Luke 23.33-43
When 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.”
Well, here we are at the Feast of Christ the King which
finishes the liturgical year: next week we start Advent, so it seems really
strange that today we have as our Gospel passage an extract of the Passion
Narrative, chosen for this week, though, because of its emphasis on the
Kingship of Jesus. We might do well to begin with a look at what the word
"king" means. Though we often hear in Luke's Gospel about the
"reign of God" or the "kingdom of God," and though Jesus is
often called "Lord," the title of "king" is given him only
in the accounts of his triumphal entry into Jerusalem on the way to his
passion.
Later, as his passion was beginning, Luke says that the
elders of the people, the chief priests, and the scribes brought him before
Pilate. They brought charges against him,
saying, We found this man misleading
our people; he opposes the payment of taxes to Caesar and maintains that he is
the Messiah, a king . Then, Pilate
asked him, 'Are you the king of the Jews?' He said to him in reply, 'You say
so'.
The whole account of the Passion points toward the coming of
God's kingdom. When the hour came, he
took his place at table with the apostles. He said to them, 'I have eagerly
desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer, for I tell you, I shall
not eat it [again] until there is fulfilment in the kingdom of God.' Then he
took a cup, gave thanks, and said, 'Take this and share it among yourselves; for
I tell you that from this time on I shall not drink of the fruit of the vine
until the kingdom of God comes.
Then, as the apostles were quarrelling about which of them
should be regarded as the greatest, Jesus said to them: The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them and those who are in
authority over them are addressed as 'Benefactors'; but among you it shall not
be so. And he added: I am among you
as the one who serves. It is you who have stood by me in my trials; and I
confer a kingdom on you, just as my Father has conferred one on me, that you
may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom.
Clearly, Jesus, according to Luke, intended to emphasize the
radical difference between his kingship and that of the lords of this world who
desire power, honour, or wealth. Nothing could point up the contrast more
strongly than the crucifixion, the account of which we read today.
As today's passage continues, we hear those familiar words of
the thief: Jesus, remember me when you
come into your kingdom. First of all, did the man know that the name
"Jesus" means "God saves"? We will never know and it really
doesn't matter because, by addressing Jesus as he does in the last moments of
his life, he is the model of all those who in anguish and distress at the
moment of death utter, in an ultimate leap of faith and hope, the name from
which comes salvation: Jesus.
Then he says remember
me. It is an appeal to the living and present God, with the assurance that
he desires and has the power to save. On the lips of one condemned to death by
human justice, it is the striking prayer of assurance that despite one's
confessed sins, God will save.
In his response to the thief's request, Jesus tells him, Today you will be with me in paradise.
Luke insists on the "today" of salvation. In a few weeks, we will
hear the words, For today in the city of
David a saviour has been born for you who is Messiah and Lord, which is the
good news announced to the shepherds at Bethlehem. At the beginning of his
ministry, Jesus, in the synagogue of his hometown in Nazareth, having read the
passage from the prophet Isaiah that announces a year of favour from the Lord,
proclaimed: Today this Scripture passage
is fulfilled in your hearing". At the house of Zacchaeus, who promised to
give half his belongings to the poor and make reparation to anyone whom he had
cheated, Jesus declared, Today salvation
has come to this house.
So what does all of this mean to us? We noted earlier that
Christ's kingdom has nothing to do with power, honour or wealth. If that is so,
then what is it all about anyway? Well, if we look at the verse which
immediately precedes where the gospel picks up today, we will hear Christ's
first words from the cross: Father,
forgive them, for they know not what they do. And then in our passage
today, the soldiers taunt him with the words,
If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself. This is the whole point of
Christ's life on earth: he became one like us, not to save himself, but to save
us and to enable us, as he said at the Last Supper, to eat and drink at my table in my kingdom.
In essence, Christ's life on earth was lived for others. He
relinquished his self to live for others. We are called upon to do the same.
