NORTH BALWYN UNITING CHURCH
CHRIST THE KING
SUNDAY 20 NOVEMBER, 2016
Rev Anneke Oppewal
Luke 23:33-43, Psalm 46, Colossians 1:11-20
Today in the service, on screen and in the words of hymns and prayers, the image of Jesus has come to us in different and varied ways.
In the readings there were the High Christological words of Paul in the letter to the Colossians right next to the story of Jesus’ crucifixion in Luke. The high Christology of Jesus as incarnation of the divine, of the word made flesh, the king of the universe, the creator of all that is, of God made man, right next to the image of an innocent man, mocked and derided, who is taken to the cross, abused and humiliated, and subject to deep suffering – dying for no reason other than that others somehow don’t seem to be able to cope with him, and what he stands for, being around.
In those two readings, on Sunday “Christ the King”, the paradoxical miracle message that lies at the heart of Christianity is brought together: God made man. The whole universe contracted to a span in one walking, talking, breathing, laughing and crying, suffering and dying human being.
A message I think we, after two thousand years of getting used to it, often fail to appreciate for what it is: a miracle of bringing irreconcilable extremes together in a paradox that explodes anything and everything we ever thought we could know about God – or man.
Ask anyone what they imagine God to be, and nine out of ten they’ll come up with superlatives that are a way away from the disempowered, frail humanity we see in Luke 23.
Ask anyone what they would imagine a divine human to be, and they’ll probably not start talking about mocking and derision, abuse and humiliation and the scene of an execution site first.
Not even when they are Christian.
But here we are. The same Christ who, according to Colossians is the image of the invisible God, the first born of all creation, in whom all things hold together, we find on a cross with people mocking, deriding and shouting abuse at him.
And for Luke, like all the other gospels, this is the high point of the story, the point where we find the essence of who and what Jesus is, more than anywhere else in what he’s been and done. Everything, from the first words of the first chapter of the gospel has been leading up to this moment, to this point in time where Jesus is stripped of every human dignity, in stark contrast with what we have also been made to see clearer and clearer throughout the gospel, his divine nature.
Here at the cross everything comes together: his opponents have come close, and scoff while the people stand by, watching from a distance. The soldiers divide his clothes and mock him. And even the person right next to him, who suffers with him, derides him.
At every turn, and Luke is unique in this amongst the gospels, Jesus’ innocence is attested. Unwittingly and unwillingly those around the cross who taunt and abuse him, address him with titles and use words that ironically pronounce Christian truths about Jesus, unable to see that the words and titles they use: Messiah of God, Chosen one, King of the Jews, are inextricably linked to the crucifixion. That the essence of what and who Jesus is, is to be found at the cross and not away from it.
The aggression levelled at Jesus is both active and passive in its nature. Jesus is attacked, bullied and humiliated in every which way possible.
The leaders and the soldiers are able to address him from a position of power and invulnerable and undeniable authority. They are in charge. They call the shots. They are the ones who decide over life and death, and they know it.
They are like bullies in the play ground who know themselves to be in control, who feel their power, and enjoying the (ab)using of it. Naked, violent, overt and active aggression, finally able to give vent to a frustration that has come to an end.
The man next to him on the cross humiliates him in a more subtle way. Thinking he’s got nothing to lose this man uses his last breath to pull another who is suffering with him, further down, just because he can and probably also because pulling someone else down while you are being put down yourself will make you feel at least marginally better. Even if he may not be able to save himself, it is good to ascertain that someone knows they are even lower down than he is and claw back a little bit of your own power and dignity even if it is at the cost of someone else. Who cares, he seems to think, I’m gonna die anyway.
And then there is the passive aggression of the “King of the Jews” sign, the sour wine, the taking away of the clothes, and the dividing of them. The subtle gestures of humiliation, the crowd, silent, watching, witnessing, not lifting a finger or uttering a sound to protest this innocent’s fate.
I don’t know if you’ve ever been subject to mocking like that, actively or passively, if you’ve ever had the experience of a silent crowd of bystanders failing to stand up for you where you couldn’t stand up for yourself. If you have ever been in a position where others were calling the shots, aggressively, and you were the underdog, the victim of violence, mocking and derision.
Even if it was a long time ago, in the play ground or at a family gathering where children bigger and stronger than you asserted their power in ways that were painful to you, I bet you will still remember the feeling, still remember what that was like, to be alone, to be the subject of derision, to feel humiliated. What it was like to be disempowered and disrespected.
Most of us, at one point or other in our lives, be it when we are children or later on, at school, in our families, at work, in marriage or during a divorce turned nasty, will have had some experience of this and know how painful it is and how long the scars of such treatment can stay with you.
How difficult it is to forgive, to forget, to recover from these things. Active, naked, overt, violence is often as difficult, or sometimes even less difficult to deal with than the more subtle ways in which we can be undermined, humiliated and betrayed by those around us. A look, a gesture, or even the lack of them, as painful, if not more painful, as words of abuse and open mockery. How difficult it is to not be drawn into a response of spite, of resentment, of the return of violence for violence, nasty words in exchange for nasty words.
Jesus’ response is one of quiet integrity and strength, of confident assertion, and gentleness. He doesn’t let it under his skin! Whatever happens, he stays who he is, generous, forgiving, caring and open. He does not hit back. And he doesn’t curl up or cower either. He forgives. All of them. Even before they do their worst. “They don’t know what they are doing he says” and suffers what they throw at him with a quiet and dignified equanimity that we all know must have been hard to muster.
The only thing Jesus is worried about in the whole of the passion story is his relation with God. Not with the people that make him suffer. His connection to the divine. His last words will be “Father in your hands I commend my Spirit” and when it all started, back in Gethsemane, sweating blood, there was the “not my will but your will”.
That is what makes him divine. Not a divine spark that somehow makes him special, but his unwavering relationship and relating to God. His innocence and his integrity, his generosity that invites others in and takes them with him into the Kingdom of God.
This Jesus is King, not because of his strength, but of his ability to stay true to his calling to be God’s image in weakness and in pain. Wounded and hurting, his first thoughts are still with the people that are wounding and hurting him and asking for their forgiveness.
Stripped of every human dignity, humiliated and scorned, still generous, and open, and attentive to another’s needs.
That’s what makes him King. Not the popular vote, nor the support of the powerbroker, not the army, not the approval or tolerance of the silent majority, not even the person that happens to find themselves next to him, make him king.
It is his relationship with God, the image of God reflecting through him, the essence of God’s being shining through in the way Jesus is, is what makes him king. Being the way, the truth and the light, being holy innocent and at the same time profoundly human in every sense of the word.
Jesus is, till his last breath, way, truth, light and life, bread and wine, nurture an guidance, someone to aspire to, to grow closer to, step by step, when we face our own cross, our own suffering, our own days of difficulty and strife.
To stay connected, in humility and trust, to the God that has made and called us into being, to live life in that vein, to be a Church where he would feel at home and would be proud to be the head of, to bear the crown of suffering for. To be people in whose lives that gospel gets written and rewritten again and again, learning with every step to resemble him closer, connecting to the source of all that is, feeding ourselves with love and compassion and refusing to give in and give up. Dignified, strong, assertive and with integrity embodying that which is of God in the world. Amen.
Image: Christ the King for Christ the King School Atlanta, GA – http://bromickeymcgrath.com/art-commissions/christ-the-king-for-christ-the-king-school-atlanta/
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