The Sunday of "Christ the King"

JEREMIAH 23:1-6: Judah has gone through another of the death pangs that are about to overtake her. It is sometime in the years between 597 and 587 B. C. In 597 Babylon conquered the city of Jerusalem and took its king and some of its people into exile in Babylon. The captured king, named Jehoiachin, was the grandson of King Josiah. Jehoiachin had inherited the revolt against Babylonian rule led by his father, Jehoiakim. For his part in the revolt, he was removed to Babylon. In his place the Babylonians installed his uncle, Mattaniah, on the throne. He took the throne name of Zedekiah, which meant "Yahweh is righteousness."

Two questions were uppermost in the minds of those who remained in Jerusalem. One concerned kingship. Who was the proper king of the people? Was it Jehoiachin in Babylon or was it Zedekiah in Jerusalem? The other concerned God's punishment of the people. Was God through punishing them when the Babylonians took Jehoiachin and his court into exile, or was more punishment in front of them?

Jeremiah was among those who felt that the punishment was not yet complete. He was convinced that neither king could deliver the proper leadership for the people. He called the leaders "the shepherds of the people," and he accused these shepherds of destroying the flock. "It is you who have not attended to the flock, who have scattered God's flock and driven them away. I will attend to you for your evil doings," said the Lord.

But the Lord also declared that he will gather the remnant of his flock and bring them back to the fold. He will raise up shepherds who will care for them properly. None will be missing, nor will any of the flock be fearful or dismayed.

Jeremiah extended his prophecy beyond this. "The days are coming when I will raise up for David a righteous branch, and he shall reign as king." This "righteous branch" was decidedly not Zedekiah, despite the similarities in their names. This coming king will execute justice and righteousness in the land. Judah and Israel will live in safety. The name of the king will be "The Lord is our righteousness."

This text is read on the Sunday devoted to "Christ the King." This is the king who is to come from the root of David. He is the king who will bring justice and righteousness to all the lands. He will deal wisely with all the people. His name is Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus the Christ.

LUKE 1:68-79: Instead of a psalm, the lectionary for today brings us a song from the New Testament. This song is placed in the mouth of Zechariah the priest, the father of John the Baptist. The song reputedly contains the first words to come from Zechariah's mouth, after he had seen the vision of Gabriel, the messenger of God, in the temple and had doubted God's word that a son was to be born to him. For this he was struck dumb. Only after the child was born could he sing these words.

The song breaks itself into two parts. The first part, 1:67-75, is in praise of God that God has visited and redeemed his people. The second part, 1:76-79, tells of the part that John the Baptist will play in the coming salvation of God.

The first part faithfully recites what God has done in the past in visiting and redeeming God's people. From the house of David, says this song, the instrument of salvation ("the horn of salvation") shall come. By his prophets God promised the people that they should be saved from their enemies and from the hand of those who hate them. God promised also that he would grant mercy to the people and would remember in their behalf his holy covenant. The song relates this covenant to Abraham rather than to Moses. God had promised Abraham that, when he goes out, "in thee . . . all the families of the earth shall seek one another's welfare" (Gen 12:1-5. This is Samuel Terrien's meaningful translation of this key verse in Till the Heart Sings, p 155.) In seeking each other's well-being instead of their own gains, all the people of earth shall be able to live without fear of one another and to serve God in holiness and righteousness all the days of their lives.

The second part is addressed to the child John, and it gives his detailed job description. ("John," by the way, means "God has been gracious.") This child shall be a prophet of the Most High.

- He will go before the people to prepare the ways of the Lord

- He will give knowledge of salvation to the people

- He will offer forgiveness of sins through the tender mercy of God

- When God brings the new day upon us to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, he will guide our feet into the way of peace.

"Peace" is an important concept in Luke's Gospel. It is promised here. It is promised in the angel's song at the birth of the messiah. The child brought peace to aged Simeon, and as a man he brought peace to the woman with a hemorrhage. To bring peace to Jerusalem, he died. When he returned from his grave, he said to his disciples, "Peace be with you." This "peace" is related to the "shalom of God," when God brings well-being to the people. In Jesus Christ God brings this peace.

