Who's Your King?

[This was prepared for delivery during this morning's worship with the people and guests of Living Water Lutheran Church in Springboro, Ohio. But it barely resembles the actual sermon delivered. If you visit the Living Water web site in the next several days, you should be able to listen to the sermon.]

Luke 23:33-43
Today, the last day of the Church Year, is Christ the King Sunday.

Our Gospel lesson this morning may seem like a strange text to use on a day devoted to declaring Jesus to be the King of kings. It’s Luke’s sparse account of Jesus’ crucifixion on the first Good Friday.

Kings are treated with honor by their subjects. They get parades, 21-gun salutes, brass bands, palaces. The person sentenced to crucifixion, by contrast, was not only killed, but also labeled as nobodies, the refuse of the world.

On Good Friday, Jesus doesn’t fit our usual picture of a king.

And yet on that day, one man at least, did understand that Jesus Christ is King.

Please go to Luke 23:33-43 (page 737 in the pew Bibles). It begins: “When they came to the place called the Skull, there they crucified him, along with the criminals--one on his right, the other on his left.”

It’s interesting how Luke describes the two men between whom Jesus was crucified. The other gospel writers use words to describe them that can be translated as bandits, revolutionaries, or thieves.

But the word used by Luke, which is translated in our Bible as criminals, is, in the original Greek, kakourgous. It’s a compound word which means simply doers of bad.

To me, this is a clever word choice by Luke because we have to admit that we all can be doers of bad. Look, please, at Romans 3:10-12, page 784 in the pew Bibles. It says: "There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good [not good-doers, in other words, but evildoers] [And, lest we think we can get off the hook, the passage says again] “no not one." Sinless Jesus was crucified between two sinners who weren’t Osama bin-Laden or Adolf Hitler. They were doers of bad things, just like you and me. That’s important to remember on this Christ the King Sunday.

Next, we’re told: “Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.’"

In those days executed people usually prayed something like, “May my death atone for all My sins.” But Jesus, supremely confident that He has led a sinless life, is concerned for the sins of others. He in essence prayed this His death might atone for their sins.

This isn’t a man at the mercy of His accusers or executioners, but a man in control, in charge. A king. On a cross. Willing to accept the punishment that His people--the whole human race--deserve in order to set the free to live in God’s kingdom.

Let's face it though, giving of self to the point of death for the benefit of others is not the way we usually see kings--be they magnates, the superstars of film, music, and sports, presidents, prime ministers, and royalty--act.

Their usual M.O. is built on a simple consideration: What’s in it for me? 

Three different times, Jesus is challenged--mocked, really--to act like a king, to look out for Himself at the expense of others.

At the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, He was tempted by the devil in the wilderness. Three times the devil went after Jesus to behave like an earthly king, to take power over the world without first conquering our sin and death through His cross and empty tomb. “If you are the Son of God...” the devil had taunted Jesus, “then turn this stone to bread, worship me and you’ll be on easy street, throw Yourself from the temple and give the world a convincing demonstration of Your power that will wow the crowds and do no good for them.” Jesus had resisted every temptation, you’ll remember.

But remember how that encounter between Jesus and the devil ended. Luke 4:13 (page 718): “When the devil had finished all his tempting, he left [Jesus] until an opportune time.”

Good Friday was that opportune time.

Jesus, suffering so much and knowing, because He was also God, how much more there was yet for Him to suffer in fulfilling His mission as the atoning sacrifice for the sins of every doer of bad things on the planet, was deemed ripe for temptation by the devil and those who worked for him in the world.

The devil, through his agents, once more tempted Jesus three times on that Good Friday.

And each time, the temptations were the same as those of the devil in the wilderness: "If you’re King, act like the kings we know. Take the easy way. Look out for number one. Wow us with your power. Seize control of this world."

In verse 35, we’re told that “the rulers [that’s the religious elites of the time] even sneered at [Jesus]. They said, ‘He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Christ of God, the Chosen One.’" In verses 36 and 37, we read: “The soldiers also came up and mocked him. They offered him wine vinegar and said, ‘If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself.’" And verse 39 tells us: “One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: ‘Aren't you the Christ? Save yourself and us!’"

What’s interesting is that in two of these temptations, there’s an acknowledgment that Jesus had the power to save!

They knew that Jesus had raised people from the dead, saving them from death.

That He had given given fresh starts and new lives to notorious sinners, saving them from the consequences of their sin.

They knew that Jesus had fed thousands with a few bits of bread and fish, saving them from weakness and hunger.

They knew that Jesus had healed many diseases and infirmities, saving them from calamity.

