November 20, 2022.
Texts: Jeremiah 23:1-6; Colossians 1:11-20; Luke 23:33-43.
I had a colleague a few years back who was passionate about Christ the King Sunday (which this day is). And not in a good way. He held the very strong and immutable opinion that because we Americans have never had a king (or queen for that matter) we have no context for understanding Jesus as our king.
There may be among you some who agree with my colleague. What do we know from royal leaders anyway? But others might argue that we know enough about monarchs to see Jesus as our king. After all we’ve all studied history, heard traditional fairy tales, or attended the theater where kings and queens, princesses, and princes both good and evil play a starring role.
The Bible gives us no less than four books that focus on Israel’s monarchs: first and second Kings, and first and second Chronicles. Not to mention numerous other references throughout scripture to royal rulers. Our text from Jeremiah today is a good example. The prophet takes aim at disastrous shepherds, by which he means kings.
Jeremiah was not the first to refer to kings as shepherds. The idea goes back to David of blessed memory, Jesse’s youngest son called from tending sheep to become Israel’s second king. David was far from perfect either as a human being or a king, but compared to his predecessor Saul he did a moderately better job.
Even David struggled to remember that he was king entirely by, and for, the grace of God rather than as a matter of his own preciousness and skill. But in between his lapses in judgement and failure in moral deliberations, he managed to lead Israel with some degree of humility before God and service to his nation. He also left behind an artistic legacy of music, poetry and verse that contributed greatly to the psalms.
By the time of Jesus’s birth Israel’s anointed kings, good, bad, and ugly were long gone. Instead he was born under the rule of Rome’s Caesars who provided Jewish citizens with several of the Herodian line of pretenders and called them “kings”. They were sometimes more dangerous than helpful to the people consigned to their oversight.
In Matthew’s gospel narrative of Jesus’s birth a Herodian King tried to kill Mary’s infant son Jesus. Matthew’s facts don’t entirely match existing records of Rome or the Jewish historian Josephus. Yet Matthew seems to have struck a chord with people who experienced life under the Herodians.
Jesus clearly never aspired to kingship even though Israel’s title messiah carried a sense of political destiny. He said however that his kingdom was not of the earth. Later he announced his entry into Jerusalem saying, “…look, your king is coming to you, humble, and riding on a donkey…” (Mt. 21:5), a clear statement of opposition to any kind of king the people knew. Jesus resolutely pushed back at all attempts to endow him with purely political authority or to claim a position in religious power struggles.
The people who witnessed the event of that terrible crucifixion just stood by and watched. They would not claim this man as their king. Was it fear? Was it a sense of hopelessness that silenced and stilled them? Surely they could see the injustice of the situation? Or perhaps they did somehow think that Jesus had failed his mission and deserved this fate.
Soldiers of Rome and a convicted criminal alike taunted Jesus about his power. A sign ridiculed him with the title “King of the Jews”. The soldiers served Glorious Eternal Rome after all. The criminal served only himself. Who would grant their allegiance to such a broken and weak leader as this deposed Jewish Messiah?
When it comes right down to it, Jesus was never going to be the king that people want.
Jesus was never going to bring Israel or any other country back to greatness among all nations.
Jesus never asked his followers to take up swords and kill for his reign.
Jesus never wrote a policy or procedure, preferring to teach and heal and feed people instead.
Jesus never even owned a house, much less held an office.
This unexpected king we get in Jesus never did meet the usual standards of royalty:
He was born to an unwed mother.
His influence is not limited in geography or time.
He was unjustly arrested for a crime he didn’t commit.
He forgave the people who carried out his death sentence.
He accepted that suffering was a part of his God-given vocation.
He died next to criminals on a cross.
But see, there was one guy at the cross who may have arrived late to the Jesus crowd, but when he finally got who Jesus was, he really got it. You know who it is. That other criminal, right? The one who said to his neighbor, “…we have been condemned justly, but this man has done nothing wrong.”
This man, as misdirected as his life had been, somehow understood that Jesus stood not for anything gone wrong, but for everything made right. And that meant that any kingdom that Jesus would ever have would be the kingdom of all that is right. A reign in which everything is right with God, and everything is right with neighbor. Which is exactly what righteousness is.
Everything that remorseful man said amounted to a confession. He owned that he had wronged God and neighbor alike. He confessed that Jesus’s reign is synonymous with righteousness.
What could Jesus do, except what Jesus was born to do? Jesus delivers good news. He announces hope and solace. “Today you will be with me in paradise.” Paradise. That’s a rare word in scripture. It isn’t entirely interchangeable with heaven. Because death is not necessarily the only pathway to it. It is the reign that Jesus promises – where everything is as God intends it to be. Paradise is real. It is the dwelling place of our spirits when we trust entirely in God.
Are you still one of those who doesn’t have a category for Jesus as King? Maybe president is the best word you know. But know this – Jesus would have to be president for life. Because his concern is for the life of the whole world after all.