LUKE 23:33-43: I see three crosses on a hillside outside the city wall of Jerusalem. On two of them are men labeled "criminals." The English word only in part explains the Greek word. These criminals are not robbers or pickpockets. They are warriors, guerilla fighters intent defeating the power of the Roman empire. They have plotted against Rome. They, or their friends, have knifed or garrotted a Roman legionnaire if they caught him unguarded in a Jerusalem alley on a Saturday night. They have assassinated men they considered collaborators with Rome. Their successors were the men who thirty-five years later started the battles with Rome that led to the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. In Rome's eyes, they were criminals. In their own eyes, they were patriots. Two of these men were crucified at the same time the Roman soldiers led Jesus of Nazareth to his cross to suffer the same fate.

One of the criminals kept deriding Jesus, saying, "If you are the Christ, save yourself and us." He had hardly met Christ, but at once he rejected him. Can we give any reasons for that?

One clear thing is that this man only knew Jesus through someone else. When we look at the man, we find that the words he used against Jesus were words he had picked up from somebody else. The rulers of the people had scoffed at Jesus, "If you are the Christ, save yourself, come down from the cross, and show us." That man had simply repeated that wicked refrain. He did not know Jesus himself, who he was, what he stood for. He simply mimicked what others were saying about him.

There was a second reason for the man's rejection. The poor man had no idea of what Jesus' power was like. Come down from the cross, bring us down, he said. He wanted Jesus to do something dramatic. Sometimes Jesus does that, and we know some of those stories. But most of the time Jesus works in quiet ways. He asks us to love one another as he has loved us. He asks us to be patient and kind, not return evil for evil, love what is honorable and good and true. Nothing dramatic here. But do it over and over and over again, and your life changes. Soon people look at you and look at Jesus, and, glory to God, they don't see much difference! But the man on the cross did not understand this, so his was the cross of rejection. He did not know Jesus first hand, he had no idea of the true nature of Jesus' power.

The man hanging on the other side of Jesus heard what his companion had said, and he rebuked him, "Do you not fear God, since we are under the same condemnation that Jesus is?" And he turned to Jesus and said, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." And Jesus replied, "Truly, I say to you, today you shall be with me in Paradise." These brief words of Jesus turned a cross of condemnation into the cross of renewal.

"Today," said Jesus, "you shall be." Shakespeare's Hamlet put the question bluntly. Faced with life or death he said, "To be or not to be." C. S. Lewis, the fine Christian writer whose books have helped many of us grow in the Christian faith, confronted this same question. Late in life Lewis, a confirmed bachelor, fell in love and married. Almost within the year, his wife became ill with cancer, and she died. Lewis, for all his Christian faith, was beside himself. Where is she? he kept asking. Is she in the grave, dust to dust? Is she with God in heaven? Is she only in my memory? Is she - nowhere? To be - or not to be! Someone said the main question in life is this: how do we punctuate the sentence of our life. The story of every life has its nouns and verbs, its adjectives and adverbs and prepositions. When the story of our life is written, with what punctuation mark does it end? Does it end with a period, this is it, there is nothing more? Does it end with a question mark, is there more to life than this? Does it end with a comma, punctuating the story of our life into something finer and greater? Or does it end with an exclamation mark: Now is Christ risen from the dead, the first fruits of them that sleep! That's it, of course. Today, said Jesus to this man whom he had never met before, who was facing death in the next hour, the next moment, "Today," said Jesus, "You shall be!"

"With me." All of us speculate on what life after death will be like. All I can tell about it is this: God will be there. And Christ. And those who love God and Christ. And those whom God and Christ love. "Today," said Jesus, "You will be - with me."

"In Paradise." That was Jesus' last word to the man next to him. In Jesus' day, Paradise was a great walled garden in Persia. It belonged to the king of all the Persians. It was placed in the middle of a desert. A stream of water ran through it. Trees were there, and fruit, and flowers, lovely shade from the heat of the day, animals to hunt in plenty because the king himself stocked Paradise with animals for the hunt. That was Paradise. Only those were received into this Paradise whom the king himself had invited, good and personal friends of the king. To this man beside him, king Jesus says, "Today you shall be with me in Paradise."

