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Christ the King

So many of us see only the negative in our lives? We settle for the assumption that we will never be happy until we are richer, smarter, better looking, have a different job, lose some weight...and the list goes on. What ever we do, we feel things are likely to go wrong and we miss the signals that would tip us off to the roadblocks we set for ourselves. And we give up. But Jesus never gives up on us. He loves us to death – to his death. His goal, his dream is to have us live with him for ever. Today we celebrate that goal, that dream – the triumph of God’s kingdom over the forces of evil.

Yet today’s Gospel reading is hardly an image of triumph. Rather, it gives us the picture of Jesus dying a humiliating, excruciatingly painful death on the cross. So we need to listen well when Paul tells the Colossians, and us, that it is actually this awful, pain filled death that brings salvation to all creation. That it is "through Jesus that all things are reconciled, making peace by the blood of his cross. All things in heaven and earth are reconciled to God through the suffering and death of Christ.

This we know: Jesus is truly the Chosen one of God, Jesus is the messiah, the Christ, Jesus is the King of the Jews. Ironically, in the Gospel we hear these names on the lips of those who don’t believe in him – Israel’s rulers, the soldiers, and the criminal dying along side of him. They all scorn him with words and gestures. They taunt him, "If you are the King of the Jews save yourself." The ultimate irony is that after all the jeering by the Roman guards who tortured Jesus, after the scorn of the Jewish leaders, and after the ridicule of Jesus kingship by Pilate, nailed above Jesus head was that sign: The "King of the Jews." Which despite all appearances was correct.

With all the important Roman and Jewish leaders present at Jesus’ crucifixion, the only one to acknowledge the truth of that sign nailed to the cross above Jesus’ head was that other condemned prisoner. His words, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." What a simple accurate profession of his faith. For his acknowledgment of his own guilt and for his defense of Jesus in the midst of his own dying, He is invited to walk with the King into Paradise. By his faith in Jesus he is saved. This first one invited in to Paradise was not a person of influence or power. He was a sinful man who had been condemned to death for his crime. Jesus does remember him and numbers him among the chosen heirs of his kingdom. Jesus was indeed a King, a King such as the world has never seen before. He began his public ministry by preaching God’s kingdom and today we hear him preaching it with his dying words.

Those few words in the Gospel between Jesus and the criminal hanging next to him shows that even in extreme agony THIS King welcomes the smallest sign of repentance. No matter how guilty a sinner may be, if he or she turns to Jesus, the sinner will find welcome and forgiveness. We are citizens of a kingdom whose fundamental law is welcome and forgiveness.

Today we celebrate the triumph of God’s Kingdom and its loving compassionate King.