As the old philosopher Ecclesiastes says...to everything there is a
season. Season follows season. In our changing midwestern climate
and
in our church year. And today the seasons of the church, Advent
through
Pentecost, culminate with one solemn proclamation...Christ is
King.
With this the church concludes its church year of seasons. Next
Sunday
we begin the cycle once more as Christians have done for almost
2,000
years. We begin our church year anew with the reflection and
anticipation of the Advent Season.
Each church season has its focus and its mood and lessons to
match.
But when all has been said and done, the last word the church has
to say
is quite simple... Christ is King. All else follows.
But how strange it seems that for Christ the King Sunday the
assigned
Gospel is a scene from Calvary. Nothing exalted or kinglike about
that. Nothing except, even as Jesus hung there for every passing
person
to stare at or mock...even as he hung there in a simple loin
cloth...there was one man who didn’t laugh...one man who called
him
Lord...one man who looked to him for mercy. It was the dying
thief.
“Remember me when you are in paradise” the thief asked of Jesus.
Christ the King hanging on the cross, subjected to every
humiliation.
It’s a scandal. We should never get too used to it, to its
incongruity. It is better if it continues to shock us, seem out
of
place. For when we grow too accustomed to the sight of Christ on
the
cross, it has lost its wonder...the wonder and the good news it
hold for
us.
The sight of the dying Lord proclaims to all who grasp its
blazing
truth that whatever indignity or pain we may experience in our
life,
whatever dark and frightening place we may find ourselves...there
is no
place...no place that Christ our Lord will not go with us. The
one we
claim as King today has seen it all...has been in the dark
corners of
the prison, at the bedside of a dying child, in the thunderous
storm at
sea, in the tomb itself. The one we call Lord and Master has seen
whatever it is that life can bring and more than we can possibly
imagine. He has gone to the most shameful, the most painful, the
loneliest places there are to go. He who has died on Calvary is
there
for you...there for me..whatever the circumstance.
For all of us there are times when we feel terribly
alone...struggling
from a burden. But whatever that burden may be, just remember the
men
hanging on Calvary...a thief accused and dying...a thief who
found the
humility and faith to simply turn to the dying Christ and ask for
mercy.
The scene from Calvary is both horrific and comforting. It’s
final
message to us...we need never be alone in our pain.
The thief on the cross was hanging there because by his own
admission,
he deserved it. He had broken the laws of Rome. Clearly he knew
who
the man hanging next to him was. He may have watched crowds
gather to
hear Jesus. Probably he availed himself to the crowds Jesus drew,
bumping the faithful and the curious and snatching as he went. He
knew
his business. He knew who Jesus was, but it took the cross for
him to
know Jesus as Lord of life and to turn to him for mercy. His
dying eyes
could see what he had not seen before when he was free...when
life was
good.
As addicts or alcoholics would say, he had bottomed out. For it
is in
getting to the end of their rope where excuses and denial and
dependency
no longer work, that they, like the thief on the cross, turn to
God for
help... turn to the God of the last straw for mercy. And even
though
the thief and many before and since have had to be driven to
seeing the
Lord of life and coming to him, Christ’s answer is and always
will be:
“Today you will be with me in Paradise.” Some humans must bottom
out to
see the Lord and ask for mercy.
Part of the human lot is to suffer...suffer as well as rejoice,
but
this scripture today proclaims boldly that even in the midst of
our
pain, we can, like the thief, turn to our God and ask to be
released
from our burden...be forgiven...be saved...be redeemed. The King
on the
cross is God’s last word to us. We are not exempt from pain...it
is
true...but the one we call Master will go anywhere to be at our
side and
hear our cry...anywhere.
We do not grow up emotionally or spiritually as persons if we
have no
struggle...no challenge, no hard choices to make. But it is the
Lord at
our side...the Lord that stands by...that enables us to get
through it
and to grow from the pain.
Pain has the power to redeem...has within its gnarled hands the
promise
of life renewed, even life enhanced. Perhaps enhanced because we
have
turned to God as the thief did and discovered his very real
presence.
In our pain we come to know God with us not out there somewhere,
somehow.
In Wednesday’s Tempo section of The Chicago Tribune, Bob Greene
wrote
of the Thanksgiving lesson in which one is grateful not for the
good
things with which we have been blessed, but for the difficult
things
that makes us feel frustrated and small and helpless. Greene
continues
saying that the importance of the painful things in our lives is
vastly
underestimated. It is often these very things that make us as
good as
we are meant to be.
Once we have experienced God’s comforting presence in our own
Calvary,
we can never be the same. Where there could be fear, we find a
new
readiness to step out there. Where there could be despair, we
dare to
hope. Once, like the thief, we turn to God and find him ready and
waiting for us. We experience life as it is meant to be lived. We
experience life with new hope and daring.
The idea of a King on the cross may seem incongruent. It
certainly
doesn’t fit our human experience of what kings are supposed to be
and
do. They are supposed to enter the room and heads turn. Trumpets
sound. Everything is done to suggest that these very human beings
are
made of better stuff...even their blood is different. It’s blue,
not
red like ours. Africans say of their royalty...”he is of the
royal
blood.” Perhaps it’s our unmet need to worship God that makes us
ready
to make human kings.
But God has given us a king...a carpenter...a different kind of
king.
We may prefer the pageantry and rockstar romance of some royal
family, but the King God gave us to worship, calls us to humble
service and love. God has given us a king who calls us to be
different...to be in this world surely, but not of it. Jesus, our
Master, showed us the way. Jesus chose to associate with the
outsiders of life...all those that other people rejected...the poor,
the lepers, the tax collector and the blind, the woman of unsavory
reputation. Jesus knew them by name, and they knew him, as did the
thief. These were the ones humbled by life itself. Perhaps it was
their humbling that opened their hearts to see Jesus as Lord, as
Master.
A young widow named Paula gave thanks on Thursday for many
things. She gave thanks for her good husband, David, who died at the
World Trade Center. She gave thanks for the three lively boys that
keep her going and loving. She gave thanks for a whole community of
family and friends who had opened their arms to her. And she asked:
“How could an act of such evil produce so much love?”
Sometimes it is the basest evil in this world that brings us to
our knees, and causes us to see our Lord waiting to love and redeem
us. As a nation and as a people, we have been badly shaken. In
September, as people and as a nation, we bottomed out in grief and
shock and fear. Those things that have always given us security were
brought into question. For some, this bottoming out was needed to
turn to God...as the dying thief did...to discover that whatever may
come it is the Lord who is our refuge and strength...to know that
when all is said and done, love has the last word. Love has the last
word. Christ is King.
Amen. |
