Tag: Last Sunday Before Advent

It’s The King, Jim, But Not As We Know It, Luke 23:33-43 (Sunday Before Advent Year C 2022)

Luke 23:33-43

It has become fashionable to refer to this Last Sunday Before Advent as the Feast Of Christ The King. But once of my minister friends said recently he wasn’t going to call today the Feast Of Christ The King, because that was only invented by the Pope in 1925.

My friend is right, but I disagree with him.

He is right that Pope Pius XI came up with that name, but just because a Catholic Pope invented the feast doesn’t mean it’s wrong.

I mean, what’s the alternative? When we just call today the Last Sunday Before Advent it’s as if everything is just petering out so that we can start winding up through Advent again, getting excited for Christmas.

But does the Christian Year really fizzle out like that? The Christian story doesn’t. It comes to a climax with the kingdom of God coming in all its fulness and God putting everything right at the Last Judgement. It comes with everything, even death, being conquered by Christ and placed under his feet. It is the time when everything will have been made new. Pain, tears, and suffering will be abolished. I want to celebrate that before we begin to retell the Christian story at Advent.

So I’m sticking with the Feast Of Christ The King. It’s a wonderful day. I was even twenty-four hours later than I intended emailing the order of service through this week because I was so spoilt for choice of hymns and songs, there are so many that celebrate Jesus as King.

But here’s the surprise. If we take a final episode from Luke’s Gospel to explore this wonderful theme, then we end up in an unexpected location. For although we read throughout Luke of Jesus inaugurating the kingdom of God, the place where Luke shows Jesus being addressed as King is in the reading we heard. He is proclaimed King at the Cross. Of all the places.

So how does Jesus act as King at the Cross? In this strange location he also exercises kingship in startling ways.

Firstly, Jesus forgives his enemies.

If you’ve been to any of the weddings I’ve conducted you may have heard me tell the story about the newlyweds who had all their photos taken outside the front of the church after the ceremony. The photographer got all the usual groups together there: groom with best man, bride with bridesmaids, happy couple with his family, with her family, with friends, and so on. What the photographer didn’t notice is that behind the couple in every photo was the church noticeboard, which served as a wayside pulpit. So immediately behind the bride and groom was a Bible verse: ‘Father forgive them, for they don’t know what they’re doing.’

34 Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.’

A king may pardon criminals. But that is usually after they have been convicted and with a sense that yes, these people have indeed done wrong. But Jesus is surrounded by people who are wilfully taunting him and inflicting pain on him. These are the people he asks his Father to forgive. People who think that the wicked things they are doing are actually right.

They don’t know what they’re doing? They’re acting with their own free will and are therefore answerable for their actions, but this passage is stuffed with allusions to Old Testament psalms and prophecies, indicating that God was working out his eternal purposes at the Cross. So yes, they were morally responsible, but God was using even their sinful actions to accomplish his will.

So here is a kingdom that is based on justice, yes, but not on revenge.

And how glad we should be that his kingdom is like this. We have all acted as enemies of God in our lives. We have all put Jesus on the Cross by our actions, even without realising it. If God’s only option were vengeance, we would have been fried by now.

But at the Cross, Jesus says, whatever you have done to me, I offer you forgiveness. Will you respond by leaving behind the ways by which you have crucified me and live instead under my kingdom?

The invitation is there. How do we respond?

Secondly, Jesus suffers.

38 There was a written notice above him, which read: THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS.

But Luke writes this against a backdrop of rulers and soldiers sneering at his apparent inability to save himself (verses 35-37). The supposed Messiah, the true King of Israel, is suffering. This invalidates his claim in their eyes. And so they mock.

That way of thinking hasn’t gone away. It’s still present in the world. As I’ve said before, Islam believes Jesus couldn’t have died on the Cross, because no prophet of God should end up suffering and dying unjustly. To which Christians say – they shouldn’t, but they do. However, God will put things right in the Resurrection.

It’s a contrast to what we marked a week ago with Remembrance Sunday. We remembered great and terrible suffering then, but of a different kind. People risked suffering for the sake of freedom. But it wasn’t that their suffering brought freedom. The surrender of the Nazis and of Japan happened when they could no longer endure the suffering and defeats inflicted upon them.

But in the case of Jesus at the Cross he suffers not in defeat but in victory. His suffering for the sin of the world is what brings freedom to those who will embrace him.

Once again, Jesus turns our expectations of kingship upside-down. Unlike Roman emperors condemning gladiators to death in the Colosseum, he takes on death, feels all its force, and protects others from its consequences. He is like the bumper of the car taking the force of the collision and protecting the driver and passengers.

And he is victorious. For he removes the sting of death, and serves notice on it in the Resurrection.

Jesus is the King in the model of the Old Testament: slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. And he shows that truth about God not only in the way he lives but in his death on the Cross.

Others mocked that title ‘King of the Jews’ at Golgotha but Jesus was showing his true kingship in the most radical way possible – the King of Love is the King of Suffering Love, suffering for his people.

Thirdly and finally, Jesus restores.

