CHRIST THE KING -- ARE WE JOKING?
Twice in recent weeks we've noticed outrageous claims made about Christ's power. It began with St. Paul's outrageous description in Ephesians of Christ's power as "far above all rule and authority and power and dominion." His waxing lyrical about the power recalls the greatest conquerors of all time
So why is St. Paul's description so outrageous? He's making this claim of ultimate power for a poor carpenter's son who was executed on the cross in shame and powerlessness.
There can only be two reasons for this;
1. Either Paul is completely mad, this is daft and crazy nonsense, or
2. God is trying to show us what really counts for power to God.
If this is God’s power, at work through Christ, then it is completely different than what counts as power for us.
Well, this week we have all of that outrageousness thrown right back in our face and made explicit. Christ the King Sunday, we call it. And if the joke isn't obvious yet, our Gospel Lesson makes it as plain as can be. Pilate makes a joke by posting a sign of "King of the Jews" above Jesus' head. He no doubt regarded the Jewish people as a joke and thought he'd mock them a bit. This puts everyone in a mocking mood, of course, so as Jesus hangs on the cross he is made to be the butt of everyone's jokes:
"He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Messiah of God, his chosen one!" The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him sour wine, and saying, "If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!" One of the criminals who were hanged there kept deriding him and saying, "Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!" (Luke 23:35-38, 39)
The joke at the beginning of the sermon today wasn’t one of mine, it was Pilates - Christ the King! What a joke!
We all know though that the best jokes are usually close to the truth, or sometimes an inversion of what’s normal. Some of the best comedians, when you listen to them actually seem to know what we are thinking. Well, God’s like that, because even though on Friday it was a great joke, on Easter morning, of course, it was God who had the last laugh.
Or perhaps it was God's first laugh?
Easter, as we know was the beginning of something new, a new relationship and Christ Jesus is the true King of that new relationship, a Lord who will someday crown all of Creation with his eternal, never-ending source of life.
In the meanwhile however, we seem to be more concerned with allowing power in the way in which Pilate saw it. We need to be honest about this
Pilate's joke, a sign of "King of the Jews" hanging above an executed criminal is a joke humanity is still telling.
If we are ever to see how the joke is on Pilate, and on us, we need to begin to see with the eyes of faith what it is that God is trying to show us with the cross.
We can only begin to see this if we begin to see what counts for power to us.
Let me repeat one more time: either this is absolutely daft and crazy nonsense, or else God is trying to show us that what counts for power to God is completely different than what counts for power to us. We must understand the dark reality that the cross reveals to us about ourselves and the way we do things.
All of human culture, and all of our human kingdoms, are founded around a collective violence of an "us" against "them" variety.
Sometimes we get to ‘scapegoat’ someone, giving them the aura supernatural, getting to blame them for our own failings. In doing this we may feel better about ourselves, but we distance ourselves from God.
Them and us is the humour of Pilate and has nothing to do with Christ the King or his Kingdom.
If you find yourselves in conversation with someone on a bus or in the pub, if you are at a meeting or a party and someone is proposing that it’s all about us and them, think about Pilate and ask yourself if that’s the humour you prefer, or whether you would rather laugh with Christ the King, because he will have the last laugh. And he who laughs last… (we all know the rest)
The Kingdom of God is the Kingdom of mercy and goodness. It is that place we can create in our communities, our churches, but also in our lives.
The last few weeks in our readings we were peacefully led through stories that told us about life in first century Palestine- following Christ down the highways and byways with his bunch of followers, hearing about the work of the Son of God when he walked amongst us. We (yes us) were getting the plans for building the Kingdom on whatever space has been entrusted to us.
In a few weeks time we will be thinking of the little town of Bethlehem – the town Matthew refers to as insignificant. In this sense, all the poor and forgotten people are insignificant, like Bethlehem, yet from them, the LORD comes to us as KING. (this is another part of God’s humour)
Next week, Advent Sunday is the start of the time of preparation for us. It is the time we get to plan for the great celebration of Christmas once again. This year, make is one to remember, not just another one when we enjoyed too many mince pies, sang too many carols and fell out over things that were never important.
Make this the Christmas when you welcomed not Christ THE King, but Christ YOUR King.