It is a remarkable statement. The man to whom it was said was no friend of any king. He was someone who was hunted down by Rome's soldiers. He was someone who had been forced to live his life in the cruel deserts of Judea, burned by the sun by day, chilled by the wind at night, eking out his daily bread from the few spiny cacti of the desert. To this one Jesus said, You shall be with me in Paradise, that beautiful garden, his situation all turned around, human needs met, a friend of the king himself. Remarkable.

There is another remarkable thing about this. This is the only time in his ministry that Jesus used the word, "Paradise." To no one else but this condemned criminal does he say it. It is as if Jesus had held this one word all his life until it could be spoken to the one person who needed it most, the one whose situation it most perfectly fit. This remarkable incident tells me something about Jesus that I need to know. Jesus takes all our personal needs into account in his dealing with us. We are not numbers to him, not a social security number, not a telephone number, not a credit card number, not a welfare number. We are persons, we have names, we have personalities, we all are distinct from one another, we are all loved by Jesus Christ, as he said to the one person above all others who needed to hear it. "Today you are with me in Paradise." When the man turned to him and said, "Remember me," Jesus transformed his cross from a cross of condemnation to a cross of renewal.

There is a third cross on that hillside. It is the cross of Jesus Christ. It is the cross of redemption. On that cross Jesus fought the greatest battle of all time. In his battle, all the powers of evil raged against Jesus. On that cross they were defeated, once for all, defeated so completely, that their power over human life, over us, was broken for all time.

Desertion had put Jesus on that cross. The disciples were present when Jesus was arrested in the Garden. They did not raise a hand to help him. Instead, they all deserted him and fled. The sin of desertion was there on that cross.

Betrayal had put him there. The priests had come to Judas with a proposition. "Thirty pieces of silver for you, if you tell us where we can arrest him." Judas did, and the soldiers came. Betrayal by a friend had put Jesus on the cross.

Denial had a part in sending Jesus to that cross. Simon Peter had stood in the courtyard of the high priest in Jerusalem. "You are a follower of that man," someone said to him. And he denied it. Denial had put Jesus on that cross.

Pride had a part as well. The Jewish priests were proud of their religion. Jesus had challenged their religion. Jesus had said that the temple would be destroyed. He had said that the law did not bring salvation. Jesus had said that the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath. Everyone of these words cut into their cherished beliefs, and they plotted to kill him for it. Pride of self, pride of religion, pride of nation helped to put Jesus on the cross.

Indifference played its part. Note what the Scripture said, "People stood by watching." No one lifted a hand to bring him down. No one went running to the Sanhedrin to say, "You can't do this dastardly thing." They just stood by and watched.

Violence played a part in it, and the arrogance of power that produced that violence. Rome looked upon itself as the greatest power in the world. This little Galilean fellow Jesus was getting in their way. Dispatch him. They fastened a crown of thorns upon his head. They nailed him to a cross. Violence put him there, too.

Death itself fought against him. The weakened body of Jesus Christ fought against it, but the flesh was weak. Jesus had sustained bloody wounds, and his body could not staunch them. He tried to breathe, but the muscles in his neck would not hold up his head, and as it lowered it cut off his supply of air, asphyxiation. The shock of hanging with his arms above him drove life from his frail body. Death was in the battle against him as well.

So - betrayal, denial, desertion, pride, indifference, violence, arrogance, death itself - every power of evil we can think of had a hand in putting Jesus on the cross. But now watch what Jesus did in the face of this onslaught. He said, "Father, forgive them, they know not what they do." His forgiveness was more powerful, far more powerful than all this evil. His forgiveness breaks the power of every sin. He said, "Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit." Even pain and death and loneliness could not conquer his faithfulness to his father, his faithfulness was far more powerful than these. He said, "I will love you to the end." And he does. He loves us beyond all those things that we do to him. He loves us to the end of his earthly life. He loves us till the end of our lives. He loves us to the end of the world. He loves us beyond any conceivable end of life that we can imagine. Betrayal, denial, desertion, pride, indifference, arrogance, death, all these fought against Christ as he hanged upon that cross. None of them could prevail against his forgiveness, his faithfulness, his love. When the smoke and fog and dust of battle had lifted, there is Jesus, standing still. The victim of sin has become the victor over every form of sin.

