Christ the King Nov. 25, 2001

Jeremiah 23: 1-6 Luke 23: 32-43

If you like to read long novels you are a person of faith, for when you open a thick book - maybe 1000 pages long - you are expressing the faith that there is going to be an end, an appropriate conclusion that makes all that reading worthwhile. Can you imagine reading through War and Peace, or Les Miserable, or some other classic work, only to discover - after days of reading - that the book breaks off abruptly with the word “but” or “and”? You might throw the book down and say “That’s it? I plowed through all these pages and I don’t get to see how it comes out? It just leaves me hanging with the story up in the air???? ” When we read a long book we expect an end. We may or may not be able to anticipate what that end will be, but we keep reading because we have faith that there will be some sort of an end that makes our reading worthwhile.

Our kids who row for the crew team have a basic faith - a faith that there will be a finish line out there, some 1500 meters away. There are lots of things the crew can’t know, like whether they’ll cross the line first, last, or in the middle of the pack; or whether they may be dealing with choppy waters, or smooth; or rowing against a headwind, or with a helpful gust. You can’t know, day by day, what the conditions will be - but the crew does know that there’s an end that can be counted on. Can you imagine rowing a race in which the judges might just take away the finish line, or keep extending it whenever you drew near, so that you rowed into infinity? No one would willingly enter such an absurd race. But a crew has faith that there’s going to be an end, a trustworthy and reliable one, and because they are sure of that they can invest their energy in the race.

Any woman who decides to become pregnant and carry a child is a person of faith, trusting that there will be an end to that 9 month pilgrimage. She can’t know for sure what the end of the journey will be - a boy, a girl, or maybe triplets! a healthy child or a weak one. She can’t know for sure that she’ll succeed in finishing the 9 month pilgrimage, for tragic losses sometimes come along the way, but I assume it must be a great comfort to any mother-to-be to know that a pregnancy can’t go forever. And knowing that there is an end ahead, helps people to face the challenges that come along the way.

Heres' the point: If you think there’s going to be an appropriate end you can endure a lot in the interim - whether reading a book, rowing a race, carrying a child, spending time in the hospital, the prison, or the dentist chair, or just working a long, hard day. And if you have faith that there will be an appropriate end to life you will have strength and reason to live it now - which brings us to a basic conviction in our Christian faith, and our observance of this, the last Sunday in the Christian year, a day called the Festival of Christ the King.

Yes, this is the last Sunday of the Church year, though not, of course of the regular calendar. Just to remind you, we start next week at the very beginning of the great cycle, with Advent, four Sundays in a season of preparation for the Messiah. Then comes Christmas season - the “12 Days of Christmas” in which we celebrate Jesus’ birth, and Epiphany - during which we focus on the ways in which Jesus, the “light of the world” revealed God’s will and nature. Then comes Lent, the solemn time of preparation for Holy Week, followed by Easter - a celebration of the Risen Christ - and Pentecost, which tells of the coming of the Holy Spirit. Then from June till late November we settle in for the long haul, the “Sundays after Pentecost,” or “Ordinary Time,” in which we read and preach about the growth of the church and the expansion of God’s Kingdom. And what’s the point of it all? The point is that the calendar becomes a spiritual guide, taking us on a yearlong lesson about what God has done for us through Jesus. We follow the calendar and remember his anticipated birth, his incarnation, his work, his teachings, his death and resurrection, his presence through the Holy Spirit and in the Church - and at the end of it all we have a day to remind us of what it all means, this Sunday called “Christ the King.”

To come to the end of the year and say, “Christ is our King,” is to affirm the Bible’s promise that at the end of life Christ will be our king. That’s what our scriptures teach us. He will be there when life is done - and this is true not only in our small individual lives, but also in life with a capital L, earth’s life, history’s life. When it is done we will arrive at the end - and though we can’t know all the details we do know all that is necessary. There at the end, regardless of what trials we have faced along the way, we will meet the one named in scripture refers as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

If you ever visit the Regina Coeli church, as some of us did last Wednesday for the community Thanksgiving service, you can see a wonderful image of Christ the King. Above the altar is a picture of Jesus, not the crucifix so often seen in Catholic churches, not the broken body of Jesus on the cross, but a triumphant Christ. This Jesus stands tall and strong. He has taken off the crown of thorns, which he holds in his hand, and his arms are lifted up in a sign of triumph.

