we see around us.
Christ as a baby, Christ resisting temptation
and Christ being adored as he rides into Jerusalem all offer palatable aspects
of his kingship. Christ on the cross must be as raw a vision of God’s kingship
as we can bear yet it is here that the paradise Jesus talks of becomes a
reality for each one of us.
God as man and all the vulnerability that
implies is the pinnacle of his kingship and the greatest ever demonstration of
love, on the cross there is an eternal fusing of God to us which is hard to
articulate. I find some words from Ted Hughes poem ‘The Crow’ helpful:-
‘So man cried, but with God’s voice. And God
bled, but with man’s blood.’
Amen
Kevin Bright
24th November 2013
No comments:
Post a Comment