I see three crosses on a hillside outside the city wall of Jerusalem. On the middle cross is our king, Jesus. He has a crown upon his head, a crown of thorns. He has retainers around him, the soldiers, the priests, the indifferent crowd. He had a royal robe, a soldier's cloak, thrown around him, but now that had been taken away. This is our king, and he offers us a new concept of kingship. This king is the one who was despised and rejected of men. This king has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. This king was bruised for our iniquities and wounded for our transgressions. This king is the lamb that was slain. This king is King of kings and Lord of lord. And he shall reign forever and ever.

COLOSSIANS 1:11-20: The region of Phrygia, to which this letter was sent, was a spawning ground for enthusiastic cults and new forms of religion. Heiropolis was the home of the Stoic teacher Epictetus, a slave who may have had some knowledge of Christianity. Laodicea had numerous Jews, though they compromised easily with heathenism. A number of papyri found in the area indicate that belief in magic and fear of the demonic were important parts of folk religion in the Greco-Roman world. The "power" terminology and "cult" descriptions in the letter to the Colossians suggest that this may have been the background of the "heresy" in Colossae.

Heroditus (5^th c. BC) tells us that Colossae was a great city of Phrygia, one of the places where King Xerxes halted his army before the invasion of Greece, 480 BC. Xenophon (4^th c. BC) called it "a populous city, prosperous and great." But it began to lose population and influence. By the time that Ptolemy the geographer wrote of the area, he did not even mention Colossae in his enumeration of towns, though his list includes several inconsiderable places. At the time Paul wrote his letter, Colossae was in the Roman province of Asia, controlled by a Roman pro-consul, headquartered in Ephesus. It was the least important town to which Paul addressed a letter.

The church at Colossae was founded by Epaphras, an assistant of Paul's and a native of the city. Onesimus also was from this city. Philemon may have been a member of the church here, as was Onesimus. There was trouble in the church, which was a mixture of gentile and Jewish elements. Judaism stressed circumcision, sabbaths, and festivals, Gentiles emphasized philosophy and elemental spirits. Most Christians in Colossae were Gentile. No single identification of the error at Colossae is thoroughly convincing. The heresy has been assigned to Essenism, mysticism, Greek pagan cults, gnosticism, Christian gnosticism, and other forms of syncretistic religion. The most we can say is that the error was a syncretism of Jewish, Gentile, and Christian features that diminished the all-sufficiency of Christ's salvation and his personal pre-eminence.

The letter itself was written in conjunction with Philemon, the Letter to the Philippians, and possibly the Letter to Ephesians. It was carried to Colossae by Tychichus and Onesimus. Since Colossae was destroyed by an earthquake in 61 AD, it must have been written before or about that time.

The beginning of the Letter to the Colossians (which is not included in the current lection) follows the usual pattern of Paul's letters. He describes himself as "an apostle of Jesus Christ." He adds that being an apostle was not of his own choosing but that he is an apostle "by the will of God." The letter is addressed to "the saints and Christian brothers in Christ in Colossae." This seems to be the self-designation of the group of Christians that had gathered around James, the brother of the Lord. They were a group that considered Jesus Christ to be the fulfillment of the Jewish way of life (someone has called them "Torah-observant Christians," and I think this is a good description of them). Their faith was built around the Old Testament and the synagogue, and their Bibles and their worship centered around the Hebrew language and Hebrew practices. As such, their positions on the faith were considerably different than Paul's, and some of the things said in this letter are directed to those differences. Paul concludes with his familiar formula: "Grace to you and peace." This combines both a Greek and a Jewish greeting. Greeks greeted each other with the word charis, "grace." It was both an hello and goodbye in the Greek language. Jewish people greeted each other with the word "shalom," "peace," "may the well-being of God be with you." Since the Christian church included both Jews and Greeks, this greeting has an inclusive "feel" to it. The greeting ends with the words "from God our Father." Is the omission of the usual "and our Lord Jesus Christ" done in deference to the monotheistic beliefs of these Torah-observant Jews who had a hard time believing that they had any other Lord than God himself?

