Loving God, you turn the ways of the world upside down, for your power is made perfect in weakness.  We worship you through the one who not only rules, but serves – our Saviour, Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

    When you picture Jesus, hanging on the cross with a crown of thorns on his head, and a sign above him saying, “This is the King of the Jews,” what do you see?  Do you see somebody whom you would laugh at and mock and tell him to save himself?  Do you see a historical figure who lived hundreds of years ago but has nothing to do with you?  Do you see the Son of God, giving himself for the life of the world?  Do you see what human sinfulness can do?  Do you see a hopeless cause who could have had a large following but got crucified instead?  Or, do you see the King of the Universe?

    It is certainly not a picture that matches our usual definition of a king.  It seems to be a picture of weakness rather than power -- of servanthood rather than lordship – of defeat rather than victory.  This is not a picture of others giving themselves for the king.  Instead, this is a picture of the king giving himself for others.  This picture takes us to the crux of our faith and really asks us what it is that we believe about this Jesus.  Do we believe the things that we are told in our Scripture readings for today?  And, perhaps even more importantly, what difference does Jesus make in our day to day lives?

    We’ll get to that in a moment, but first a little bit about Jesus from today’s readings.  We find a rather amazing description of Jesus in our reading from Colossians.  In fact, you could almost do an entire Bible study on each statement that is made.  Here, we encounter Jesus as the Son of God who redeems us and forgives all our sins.  Through this same Jesus, God has reconciled all things in heaven and on earth to himself.  That includes us, and it happened through Jesus offering himself on the cross.

    However, Jesus was not just an offering for sin.  He is also described as “the image of the invisible God” and the one who has the fullness of God living within him (Col. 1:15, 19).  In other words, when we see what Jesus is like, we see what God is like.  While Jesus certainly was born and lived and died as a human being, it is also made clear that he was there with the Father and the Holy Spirit at creation.  That’s why we have always talked about Jesus being both fully human and fully divine.  Finally - and still in Colossians - we discover that Jesus is “the firstborn from the dead” (1:18), the head of the Church, and the one who will reign over all things in the kingdom of God.

    All of this tells us quite a bit about who Jesus is, while our gospel gives us a clearer picture of what Jesus is like.  I would like you to try and imagine for a moment that you have just been unjustly condemned to death, flogged, abused and then nailed to a cross.  Imagine then uttering a prayer to God saying, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing” (Lk. 23:34).  This is what Jesus is like.  His concern and his love are always for the sinful human beings who populate the earth – even the ones who crucify him.

    In fact, we see this same love and mercy in Jesus’ response to the criminal who is hanging on the cross next to him.  All we know about this man is that he had done something that got him crucifixion as his sentence.  He knows that he deserves his sentence, and he knows that Jesus doesn’t deserve his.  In an amazing expression of faith, he asks Jesus to remember him when he comes into his kingdom (Lk. 23:42).  And Jesus, who knows how God delights in forgiving repentant sinners, promises that they will see each other that same day in Paradise.

    This is a bit of an aside, but some people have used this particular story as an excuse to wait until the very end before repenting.  However, for the criminal on the cross, this was his very first encounter with Jesus.  It is an entirely different thing to encounter Jesus earlier in your life and then to say, “I think I’ll wait until later.”  Just something to think about...

    And so we come to the bigger question of how Jesus relates to our day to day lives.  This takes us back for a moment to our original question of what we see when we picture Jesus on the cross.  When we are able to see the one who loves us - the one who gave himself for us - the one who broke the power of sin and death - that is when Jesus begins to have an impact on our lives.  When we know that we are created and loved by God, redeemed by Jesus and empowered by the Holy Spirit, the way that we live our lives on this earth changes.

    For one thing, when Jesus is our Lord and Saviour, all of our decisions and our actions flow out of that relationship.  When we face a major decision in our lives, we don’t just say “what do I want?” or “what do we want?”.  Instead, we pray about it, and we seek God’s direction and guidance, and we take into account Jesus’ example of loving service and God’s priorities for our lives.  Similarly, we don’t act based on what feels good at the time or even what seems the safest.  Instead, we act out of love for God and for the people around us, aware of God’s call to service as well as the gifts that God has given us.

    At the same time, we are given a picture today in the reading from Colossians of strength, and patience, and joy, and gratitude, which are all part of belonging to Jesus.  As people who believe in Jesus, we have access to the strength that comes from God’s glorious power (Col. 1:11).  We also have access to gifts of the Spirit like joy and patience and peace.  Through faith in Jesus Christ, we are given an inheritance of eternal life and citizenship in the kingdom of God.  As Paul reminds us today, awareness of this inheritance and of God’s power can lead to joyfully giving thanks to God.

    Finally, there is the removal of any need to fear when we truly believe that Christ is King!  Lately I have been noticing this theme over and over again in various Scripture passages, and in today’s readings, it shows up again.  “Therefore we will not fear” (Ps. 46:2).  “They shall not fear any longer” (Jer. 23:4).  When God is in charge, there is no need to fear.  When we belong to Jesus, there is no need to fear.  Yet, many of us do it anyways.

    I have been learning recently that at least 90% of the things that we worry about never happen, and that the word FEAR actually stands for False Evidence Appearing Real.  Fear is actually a natural human response when our lives are in danger, yet most of the time our lives are not in danger and we’re still feeling fear.  What our faith in Jesus challenges us to do is to move from fear to trust.

    Are we dying? – Jesus has conquered death.  Are we facing pain or suffering? – Jesus has faced the same, and is right there with us.  Are we facing an uncertain future? – God is the one who’s in charge, and those who live out their faith in Jesus Christ always seem to have enough.  “Therefore we will not fear, though the earth be moved, and though the mountains shake in the depths of the sea” (Ps. 46:2).

    Strangely enough, the one who hangs on the cross is, in fact, the King of the Universe – the one who suffers, the one who loves us, and the one who died and rose again.  Let us then live trusting in him, growing in faith and love by the power of the Holy Spirit, and rejoicing in the God whose power is made perfect in weakness.  Amen.

Christ the King(C)                                Luke 23:33-43
November 21, 2010                            Colossians 1:11-20
St. Luke’s Zion Lutheran Church                        Psalm 46
Pastor Lynne Hutchison                            Jeremiah 23:1-6
© 2010 Lynne Hutchison  All Rights Reserved