But that wasn’t what Kings did! Kings only did things for others as a way of buying their loyalty, their gratitude, their subservience.

And maybe those who mocked and taunted Jesus, like the devil himself, really knew the truth about Jesus, that He was and is the King.

In that case, they might have really wondered, why Jesus didn't save His own neck, take control of the world by power wielded for whatever ends He chose?

That’s the way kings have behaved for centuries. The Roman emperors gave the people bread and circuses in order to keep the reins of power.

The moguls of the entertainment industry are committed to giving people what they want.

They want a king who will look out for number one and to placate them, give them what they want and who will never tell them that they’re sinners lost from God, sinners in need of God's grace and salvation. Kings are egotists who through the wily use of lies, feed human egos!

But Jesus Christ came to bring God’s kingdom not to those who are confident of their own goodness or righteousness.

He doesn’t play to our egos. “...the Son of Man came,” He says in Luke 19:10,  “to seek and to save the lost."

If we don’t know that we’re lost without the forgiveness and new life that Jesus died and rose to make possible for all who believe in Him and know that things of this world that earthly kings might give us are dead and useless, we will never see Jesus as our King.

And, absent that soul-shaking realization, none of us can ever see His kingdom or be part of its. Until we understand that we need Jesus and His cross, we remain outside of the Kingdom.

No one--not the religious leaders, not the soldiers, not the first of the two criminals quoted in our lesson--understood this.

In verse 40 though, we hear though from the second criminal: “But the other criminal rebuked [the first]. ‘Don't you fear God,’ he said, ‘since you are under the same sentence [as Jesus]? We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.’ Then he said, ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.’"

I love this man more than almost anyone we meet in Scripture! He is so honest, so humble, so open to the prompting of the Holy Spirit, so ready to enter the Kingdom of God!

This man knows that Jesus is the King.

And he understands that the only way any of us can see the Kingdom is if we first see that we are sinners in need of a Savior and can confess that Jesus is that Savior, allowing Him to be our King, to reign over us with His forgiveness and grace.

But, notice, he does not ask Jesus to take away his cross!

He understood somehow what we must all understand if we are to have Jesus as our King. Jesus calls all of us to take up our crosses and follow Him.

The wages of sin is still death and those of us born into sin will, unless Jesus returns during our earthly lives, die.

And even in this life, we will face all sorts of crosses, all manner of death.

We must, like the second criminal, own our sins and crucify them through daily confession, repentance, and renewal through the crucified and risen Jesus.

And along life’s way, we must refuse to follow the path of ease and self-glorification.

In this world, we can only follow Jesus on the narrow path of the cross and self-denial.

On this path, we are called to resist the temptation to please ourselves, instead of God.

We’re called to forgo the applause of the world in order to one day hear the “well done” of our Savior.

We’re called to live according to God’s will even at those times when God’s will is the last thing we want in our lives.

We’re called to keep trusting in God even when our prayers seem unanswered or are answered in ways that leave us grieving and inconsolable.

And we are called each day to confess our sins and, like the second evildoer, ask for mercy without any pretense that we deserve it and in the full conviction that we cannot live without God or the mercy He gives through Jesus Christ alone.

Each day, we have before us the way of death or the way of life. Jesus is the way of life. Like the second criminal, we must see that there is life only in Jesus!

In verse 43, Jesus responds to the confessions of the second criminal: “Jesus answered him, ‘I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.’"

This self-confessed evildoer was assured by Jesus that because of his faith in Jesus, he would not be lost to God forever. By repentance, his old sinful self had been crucified and by his faith, Jesus assured him, wherever Jesus is, there is His kingdom and there are those who have become citizens of that kingdom by faith in Christ the King!

And when does that happen for us?

Today! Salvation and life with God comes and is revived within us whenever we confess our sins and confess our faith in Christ the King.

At the very moments we repent and trust in Christ and at every moment we are renewed through repentance and God’s gracious forgiveness, we are in the Kingdom!

The kingdom of God can come to us through every today of our lives, no matter what’s going on in our lives or in the world.

The angels announced at Christmas, “Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you...”

In the synagogue of Nazareth after reading Isaiah’s prophecy about the messiah, Jesus said, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

To the tax collector who turned from his sin and trusted in Christ, Jesus said, “Today salvation has come to this house.”

God wants us in His Kingdom, even now in this imperfect and dying world.

But you know what?

We can know that Jesus is King.

We can know what the Kingdom of God is.

We can even know how we become part of Jesus’ Kingdom.

But the real question for each of us is this: Is Jesus Christ our King?

