A sermon preached at Trinity-Mount Rainier on the Feast of Christ the King, the Last Sunday of the Church Year (LSB Proper 29C), November 24, 2019.
The King Enthroned
Luke 23:27-43
(Other Readings Appointed: Malachi 3:13-18; Colossians 1:13-20)
Today as we come to the conclusion of another Church Year, we celebrate the Feast of Christ the King. This day’s celebration summarizes the entirety of the year as we look back to how our Lord Jesus came to us and what He accomplished for us and for our salvation and as we look forward to where our Savior is leading us as we reflect on the eternity which awaits us whom He has saved. We keep this day to remember and celebrate the rule of Jesus in our midst as the Church and in our lives as individual believers as we acclaim Him as our Lord and Savior, the One who is enthroned as King forever.
These titles of Jesus—Lord and King—are given to Him because of the fact that they are His by right. And yet, as we recall that these titles belong to Jesus, we are also struck by the fact that these titles are paradoxical. In today’s readings, we are indeed pointed to see Jesus Christ as the King and Lord of all. And yet, we must ask ourselves, “What kind of King is Jesus Christ?” As we look to the Scriptures, we will not find a King who rules and governs in any earthly sense of the conception of what a king should be. Rather, as we look to Jesus our King we will find and discover the One who is the King of Love.
That our Lord Jesus is a “different kind of king” should be apparent to most anyone. The Scriptures point us to One who as He lived and walked on this earth never looked or acted like a king. Throughout the Old Testament, the prophets pointed the people of Israel to look for the day when the Lord would raise up another King like King David. This was the King that the people placed their hope in—the One who they believed would come to rescue and deliver His people, rescuing them from their enemies.
But, when this King finally came, He was not recognized as a king. For here was the King who was born in a stable instead of royal palace halls. Here was the King who had shepherds, sheep, and barnyard animals as His courtiers for His first court appearance. Here was the King who had rich and influential people from far off lands looking for Him having to stop for directions at the palace that they thought He should have been in. This was the King, but to all apparent human thought or reason, this was not the One that they would have ever thought of seeing in such a lowly and humble form.
Even stranger than the beginning of this King’s story is its ending. Today, we come to read again in the Gospel about the King who hangs on a Cross. Hearing these words from today’s Gospel, we are met with the exact opposite of what the world imagines when it thinks what a king should look or act like. Yet, it is when we see Jesus on the cross, we are once again reminded of the true reason of why when we look for Jesus as the King, we must see Him enthroned, not on a royal throne of glory but as the King who reigns from a cross of agony and shame. It is because of His cross-throne that we come to see our Lord Jesus as the King of love.
What made Jesus a King, and especially a King who rules over all the earth, was not His lineage, or even Pilate’s statement placed on the Cross that declared Him to be “King of the Jews”. What made Jesus a King was that as He hung there, pierced, wounded, and bleeding, He began the work which would fulfill His own prophesy concerning His death: “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to Myself” (Jn. 12:32).
That prophesy came true even as He hung on the cross. There He was—mocked by His fellow Jews who wanted proof that He was the “Chosen One”, and by the Roman soldiers who derided Him as a political upstart to the known order of things, and even mocked by a fellow condemned prisoner who wanted to see Him as a way out of the fate that he felt doomed to but did not want. All of these people saw Jesus as who they thought He was: a liar, a pretender, or even a last-ditch way to get out of the agony of death.
But, there was one person in this scene who saw Jesus as the King that He really was. The penitent thief who realized the wrong that he had done, that his sentence for that wrong was just, and that beside him was the One who could ever claim complete and total innocence, found in this One being derided for calling Himself a king was indeed the King of Love. And so, this penitent thief called out to his newfound King: “Jesus, remember me when you come into Your kingdom.”
To this penitent thief, and to others just like him even into our own day, Jesus, the King of Love, extends His word of pardon and peace: “Today, you will be with Me in paradise.” This is what our Lord’s kingly rule is all about. We worship and follow a King whose kingdom is not found in the possession of lands, but in the possession of the hearts, souls, and minds of those who look to Him as their Life and their Hope. The rule of our King is not based on fear but upon the loving kindness that He has shown to us through His life, death, and resurrection.
The King of Love rules over us because of what He has done for us. As Saint Paul reminded us today: “God was pleased to have all His fullness dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through His blood, shed on the cross.” Our King is the One who has brought God’s perfect peace to us who believe in Him and His life and work for us.
And so, as we look to our King of Love, we submit ourselves to Him and His rule, faithfully following Him and being about His will and work. At our Baptism, each of us were brought into this life with Christ, sharing in His death and resurrection, and bound to Him forever as our Lord. And our Lord continues to keep us in this life with Him, strengthening us through His Word, forgiving us when we stray, nourishing us with the gift of His own Body and Blood. And our King does all of this so that we might be empowered to be the witnesses of His love in the world, so that His rule of love might come to be a part of the lives of even more people. In so working through us, our Lord and King will indeed have drawn the hearts and lives of all people to Himself and made all people to be under His loving reign.
Today, we rejoice that Jesus Christ is indeed our King—our King of Love. He is the King who is enthroned and reigns from the cross. We look to our cross-throned King in faith, knowing that He is indeed the Lord of our lives and the Ruler of our hearts. From an earthly standpoint, our Lord Jesus Christ makes the most unlikely King. But, for us who believe in Him, He is indeed the King—King of the Universe, King of the Church, and King of our hearts and minds. May we ever praise Him for the King that He is and ever will be for us, ever rejoice in His love towards us, and ever witness to the power of His love to the world so that all people everywhere may ever hail Him both now and forever as the King of Love. Thanks be to Christ! Amen!
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