We come to the account of the two criminals executed with Jesus. One joins with the mockers:

39 One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: ‘Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!’

But the other, knowing that they have been justly convicted for their crimes unlike the innocent Jesus (verses 40-41) , makes his famous heart-rending plea:

42 Then he said, ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.’

43 Jesus answered him, ‘Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.’

‘Remember me.’ This sense of being forgotten and rejected by society – understandably! But has he heard of how merciful Jesus is to sinners? Has he heard the stories of Jesus sharing meal tables with the socially disreputable?

And guess what? Even in the middle of his agony as he hangs there, Jesus’ heart still beats for the excluded. He responds with grace to the cry for mercy.

And he does so with a change of his usual language. Normally when Jesus talks about death he uses the image of ‘being asleep.’ Not here. ‘Today you will be with me in paradise.’ Why?

Ian Paul, whom I often quote, puts it like this:

The language of ‘paradise’ would have made sense to a non-Jewish audience, but it was also used by Jews to refer either to an intermediate state in the presence of God as well as to our final destiny in a renewed heaven and earth. It is worth noting that the Greek translation of the Old Testament (the Septuagint, LXX) constantly translated the Hebrew for ‘garden’ with ‘paradise’, so that God planted a ‘paradise’ in Eden for the first human in Gen 2.8. For anyone aware of this, Jesus’ promise to the thief is of the restoration of all things.

The criminal will be in a place of restoration. His salvation means that he, like creation, will be restored to all that he was meant to be. All things are being made new, and that includes him. As the Apostle Paul says in 2 Corinthians, ‘If anyone is in Christ, new creation!’ Jesus isn’t about locking up the criminal and throwing away the key. He truly remembers him and makes him new. He makes him all he was ever meant to be.

He has the same project for us, too.

Conclusion

So King Jesus forgives his enemies, suffers out of love, and restores the forgotten. All this will reach its climax at the end of history as we know it.

How then do we live now in the light of that? If we return to Pope Pius XI and listen to why he made this Sunday the Feast Of Christ The King we shall know the answer. Pius said:

If to Christ our Lord is given all power in heaven and on earth; if all men, purchased by his precious blood, are by a new right subjected to his dominion; if this power embraces all men, it must be clear that not one of our faculties is exempt from his empire. He must reign in our minds, which should assent with perfect submission and firm belief to revealed truths and to the doctrines of Christ. He must reign in our wills, which should obey the laws and precepts of God. He must reign in our hearts, which should spurn natural desires and love God above all things, and cleave to him alone. He must reign in our bodies and in our members, which should serve as instruments for the interior sanctification of our souls, or to use the words of the Apostle Paul, as instruments of justice unto God.

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Last Sunday Before Advent, The Feast of Christ the King (Year B)

John 18:33-37

I feel sorry for Pontius Pilate. This was the man who should be in charge – well, on behalf of the Roman Emperor, of course. But he doesn’t know what to do with Jesus, this supposed King of the Jews. Pilate should be decisive, he should be acting powerfully, but he isn’t.

Why? He’s a lame duck ruler. We’ve sometimes seen lame duck Prime Ministers in the UK when the ruling party has lost its majority in the House of Commons and no other party will enter into an arrangement or a coalition with them. And we’ve seen lame duck American Presidents when their party has lost its majority in both Houses of their elected representatives.

Pilate is at the mercy of the Jewish leaders. They might be speaking as if they are soliciting a favour or pleading with him, but they have him round their little finger. For a few years previously, Pilate had sent Roman soldiers into the Temple in Jerusalem, where some of their acts had scandalised Jewish religious sensibilities. The Jewish leaders had sent a deputation to Rome to protest, knowing this kind of unnecessarily offensive behaviour was against Imperial policy. As a result, Pilate was on a final warning from Rome. One more mis-step and he would be exiled.

So we have this dreadful, ironic situation before us. Pilate, the man who has all the human power and authority, is weak. The Jewish leaders, who should have been kept in check by a better political operator, can play the system. And the One who looks weakest of all is the One hailed as King.

King of the Jews

33 Pilate then went back inside the palace, summoned Jesus and asked him, ‘Are you the king of the Jews?’

It’s a Jewish title being applied to Jesus. Never in the New Testament is Jesus called ‘Emperor’ in contrast to Caesar. No: when the Gospel gets thoroughly into the Graeco-Roman cultures the title the early church appropriates for him there is not ‘Emperor’ but ‘Lord’, corresponding with the divine claim that Roman Emperors made for themselves. That was used to claim not merely Jesus’ right to reign and rule, but his divine status. He is more than an Emperor.

But ‘King of the Jews’ – now that’s a problem. The Jewish nation had longed to have a king again since losing their monarchy at the Exile in the sixth century BC. And it was a threat to Rome, because of Jewish aspirations to have a leader who would topple the occupying Roman forces. Jesus could be a threat to Pilate, even if previous pretenders had usually been summarily arrested and executed.

Pilate would not be alone in finding the title ‘King of the Jews’ problematic. It was an issue for the Jewish leaders, too. It had become clear that Jesus didn’t conform to their ideals and not only that, he was fiercely critical of them. Whichever group of Jews they belonged to, Jesus had a largely unfavourable critique of them.

