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Sermon - Feast of Christ the King - 25th November 2007
St Alban’s 7:00am and 8.00 am
Readings: Luke 23:33-43 Colossians 1:11-20
Today is the last day of the Church year. We celebrate this day as the feast of Christ the King. This is a fairly new feast in the church calendar being less than 100 years old and yet in a way it is an extension of our celebrations of Christ’s Ascension. But it goes one step further by focussing upon the achievements of Christ in his death on the Cross.
The church year is a little episodic. One day is for Jesus’ birth, one day for his presentation in the Temple, one day for his death, one day for his resurrection, and one day for his ascension. But the feast of Christ the King draws it all together so we have this day when we can focus on the achievements of Christ in their totality.
So its not surprising that the epistle for today is Colossians 1. Here we have virtually a hymn to the risen Christ. Here St Paul sets out in a summary form who Jesus is and what he has achieved. It was common in ancient times for Kings and generals to list all their achievements as a way of displaying their majesty. And that same style is used here to explain the glory of the risen Christ. It may seem a huge task to grasp the greatness and the achievements of Christ but this Colossians passage gives us a brilliant summary. If you want a summary of the glory of Christ you can’t do much better than verse 19
“For 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.”
That says it all really. Here is God come to earth to do his bloody work, reconciling heaven and earth by making peace through his death on the cross. It’s the other side of the coin to our gospel reading. Both passages are describing the same event, but the Colossian passage is the heavenly view while the Luke passage is the earthly view. The Colossian passage gives us a picture of glory while the Luke passage tells of the horror of that day of death on the Cross. But both passages are locked together, or should I say, they are nailed together by the Cross.
I’m not even sure that primarily, crucifixion is a method of execution. Rather, it has a more serious aim. First and foremost it is a political statement by the ruling authorities which says we can do with you whatever we like. If you don’t obey our laws we can even nail you to our noticeboards. Because, that is what a cross is. It’s a crude noticeboard. Wherever two major roads intersected in the Roman Empire, the Romans usually set up a noticeboard where official announcements were posted up. So important laws and information was left there so the locals would know what the government expected. It was a practical way of spreading news in the empire. Travellers on the road would read the messages and pass them on at the next town they entered. Its where we get our word “Trivia” – which in Latin means three roads.
However, the Romans added a refinement to this system. They began to carry out their crucifixions at these crossroads. The offence was always nailed to the cross and the offender was attached by some means as a warning to others of what would happen to them if they broke the Roman law. It was common for people to take days to die. And then their rotting corpse was left there as a sign to all who passed by that the Romans took their laws seriously. The essence of crucifixion was humiliation. It demonstrated the power of the ruling authority over a conquered people.
And this is what we see in Jesus’ crucifixion. Here we have a man who is branded as a revolutionary, one who claimed Kingship in Israel, but mocked at every level. There must have been some sense of further humiliation that Jesus was crucified with two robbers, ones who, no doubt, were notorious in Israel. And he was placed in their company. Pilate took great pleasure in putting a sign above his head reading “The King of the Jews” written in three languages so no one could miss the point. It both mocked Jesus and annoyed the Jewish leaders. Pilate had the pleasure of annoying everyone with that one act. Luke makes sure we don’t miss the tone of the whole event – humiliation is everywhere. Jesus doesn’t even receive the honour of being separated from the criminals. Rather, he is placed in between them - like a guilt by association.
Then we have the mocking of the crowd, and Luke makes the point that it didn’t matter who they were, high or low, everyone participated in the mocking. And notice what they said. They kept calling out to Jesus to save himself. He called himself the Messiah, the chosen one, the king. Well then, here is the chance to prove it. Notice that they got the claims of Jesus right. They aren’t misquoting him. They didn’t miss-hear what he had said. I find that chilling. These are people who daily heard Jesus preach. These are people who heard his wonderful teaching. These are people who no doubt saw the miracles he could perform. And yet, in spite of all of that, they hardened their hearts against him. And now, as he was dying, they stood by and mocked him.
Its at this time that Jesus uttered a very strange prayer. He said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” At one level it can sound like a very pious prayer. At another level we would want to disagree. They seem to know exactly what they were doing. If you go back to the previous chapters we find the Jews searching for a charge in Jewish law they might use to convict Jesus. But having found it they then had to find a charge in Roman law as well so he might be executed. They tried to present Jesus to Pilate as a revolutionary, an enemy of the state but once Pilate had interviewed Jesus, he quickly saw that Jesus was no threat and believed he was innocent of the charge. But the Jews had to push hard to get Pilate to act. And they certainly knew what they wanted. And yet when you read those words from Colossians “He is the image of the invisible God, the first born over all creation” and you begin to realise who Jesus is and the truth of his words you understand they had no idea who they had arrested and nailed to that cross. They had no idea what they were doing.
And yet from all the horror of the moment one man emerges who understood better than anyone what was really happening. Of all people, it was one of the criminals who recognised that what was happening was wrong. Its ironic that is was only this man who identified that justice had been turned on its head. He understood his own guilt and the need for punishment. Yet he also identified that Jesus had done nothing wrong and certainly did not deserve crucifixion. Yet he went even further. Out of the awful squalor of the moment, he identified accurately that Jesus truly was a king. Today we celebrate the feast of Christ the King, but amazingly this is the king in action. His body bloodied from the scourging and the nailing to the cross. Here is the bleeding and the dying. Yet this is the great work of Christ the King. And the simplicity of the dying thief’s prayer is touching, “Remember me when you come into your kingdom.” They were both about to die. This cannot be a kingdom from a human perspective. But the thief knew what he was asking. And Jesus response was immediate. Today you will be with me in paradise. What an answer to prayer. How many people through history have joined with that thief and meditated on those words as they faced death. Today – with me – in paradise. And as we think about the Cross this morning, and as we think about that dying thief, we can see why we can celebrate Christ the King, his great work accomplished, his reconciliation has been achieved, and so we rejoice in this peace between heaven and earth because of his blood shed on the cross.