No matter what has transpired in your life, no matter what has taken place in earth’s history, we can keep going in faith, because we are confident that there is an end, a good end, and that at this end we will encounter Christ the King.

Which leads me to two basic questions for today: First, what sort of a king is this Jesus? And secondly, if Christ is the king, what is expected of us?

What sort of king? The gospel reading makes it clear that Jesus takes the idea of kingship and turns it upside down. Earthly kings exert their will and people obey whether they like it or not. Pontius Pilate was the representative of an Emperor like that, and when he crucified Jesus, beneath the ironic, pathetic sign that said “The King of the Jews” everyone must have said “Hah! Some king this is! What a loser!”

Jesus had power, but he didn’t use it to coerce. He didn’t, and to this day he doesn’t, compel people to be his followers. In some ways it would be easier for us if he were a dictatorial king. In some ways it would be easier if we had no choice, but simply were forced to be good, to obey God’s laws or immediately feel the sting of punishment, to be under the domineering coercion of a tyrant king. But the God who made us gave us free will, and the one he sent to be our king will not take that gift away. He allowed a mob of misguided religious leaders to plot his downfall. He submitted to the death sentence of a puny mortal governor. He was and is a king who will not compel us to be what God intends. That apparent “weakness” led to his suffering once upon the cross, and he suffers crucifixion after crucifixion when we hate each other, and he weeps in sorrow as we abuse those who are loved by his Father. This king will not coerce, and it is so easy for the world (and us) to ignore his claims. We see the misuse of freedom in the world around us - in murders and terrorism and crime and all the horrors of the daily news. But we also see it closer to home, in our own lives, in the broken promises, the misused opportunities, the small dishonesties “that no one will ever know about,” the harsh behavior we give to the people we really love, etc..... It sometimes seems like God’s big mistake, this gift of free will, but God and Christ do not compel us to be good.

But there are some in this world who gave the recognition Jesus will not compel, jsut as one man in today's gospel narrative did. The religious leaders scorned Jesus, the soldiers mocked him, and one of the thieves hanging near him derided him, saying “If you’re a king then save yourself, and us too!” But the other thief, for reasons we can’t know, somehow was moved to acknowledge Jesus’ claim on his life. He told the derider to be quiet, saying “We’re just getting what we deserve, but this man hasn’t done anything wrong.” And then to Jesus he said “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” The others saw a pathetic joke of a king. He saw someone who had a kingdom, and he asked to be remembered. That’s a pretty humble request. All he said was “Remember me,” but Jesus - this king who won’t compel, but who has more power that we can imagine, gave him more than he dared to ask. “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.......”

This king makes his appeal in love. This king operates in ways that the world dismisses as weak. But at the end, says God, it is this apparent weakness that is going to prevail.

As I tried to say in the opening prayer, there are a lot of forces with claims on our lives. Some of them are nothing but trouble, but Christ will not prevent you if you want to give you loyalty to drugs and the high they bring, or to money and the illusory power it offers, or to violence and the results it seems to provide. Others forces in the world are good, and worthy of much loyalty - our nation, our family, our church - but even these, if we are unaware, can rise up as rivals to the high authority of Christ.

If Christ is our king, then what does he expect of us? He wants us to welcome him, to make a place, to get off the throne of our lives, and allow him to guide our thinking, our morals, our citizenship, our family life, our use of money, our response to those who are in need, our priorities and values. He wants us to welcome him as the king he is, so that for us he can bring the blessings that only a king can provide.

That thief on the cross met his king before the end - just barely before. But missed a lot. He missed the meaning, the strength, the purpose, the joy, the hope, the confidence - he missed the here and now benefits that come from the king who will be there at the end.