So if you were a teacher of the law but taught it rigorously without factoring in love for God and love for neighbour, Jesus had something to say to you. If you were a Pharisee with a passion for faithful, orthodox religion but had held that in such a way that you had become harsh and judgmental, Jesus would point that out. And if you were a Sadducee, believing as little as possible and all the while being in cahoots with the occupying forces who gave you a privileged position in society, then Jesus wasn’t going to be your biggest fan.

And none of this is merely interesting historical detail, because there are similarities and parallels in our lives today. If Jesus is King, then we need to look at our lives and attitudes.

For he threatens to topple our personal authority and autonomy. We think we have the right to run our own lives. In the title of a popular play many years ago, we ask, ‘Whose life is it anyway?’ Or we sing along with Billy Joel, ‘Keep it to yourself, it’s my life.’

But Jesus says no, it’s not your life, you were bought with a price. You belong to me. I am king. We have some re-ordering to do.

Or we apply our faith in Jesus harshly, looking down on others, casting aspersions on them, acting as if only they are the ones who have things to put right in their lives, because we hold to the true and pure faith. But many a passionate Christian has turned into a Pharisee over the centuries, and it’s still happening.

And others of us would rather hob-nob with the powerful of our society, feathering our nests and hoping that some of their glory brushes off on us. But Jesus the King will tell us that this is a highly disordered way to live, and will call us to account, not least when our attraction to power is bad news for the poor.

My kingdom is not of this world

36 Jesus said, ‘My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place.’

Well, maybe here is where we’re let off the hook? If Jesus’ kingdom is not of this world, if it’s other-worldly and all about heaven, then perhaps we won’t be too challenged by it after all?

And for all their strictness, that’s the sort of line that cults like the Jehovah’s Witnesses take. Because Jesus’ kingdom is not of this world, we should not get involved in the things of this world, such as politics or economics. We can avoid getting messy with them.

And some Christians construe a version of faith that is a little bit like that, where Jesus is interested in their private, personal morality, but not about the rest of life. His kingdom is not of this world.

Except – there’s a problem. It would be better to translate these words ‘My kingdom is not from this world.’ You can see the intent from the rest of the verse, where Jesus says, ‘But now my kingdom is from another place.’

So it’s not about the limitations of the kingdom, it’s about where the kingdom originates from. The kingdom over which Jesus rules originates from heaven. It originates from the One who is the Creator of all things. And therefore, when Jesus says his kingdom is not from this world, he is distinguishing it from earthly kingdoms and empires, but not by limiting it. In fact, he’s expanding its reach.

If Jesus is King, then, he’s going to affect my personal morality, but he’s also going to affect my politics, my economics, my working life, and everything else. Many years ago, the late John Stott said that you can’t have Jesus as Saviour without having him as Lord, and if he isn’t Lord of all then he isn’t Lord at all.

As Christians we are recognising Jesus as King now, before the great day when every knee shall bow at his name and every tongue confess him as Lord[1]. We live in the knowledge that he is reigning now, before the day when all his enemies, death included, will be put under his feet, and there is no longer any rebellion or contesting of his rightful place.

We recognise Jesus as King now, because he is reigning already. That’s what the passage from Daniel 7:9-14 is about. When the one like a son of man (which in New Testament terms we understand to be Jesus) comes on the clouds of heaven it is not him returning to earth in glory in the Second Coming, for we read that at that time he comes to ‘The Ancient of Days’ – that is, Almighty God, and reigns there. This is a passage that foretells the implications of the Ascension.

At present, people ignore, disregard, oppose, or reject the reign of Jesus as King over all. But we know that day is coming, so as Christians we live as subjects of the King now. And in doing so, we witness to the world about what is coming.

The great twentieth century church leader Lesslie Newbigin once said that the local church is what he called ‘The hermeneutic of the Gospel.’ Now that may be high-falutin’ theological jargon to you, but the word ‘hermeneutic’ simply means ‘interpretation’. In other words, then, the way the local church lives interprets the Gospel to the people around it in society. If people want to know what the Christian message is, it’s not simply that we should be able to tell them what it means in our lives, they should be able to see what it’s like to live under the reign of Christ from the way we live.

I wonder how the local community looks at our church. Does it see a colony of Christ’s kingdom, living by what he says? Or does it see something else?

The Feast of Christ the King

And that is really what this Sunday is all about. I am reluctant to call it ‘The Last Sunday Before Advent’, with rather sounds to me like everything is petering out but don’t worry, everything will get going again next week.

I would rather call it by its positive title, ‘The Feast of Christ the King.’ This is where we have been heading for all of the church year since we began last Advent. We anticipated the coming of Christ and celebrated it. We marked his life and ministry, his death, resurrection, and ascension. Then we recalled the gift of the Spirit at Pentecost and the mission of God in which the Spirit-empowered church shares.

All this leads up to today. We are looking to the great day when Jesus reigns without any opposition, unlike now.

Therefore, it’s the climax of the Christian Year. This is where we’re heading. This is where history is heading.

Our calling is to live more faithfully like that future is here already, and to do so as a witness before the watching world.

[1] Philippians 2:10-11

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