Especially as we enter upon another season of Christmas buying frenzy, we need
to constantly remind ourselves about where our true values should be. In a
world where the culture seems mainly to be "Look out for number one,
Christ has shown us the way to true happiness, and it doesn't come from
anything in this world.
It is worth noting, too, that the Gospels in general don’t
seem all that interested in Heaven and Hell. Neither did the early church
Fathers. When the Bible talks about the Kingdom of God, the trend for quite
some time now has been to understand it as The Kingdom of God … on Earth: God’s
sovereign rule breaking through into the here and now.
If we think the question is “Am I going to Heaven? Will I be
saved?” the Gospels seem to be suggesting that we have missed the point. At the
end of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus laments that many people will call him
Lord, but only those who act upon his ethical teachings can be his true
followers. That’s quite a different answer to the question. What you're seeking
is probably not pie in the sky, but, as Archbishop Desmond Tutu says, pie in the here and now. So maybe the
question rightly asked is not “what happens at the end of things?” but more
like “what am I supposed to be doing right now? What does Jesus want me to do?
To be? How will my life be different if Christ is King?”
Of course, at the time Luke’s biography of Jesus is set this
was a really pertinent question because of the ongoing theological and
political debate about who really was THE LORD. Was it the God of the Hebrews,
Jehovah, YHWH, or was it the Emperor in Rome? Well, those days are long gone
but the question remains, certainly theological and yes, political too: who is
the Lord? Jesus or something else offered and affirmed by modern culture? The
usual things people elevate as gods - power and influence, wealth, celebrity
and fame - are subsumed in the Kingdom of God by the supreme values of service,
love, self-sacrifice, and faithful community. Life in God's Kingdom is not
about self-promotion, it's about renunciation: it's about little actions, often
little anonymous actions. Life in God's Kingdom is not about what we have or
who we are, it's about what we do. It's not about what the world values, but
what God values.
This isn’t a revolutionary idea: in the Old Testament book of
Micah we read, This is what the Lord
requires of you: to act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your
God. The message is this: if we love God, if our values are God-values
instead of the world's values, if Christ actually is King, then we will love as
God loves, give as God gives, forgive as God forgives. If our values are
God-values, we can't help but live as Christ taught and in doing so we bring
the kingdom of God closer. The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. told how he would
like to be remembered, and in doing so, he zeroed in on that ultimate question:
If Christ is King, what does that mean? If
Christ is ruler over our lives, Dr. King told his audience, then my Nobel Peace Prize is less important
than my trying to feed the hungry. If Christ is King, then my invitations to
the White House are less important than that I visited those in prison. If
Christ is Lord, then my being TIME magazine's " Man of the Year” is less
important than that I tried to love extravagantly, dangerously, with all my
being.
Perhaps the feast of Christ the King is just the right time
for a personal spiritual audit: if we were to take a snapshot of our lives now
how are we doing? Ezekiel put it rather well, This is the sin of Sodom: she had pride, plenty of food, and
comfortable security, but didn't support the poor and needy. Now that’s not
what many Christians will tell us the story of Sodom and Gomorrah is all about
but they’ve clearly got it wrong if we accept what Ezekiel is telling us. So in
our personal audit perhaps we should be asking ourselves where we are on the
true Sodom scale of personal ethics.
How are things going to end? What happens after we die? I
don't know, and neither do you. But we do know the shape of the story a loving
God is writing. If Christ is King, we know Jesus waits at the end of that
story, that he will see us, and know us, and that if we have done what he
taught us, he will claim us as his own.
Our prayers for ourselves today should include the petition
that as we continue to grow to spiritual maturity we become the sort of
Christians who care for the poor and the needy, the outcast and the marginalised,
not because of fear of judgement and our place in the afterlife but because it
is the Christlike way to behave. It is the way of Christ the King.
And, I have to say, that is question and answer enough for
me.
Amen
No comments:
Post a Comment