The first half of the present text (1:11-14) commingles praise to God with praise to Christ. The Torah-observant Christians would be more comfortable with praise to God; Paul's followers know how the thinking of Paul raises Christ to equal honor with God.

God, says this passage, strengthens us with power. This power grants us endurance, that strong word used constantly to remind the church that it has to persevere in whatever sufferings and trials come upon it. But this power also grants that our patience (a synonym for "endurance") will be carried out with joy. God has also rescued us from the powers of darkness. In those societies in which light came only from the sun and a few flickering candles darkness was a fearsome thing, the abode of evil, and people wanted to be delivered from that darkness. The Father has transferred us, said the author, into the kingdom of his beloved Son.

Now the author of the letter begins to talk about the Son. Through the Son the Father has redeemed us; through the forgiveness offered through Christ he has disentangled us from the sins that have strangled us. This is why, says the author, we can live joyfully and give thanks to the Father. Through the Son, the Father has enabled us to live no longer in darkness and in sin but has caused us to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light.

The second half of the lection, 1:15-20, talks of a view of Christ held by the Pauline Christians but not of the Jewish Christians, and this passage is the attempt of the Pauline group to introduce these ideas to the other group.

"Christ is the visible image of the invisible God." In other words, we do not see God, but we do see Jesus Christ. As the image of God, Christ perfectly carries in his person all that God is. He was present with God before creation took place. By him or in him all things in heaven and earth, both visible and invisible, were created. All things were created for him. In other words, when the purpose of creation is finally revealed, that which holds creation together, its love and faith and hope, will be the love and faithfulness and hopefulness demonstrated in Jesus Christ. These powerful ideas have been extremely significant in Christian faith and life, for they became incorporated in the Nicene Creed that has for centuries been one of the creeds that has been formative for Christian life generations upon generations.

"He is the head of the church." "Head" can mean "the one who is authoritative in the church," the one whose words and works are to be obeyed by all who are part of the church. "Head" can also mean "the source of the church," the one in whom the church began and from which its faith and life flows from the beginning until the end.

"He is the first-born of the dead," the one whose resurrection opened the way for the resurrection of all. The Jewish-Christians did not emphasize the resurrection of Jesus as much as they did his ascension. That latter act is not mentioned here. It is the resurrection that is given first place. He is Lord not because he ascended into heaven but because he was the first to be raised from the dead, and that gives him pre-eminence in (makes him Lord of) all things.

"In him all the fulness of God was pleased to dwell." Do you want to know what God would say if God were here? Listen to what Jesus Christ says. Do you want to know what God would do if God were here? Watch what Jesus Christ does. Do you want to know the internal characteristics of God? Study the character of Jesus Christ. Do you want to know the purposes that God intends to fulfill in this cosmos? Meditate upon the purposes Jesus Christ served when he was among us. In Jesus all the fulness of God is pleased to dwell.

"Through him God reconciled himself to all things, and this reconciliation takes place through the blood of the cross." Around the cross we see arrayed against Jesus all the forces of evil that work in human life. There was denial, in Peter. There was betrayal, in Judas. There was naked power, in Pilate and his soldiers. There was pride, in the priesthood. There was greed, in the money-changers of the temple. There was indifference, on the part of the crowd. All of these fought against what God was doing in Christ. Any of these might have prevailed over him. But none did. In the face of denial and betrayal, there was the faithfulness of Jesus Christ. In the face of violence and naked power, there was the love of Jesus Christ. In the face of indifference to suffering humanity, Christ suffered everything that any human being had ever suffered. In this struggle on the cross, God reconciled human kind to himself. Reconciliation means to put together again that which is broken, with no parts left over. God through Christ did that on the cross.