Christ the King Sunday

               November 25, 2007

     It just so happened that His Holiness, Benedict XIV, and Her Highness, Elizabeth II, were on the same stage at an Anglican-Catholic commemoration of the Anglo-Irish accords.  The crowd was huge; literally thousands of people.  Her Majesty and His Holiness couldn’t help but have a little rivalry raise its head, both being heads of churches and all.

     The Queen said to the Pope, “Did you know that with just one little wave of my hand I can make every English person in the crowd go wild?”  His Grace expressed a serious doubt about that, so she showed him.  Sure enough, the royal-gloved wave elicited rapture and cheering from every Englishman in the crowd.

     Gradually, the cheering subsided.  The Pope, not wanting to be outdone by someone wearing a worse frock and hat than he, considered what he could do.  So the Pope said to the Queen, “Your Majesty, that was impressive.  But, did you know that with one little wave of MY hand I can make every Irish person in the crowd go crazy with joy?  Their joy will not be a momentary display like that of your subjects, but will go deep into their hearts, and they will speak forever of this day and rejoice.  They will recount it to their grandchildren and them to their descendants.”

     The Queen seriously doubted this, and said so.  “One little wave of your hand and all Irish people will rejoice forever?  Show me.”  So, the Pope reached out and smacked her.

      Sorry, Michael.  It is not easy being a sovereign.  Generally speaking, not all your subjects are the same.  Allegiance can come from gentle, beneficent appeals to as broad a range of beliefs as possible or from cruel, demanding dictatorial decrees.  Uneasy indeed is the head that wears the crown.

     This is Christ the King Sunday.  It is intended to be a brief reminder that before we can prepare ourselves in the coming Advent season we need to remember that the babe we await will be a monarch, but a monarch unlike any other in history.

     Today Dr. Luke would have us look at the ugliest scene in human history.  We gaze at crosses.  He focuses in on three crosses on Calvary, three fellow convicts hanging side-by-side.  Two of the convicts fell well below society’s standards.  One of them rose far above anything human beings might design by which to measure themselves.  In the eyes of the world of his day, this man, too, was a criminal and had to pay the price for his social and religious nonconformity.  It is sad to say, but unusual goodness is as equally offensive as unusual badness.

     We have heard the charge against the man named Jesus.  It was nailed above the cross for all to see and read.  It said, “This is the King of the Jews.”  But why were the other criminals condemned to death?  One of the two was angry, indignant, and self-centered.  He picked up the mockery of the soldiers, who were just doing their jobs.  “Are you not the Messiah?  Save yourself.”  Then he adds an interesting twist, “And us!”  Yes, save us.

     The other rebuked the first hardened “dead man walking.”  He was evidently conscious of a difference between the cause of their crucifixion and the reasons given for Jesus’ execution.  Somehow this fellow saw that his fellow sufferer was the Messiah, the one to inaugurate the Kingdom of God.  He caught on to the idea late and vaguely.  And, as he so often does, Jesus promised him much more than he asked.  “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”  The answer that comes immediately is, “My child, you don’t have to wait until the Kingdom is established.  Today you will be with me in Paradise.”  This is truly God’s mercy in action.

     There were three crosses on Calvary.  One criminal died alongside Jesus.  The other died with Jesus.  I would simply suggest to you that there is an eternity of difference in the two prepositions.  “Today you will be with me in Paradise.”  Isn’t that exactly what we would expect Jesus the Christ to say?  His answer today to a penitent criminal on Golgotha goes along with what he said on another hill, at the Sermon on the Mount.  It was there, you remember, that he said, “Blessed are the merciful.”  Why are the merciful called blessed?  Partly because they will receive mercy; what you give is what you get.  But, also, it is because the merciful are behaving like God.

     A person is merciful when they feel the sorrow and misery of another as if it were their own.  Jesus was interested in sinners, not because of their merit, but precisely because of their misery.  Jesus was not in strange company on the cross.  He had frequented the company of sinners all his life.  He had said, “They who come to me I will not cast out and I came to rescue those who are perishing, to find the lost sheep, mired in the much and decay of life gone haywire, even when the muck and mire is self-made.”  It was for that exact purpose that the Father had sent the Son into the world.  Accepting people right where they were, just like they were, was his task, and he never flinched from it.  Jesus was utterly, totally convinced that God is merciful, and to be like God is to show mercy. 

     What does it say about us?  Do we believe it?  Oh, I know how hard it is to believe it.  Many of us don’t believe it.  Why should a criminal, presumably a sinner who had done bad things, be granted Paradise at the fifty-ninth minute of the eleventh hour?  There is only one reason really.  Jesus said he would do it.  He said that’s the way it would be, because mercy is the attribute of God.  Archbishop of Canterbury William Temple once said that the best definition of the Christian faith is that it is “the religion of all us poor wretches.”  Never forget!  We don’t get into heaven because we are good.  We get into heaven because God is good.

     Sometimes we long for a patron saint, a personal saint, or a guardian angel.  Perhaps we should take this criminal, whom legend calls Dismas.  He is the Patron Saint of thieves, robbers, and baseball outfielders; all those who take things and those who lose things.  Mostly, people like us.

     Behold the Lamb of God, the King of Kings, and the Lord of Lords, who takes away the sin of the world.  What happened was that the sins, the offenses, the mistakes, the wrong-headedness, pig-headedness, perversities, and stubbornness of the whole world, in all generations, and in all countries (including the USA, maybe especially the USA) were willingly loaded upon him.  He carried that putrid mess to the cross, made himself responsible for it, and suffered agony for it.  What happened was that he did not complain at the sight of this sea of horrors and did not protest at the unheard of demands made upon him, but instead took that load upon himself and let our sin become his sin, our grief become his grief, and our need become his need.  What happened was that he carried this awful load.  He carried it up to the cross, until his head touched that title they had placed above him.  What happened was that, by dying on that cross, he carried that load away, removed it, did away with it, and set the world free and all of us in it, if we choose.

     By rising from the dead, he opened the only way back to God the Father.  This is the sovereign whom we acknowledge today.  It will take a little more than a wave of the hand.  We will need to bow all the way down, make our confession, and hear the amazing words, “This is the King of the Jews.”  Paying homage to this King will allow him to say, when the time comes, “Today you will be with me in Paradise.”  Amen.         

         ~The Rev. G. Thomas Mustard