Are we daily reclaiming our faith in Him as the only Lord over our lives, priorities, and decisions?

Are we daily turning to Him in humble recognition of our sins and our need of His forgiveness?

Is Jesus Christ our King?

I ask the question not to incite guilt or fear. That would be presumptuous on my part because I know that I am a sinful human being who falls way short of the glory of God!

Instead, I ask the question to give hope.

You see, the God we know in Jesus Christ is the King Who gives second chances.

And third chances.

And unnumbered chances.

To an evildoer who was being justly executed for his sin, but who sought a new chance, a new life, Jesus eagerly and lovingly gave not just the promise of eternity, but also the promise of being with him today, now, in all the remaining moments of this life.

If you’re anything like me, I know that you need those second chances.

Not breads and circuses.

Not tax breaks or the latest bauble or googog the world offers.

You need Jesus Christ.

Today, Christ our King offers no less than life eternal with God, beginning with His stubborn, loving presence with us today, right now, to all who turn from sin and latch onto Him as their only God.

May Jesus Christ be our King every day we live! Amen

Misogyny, Murder, and Accountability

Our small town has been shocked and saddened by the kidnapping and murder of a young woman, the mother of three small children. Charges of kidnapping have been lodged against her estranged husband, William Inman, Jr., and his parents, William, Sr. and Sandra. Since Sandra was the one who told authorities where the young woman's body could be found, it's widely expected that murder charges will be brought against at least the two men. Sandra, it's expected, will face a lesser charge as part of a plea bargain.

The body of Summer Inman, who was kidnapped on March 22 outside of a local bank where she worked as a janitor, was found little more than a week later in the septic tank of the church building where her husband's parents were married in 2004. She had been strangled.

Evil is real.

The evil that led to Summer Inman's murder was of a particular kind and it grew for a particular reason.

A story from WBNS TV in Columbus presented these facts about the family with which Summer had lived before moving out and filing for divorce:

Neighbors said Sandra and Summer Inman were rarely seen outside of the home, and when they were, they were both dressed entirely in black.

A close friend said it became clear to her "that the men had taken over the women" in the family.

Those who knew them said William A. Inman considered himself a religious leader and conducted church services in an outbuilding at their home.

Neighbors said he would often go door-to-door, soliciting donations for what he called "Mercy Ranch," a plan to turn his home into a place for the wayward and homeless.

It appears that the older William Inman had set himself up as a religious dictator overseeing his own misogynist kingdom.

Two particular forms of evil seem to have caused the years of hellish living and horrible end to which Summer Inman was subjected.

First, there is the evil represented by the presumption of anyone announcing on they have a call from God. This is what William (Bill) Inman did.

Nobody is authorized to hang up a holy shingle on their own initiative. An individual can swear up and down that she or he has a call from God to pastoral ministry, or any other ministry, but swearing won't make it so.

Recently, the members of our congregation, Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, have begun a venture of reading the Bible in the course of a year. We have daily readings and once a week, folks get together to discuss the readings. During the week after the discovery of Summer Inman's body, we read portions of the Old Testament book of Exodus in which God calls Moses to act as intermediary between God and the people and then, the people call Moses to act to this same role. The will of God about Moses' role was confirmed by believing people. The will of God as to whether a person is to be a leader among His people will always be reflected among His people.

Lutherans have always believed in this "dual nature" of the call. A potential pastor's sense of call must be affirmed by the Church. Otherwise, it's just a feeling on the part of a would-be pastor and feelings are never a sufficient basis for Christian decision-making.

There's a lot of authority associated with being a pastor. It's not like the authority of a political or military leader or a business executive. It's the authority associated with God's Word and God's Sacraments and no one should dare to enter this ministry unless the call from God is confirmed by the Church. That never happened with Bill Inman. He simply took what wasn't his to take.

That in itself is a flashing light signaling possible trouble. If someone is that presumptuous with God, it's hardly a stretch to think that he will be at least that presumptuous in claiming authority over people that is not theirs.

The second evil in this case is the utterly un-Biblical and un-Christian male domination practiced by the two Inman men.

From the beginning, Scripture makes clear the utter equality of women and men. When Genesis recounts the creation of humanity, it says:

So God created humankind in His image, in the image of God He created them, male and female he created them. (Genesis 1:27)

Both the man and the woman were created in God's image, each in equal relationship with their Creator.

Later, in the New Testament, Paul, often wrongly accused himself of being a sexist, says plainly that, "As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3:27-28).

When Paul first came to faith in Christ, a woman was among those who "catechized" him in the faith. Where the culture allowed it, women served as leaders in churches founded by Paul.

