King

Today is Christ the King Sunday, emphasizing Jesus coming into his kingdom … by way of the cross. Over his head, written in three languages so all could understand, was the inscription, “This is the King of the Jews.”

This is hardly the way we anticipate a king to come into his kingdom. We know Jesus was entitled to be king by birthright. Matthew went to great detail to trace Jesus’ lineage back to David. He was the lawful heir to David’s throne. But for the Roman occupation Jesus would by all rights be king. Matthew then validated that by telling of the visit from Magi, who confirmed by a strange mixture of Hebrew prophecy and Zoroastrian astrology that Jesus was king of the Jews.

Throughout his ministry Jesus had resisted easier routes to the throne. In the beginning the devil had tempted Jesus with easy kingship if only Jesus would bow to him. Jesus refused. Later, a multitude of people, impressed with Jesus’ ability to whip up fish and chips for thousands from a boy’s sack lunch, were ready to make Jesus their king on the spot. Again Jesus refused.

Instead Jesus chose to come into his kingdom on the instrument of Roman torture and shame. His coronation was painful and demeaning. Insolent soldiers stripped him naked, shoved a crown of thorns down onto his head, and beat him within an inch of his life. Angry crowds hissed, spit, and cursed as Jesus processed to Golgotha, the place of the skull. Clergymen sneered and soldiers mocked. They hung a sarcastic banner over him that read, “This is the King of the Jews.”

The cross was the Romans’ means of dealing with those who dared go against the Roman state. It was designed to bring about a slow, agonizing death by prolonged torture. It was carried out with the maximum degree of humiliation to serve as an example of what happens when you make the unfortunate choice to stand up to Caesar. Yet Jesus chose the way of the cross for his coronation into his kingdom.

Recently I have had several conversations with people who question images of Jesus on the cross. We serve a risen savior, they object. We shouldn’t leave him there. I wonder if the same folks will make the same connection when they get out the nativity scene in a few days, laying a baby Jesus in a hay manger. Jesus is far from a helpless infant sleeping in a bed of straw. Should we leave him there?

True, the risen Jesus is at the right hand of the Father, interceding for us. But Jesus came into his kingdom doing what he continues to do. From the cross he prayed for those who executed him, asking the Father’s forgiveness for their ignorance.

Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2, emphasis added). Before that he wrote, “we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God (1 Corinthians 1:23-24, emphasis added). To the Galatians Paul wrote, “God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world” (Galatians 6:14, emphasis added). I take it seeing Jesus on the cross was important to Paul.

I think it is good to see Jesus coming into his kingdom on the cross. It reminds us of the choice he made to be obedient to God, paying for our disobedience in the garden and restoring us to right standing with God. From the cross he pronounced, “It is finished.”

I also think it is good to see Jesus on the cross because it reminds us that to follow him we must go to the cross ourselves. “If anyone wants to follow me,” Jesus told surprised disciples, “let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.”

The truth is that the power of the resurrection is preceded and made possible by Jesus’ death on the cross. Jesus bound evil by overcoming the temptation of the devil in the garden, reversing Adam’s sin. Paul describes it this way:

In Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it (Colossians 2:11-15).

Becoming sin for us, Jesus nailed to the cross everything held against us from Adam’s sin. He also disabled principalities and powers arrayed against us from the cross. I am therefore grateful for the cross, and depictions of it. Whether cross or crucifix I am reminded of the powerful work Jesus accomplished when he came into his kingdom on the cross.

Here is the good news that comes from the cross. God created us in his image and likeness, but we chose to misuse our freedom and and make wrong choices. Jesus came in the perfect image of God and made the choice to suffer on the cross, making an offering we could not make, so we could be freed from our sin and reconciled to God. The Holy Spirit leads to the cross where we are given grace to grow in the likeness of Christ.

Lord Jesus Christ, you stretched out your arms of love on the hard wood of the cross that everyone might come within the reach of your saving embrace: So clothe us in your Spirit that we, reaching forth our hands in love, may bring those who do not know you to the knowledge and love of you; for the honor of your Name. Amen. (BCP)

Luke 23:33-43 (Christ the King C)