Sermon preached at St. Alban's, Spirit Lake, on November 25, 2007
(Proper 29, Last Sunday after Pentecost (Christ the King), Year C, BCP Lectionary)
by the Rev. Donald G. Twentyman, Jr.

Texts:   Jeremiah 23:1-6
Psalm 46
Colossians 1:11-20
Luke 23:35-43
or Luke 19:29-38

Look at the cross above the Altar. Doesn’t it seem a bit odd? We are so used to that image of the Christus Rex, or Christ the King, that the sheer incongruity of it may not be obvious. Look. Jesus in not suspended from the cross. He is not even nailed to the cross. There are no wounds visible in His hands or feet. He is standing, relaxed, in front of the instrument of His death, robed and crowned as a king, with His arms outstretched in welcome. A king, ruling from the cross on which He was executed. How strange, and yet how appropriate! So much about our Lord appears to be contradictory, and this is particularly apparent in the TWO different Gospel lessons appointed for today, the Last Sunday after Pentecost, when we pay special attention to the Kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ. The first option, which I just read, is Luke’s Passion narrative. The second option, which I didn’t read today, is Luke’s narrative of Our Lord’s entrance into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday which we heard last spring before we processed into the church to the familiar strains of “All Glory, Laud and Honor.”

When Jesus rode into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey, He was making the entrance appropriate for a king entering a city in peace. The symbolism of his riding on a donkey was immediately recognized, and he was openly welcomed as the expected king in the line of David: the king whom the prophets had foretold. This procession fit the preconceptions which many of the Jewish people had of the expected Messiah -- a mighty ruler in the line of King David who would lead a revolt, throw out the Romans, and bring Israel to its final and eternal glory.

The very fact that we call Jesus “the Messiah” or “the Christ” is, at least in part, an acknowledgement of his kingship. Those are the Hebrew and Greek words, respectively, for “Anointed One.” Anointing was used in the consecration of the kings of ancient Israel, and has been commonly used at the coronation rites of Christian monarchs in Europe, including the present queen of Great Britain. Priests in Israel were also anointed -- as were the dead -- thus we have three of our Lord’s roles: priest, king, and sacrifice.

When Jesus was arrested, scourged, mocked and crucified, all was turned upside down. The Messiah whom they expected couldn’t die -- and certainly not this way! Not now! At the end of the 21st chapter of Deuteronomy it is written: “When someone is convicted of a crime punishable by death and is executed, and you hang him on a tree, his corpse must not remain all night upon the tree; you shall bury him that same day, for anyone hung on a tree is under God’s curse. You must not defile the land that the Lord your God is giving you for possession.”

What was even stranger is that Jesus seemed to face death on the cross willingly! Was he crazy? Or was this but the last of the long string of situations in which He did the unexpected, defied convention, and even seemed to break the Laws of God as they were understood at that time and place. Jesus was a rabbi who socialized with all sort of sinners, allowed his disciples to glean the fields on the Sabbath, and even taught that a repentant tax collector might be more righteous in the sight of God than a law-abiding but self-righteous Pharisee. Was this any way to build the Church?

Much of the confusion, of course, has to do with differing understandings of the nature of the kingdom, reign, or rule of God. In the Lord’s Prayer we pray “thy kingdom come, they will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” That phraseology might lead us to think of the Kingdom as being something in the future, and it is in the future -- but it is and was also in the present, for Our Lord said that the Kingdom, is “at hand, “has come near,” and is even is “in the midst of you.” The Kingdom is also present here in the Body of Christ -- the Church.

We Americans, of course, have a visceral reaction to placing ourselves under authority, especially the absolute authority of a hereditary monarch. The revolution which bought about our independence from Great Britain is ingrained in our consciousness, and when we hear of unjust and arbitrary rulers, we tend to equate that with “kingship.” The image, however, is flawed because humanity -- including all earthly rulers -- is flawed and fallen. Christ, our King, being neither flawed nor fallen, is a just and merciful ruler whose desire it is that all humanity will be saved. He even submitted to death on the cross in order to make that a possibility.

Fine. But what does all of this mean for us? For humanity?

Our Lord’s arms are outstretched in welcome as He invites all of humanity to accept His gracious offer of salvation.

There is one little problem here. It is an invitation, a possibility, not a command. I read recently, “Why would someone come to Christ if they weren't convinced of their deep need, due to their sin and sinfulness, of a redeemer?” Indeed. That is one of the major challenges for evangelism in a country as richly blessed as ours. It is far too easy to slip into the comfortable belief that we somehow deserve our blessings more than those who are less fortunate. Doesn’t that remind you of the attitude of the wealthy Pharisees whom Jesus confronted? They knew that they obeyed the letter of the law, and they viewed their wealth as evidence that they were doing everything correctly. Why-ever would they think that they might need a redeemer?

Next Sunday we enter a new Church Year, and in the season of Advent we shall be looking forward to the coming of our King. We shall be looking forward to His birth, an event in which we take part annually although it happened in history over two thousand years ago. At the same time we shall look forward to the final coming of Christ. As it says in Eucharistic Prayer II, we are “looking for his coming again with power and great glory.”

In Eucharistic Prayer B we put it all together when we say, at the memorial acclamation, “We remember his death, We proclaim his resurrection, We await his coming in glory;” and finally, in words of the Te Deum laudamus:

“Thou art the King of glory, O Christ.
Thou art the everlasting Son of the Father.
When thou tookest upon thee to deliver man,
thou didst humble thyself to be born of a Virgin.
When thou hadst overcome the sharpness of death,
thou didst open the kingdom of heaven to all believers.”