Proper 29 :: Jeremiah 23: 1–6; Psalm 46; Colossians 1:
11–20; Luke 23: 33–43
This is a homily by Fr. Gene Tucker, delivered at St.
John's Church in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania on Sunday, November 20, 2016.
“WHAT
SORT OF A KING, WHAT SORT OF A KINGDOM?”
(Homily texts: Colossians 1: 11–20 & Luke 23: 33–43)
This Sunday, we come to the
end of the current Church Year. The theme for this Sunday is “Christ the King”,
as we honor Jesus Christ as King of kings and Lord of lords, as the collect for
this day affirms.
With such a theme as this,
one might expect to read and hear Scripture texts which extol Jesus Christ as
the risen Lord, texts that tell us about the Lord’s appearances after Easter.
Or, we might expect to hear about Jesus’ ascension into heaven (see Luke 24: 50–52
and Acts 1: 6–11). Or, we might expect that the appointed gospel reading for
this morning would include Jesus’ statements before Pontius Pilate, when He
told Pilate that “My kingdom is not of this world, (see John 18: 36), or Jesus’
statement that Pilate “would have no power over me (Him) unless it had been
given from above” (see John 19: 11).
Our epistle reading for this
morning, taken from St. Paul’s letter to the Colossians, does give us a glimpse
of Jesus Christ as the “very image of the living God”, the one in whom “all
things exist and have their being”.[1]
But Jesus as King and Jesus
as king over a kingdom that we have before us is a curious one: It is the image
of the crucified king. And, since we’ve been spending our time in Luke’s gospel
account throughout much of this third year of our three-year cycle of readings,
it is the description that Luke alone provides us of the conversation that took
place between Jesus and the two thieves who were crucified with Him.
This conversation deserves a
closer look than we might be led to give it on first glance. (Frankly, I think
that many events in our Lord’s life, as we read them in Holy Scripture, tend to
“flatten out”: We often fail to see the human realities which are part of the
events in Scripture.)
So let’s begin our
examination of this conversation between these three men as they hang on
crosses, their life’s vitality slowly slipping away, by looking at those human
realities. The first thing we ought to notice is that the king (and the
kingdom) doesn’t seem to have much of a future. The “king” (Jesus) hangs as the
helpless victim of Roman justice. His crown is made of thorns, and his throne
is a cross. His title is fixed above His head, and it reads “Jesus of Nazareth,
the King of the Jews”.[2]
The cruel reality is that
this “king” has only a short time to live. Moreover, the onlookers on that
first Good Friday mocked His powerlessness by telling Him to “save himself”.
This taunt is picked up by the unrepentant thief: “Save yourself and us.”
But, as much as it looks as
though there is no future at all for this “king” and this “kingdom”, the
conversation between Jesus and the repentant thief shows us that there is, indeed,
a future for both: Jesus tells the thief that “Today, you will be with me in
Paradise.” Jesus’ statement points beyond the immediate circumstances of the
awful reality of crucifixion to a grand and blessed future, a future which
begins “today”.
This reality is made known
by the Lord in response to the thief’s statement of faith: “Remember me when
you come into your kingdom.”
We might pause at this point
to ask how the thief knew that there would be a kingdom. Luke does not tell us,
but if we can take the bulk of Luke’s writing and his concerns overall, and if
we could ask Luke directly just what the power was that enabled the thief to
believe in the coming and future kingdom, Luke might tell us that it was the
Holy Spirit who gave the thief that ability to believe. (We’ll have to wait
until we see Luke in heaven to pose that question to him.)
The following observations
rise out of the conversation between the Lord and the repentant thief:
- The kingdom comes in weakness and surrender: It’s often been said that one cannot reach Easter Sunday without going through Good Friday first. Indeed, there would be no Easter resurrection without the depths and the awfulness of Good Friday. So, just as the Lord tells us that “unless a seed falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” (John 12: 24) The Lord’s power over death is seen in contrast to His surrender to those powers. The contrast becomes much stronger when they are seen, side-by-side.
- The kingdom comes by faith: How many times does the Lord tell someone who had come to Him for help that, “Your faith has made you well”? We read this response (or a version of it) time and again in the gospel accounts. Here before us is the repentant thief’s affirmation of faith: “Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” The thief is granted the ability to see God’s truth lying behind the immediate and hopelessness of his impending death. Faith is the key which opens the future to us, the future which includes all believers.
- The kingdom comes in power and in great glory: Notice that Jesus uses the word “paradise” to tell the thief what his future looks like. The kingdom comes in all of its power over sin, death and destruction. The kingdom comes in terms that St. Paul uses in his letter to the Colossians, for the king over this kingdom is the “very image of the living God,”, the one in whom “all things exist.” In reality, this is the nature of the king we worship and love, and it is the true nature of the kingdom of which we are a part. Ours is a glorious future as citizens of this kingdom, and it is a future that isn’t just years or eons away, but it is a future that we possess “today”.
Let’s close by
making a few observations….
- We come into the kingdom through surrender and in weakness: We come into citizenship in the kingdom of God through the waters of baptism. Taking St. Paul’s description of the meaning of baptism, we see in his explanation that, in baptism, we are ‘buried with Christ in a death like his, and we are raised to a new life in a resurrection like his.” (See Romans 6: 3ff.)
- We come in faith: In baptism, we admit just how helpless we really are. We cannot save ourselves. In this way, we are as helpless as the repentant thief was.
- Faith is the link which ties together our weakness and our future: The repentant thief’s future came through faith. Our future also comes through faith in God’s power to redeem us, to claim us as citizens of His heavenly kingdom, and to assure us – through the power of God made known to us in Jesus’ resurrection – that God can assure us of the glorious future that is ours today and into the future.
AMEN.
[1] Theologians apply the term “High Christology”
to texts such as Colossians to describe their concentration on Jesus Christ’s
divine nature. Other New Testament texts that share this outlook at John’s
gospel account, Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, and the Letter to the Hebrews.
Texts which concentrate on Jesus Christ’s human nature carry the title “Low
Christology”. Examples of Low Christology in the New Testament are the gospel
accounts of Matthew, Mark and Luke.
[2] Victims of crucifixion often had signs
affixed to their crosses to identify the reason(s) for their predicament.
Though Luke does not tell us, it’s possible that the two thieves also had signs
above their heads, telling everyone who watched what their crime was.