Even passages in the New Testament sometimes trotted out by those who try use Christianity to justify sexism backfire in their faces. For example, Ephesians 5:21-33, which some claim commands husbands to be lords over their wives, actually, on a close reading, can be seen to command husbands and wives to live in mutual submission. Husbands are told to love their wives as Christ loved the Church, which, is a clear call for the husband to give himself utterly and sacrificially to their wives. After all, Christ went to a cross for His Church.

People who fail to maintain their connection to Christ's Church, who are accountable to nobody, can rationalize anything: misogyny and kidnapping and, if the hints and allegations prove true, even murder. 

It's evil and you can be sure that, barring some uncharacteristic repentance (and, at the prompting of God's Holy Spirit, such miracles can happen), there will be a horrible reckoning because the God revealed first to ancient Israel and ultimately, in Jesus Christ, is a consuming fire.* To trifle with Him, to claim His authority without His permission, is a fearful thing.

*See here.

Who Sees the King?

[This sermon was shared during worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, earlier today. As I explained this morning, this is an only slightly reworked version of a sermon I preached at Saint Matthew three years ago. Since I don't think it's possible to plagiarize one's own sermon, I guess that's OK.]

Luke 23:33-43
A family was moving to a new town. As they approached the outskirts of the place, they decided to stop at a local filling station and ask the attendant there what the town was like. “Well,” he said, “what was the last place you lived in like?” The family said, “It was awful. Neighbors were unfriendly. Delivery and repair people never showed up on time. Dogs barked at all hours. Our bosses were scrooges and the kids never once had a good teacher.” The attendant considered their answer for a while and said, “This place is pretty much like that. You’d be better off moving on.”

Later that day, the same scenario unfolded. Another family showed up at the filling station and wanted to know what this new town was like. “What was your old town like?” the attendant asked. “It was great,” the family said. “Everyone was friendly. The businesspeople did their best to get things done on time and always went above the call of duty. We had great bosses and the kids’ teachers were fantastic! Even the dogs were quiet.” The attendant considered their answer and said, “This place is pretty much like that. You’re going to love it here!”

Sometimes what we see is the thing we’re looking for. We see it because we’re open to seeing it.

On this Christ the King Sunday, the last Sunday of the Church Year, our Gospel lesson seems, at first, to be out of place. After all, we’re about to celebrate Thanksgiving and are looking ahead to Christmas. But the Gospel lesson is the story of Jesus’ crucifixion, an account of the first Good Friday.

But the lesson seems out of place in another way: Nobody seems less like a king than a man executed on a cross. Not many will look at the crucified Jesus and see a king, let alone the King of kings.

True story: A young woman rediscovered her faith in Jesus while she was a teenager. She bought a simple cross necklace. One morning, her father spotted her wearing the necklace and asked what was going on. She explained that she wanted to be able to see the cross in the mirror every time she washed her hands or combed her hair. It would remind her of Christ.

Her father was repulsed. “Do you have any idea what happened on the cross?” he asked her. He went on to explain in detail what a humiliating and life-crushing experience crucifixion was. To that man, Jesus’ death on a cross was proof that Jesus was no king, just another pathetic victim of the world. To him, the story of Jesus on the cross ended not in the Savior paying the price for our sins nor in His resurrection from the dead so that all who repudiate their sin and believe in Jesus will live with God forever. To him, Jesus’ story ended in death for Jesus and for us all. Intent on making his own way in the world, what that man wanted to see when he thought of Jesus on the cross was exactly what he saw.

In our lesson today, the jealous religious leaders who sought Jesus’ death, the cynical soldiers who gambled for His clothes, and one of the criminals crucified with Him all saw Jesus as they wanted to see Him. Each in their way, taunted Jesus, seeing Him as a loser headed for utter humilation and defeat.

“He saved others,” the religious leaders say. “If He is the son of God, let Him save Himself.”

“If you really are the king,” the soldiers taunt, “save Yourself.”

“Aren’t You the Messiah?” one of the criminals asks, “Then get us off the hook and save yourself too.”

Whether the leaders, the soldiers, or the first criminal harbored notions that Jesus really was the Messiah, God’s anointed King, may not be important. It's clear though, that the religious leaders knew that Jesus was the King, but wanted to get rid of anyone who might threaten their status. The others who taunted Jesus that day were probably just garden-variety cynics who believed, like the father of that young woman, that life must end at the grave.

Even the crowds who gazed on these events in silence appear to see only hopelessness in Jesus’ crucifixion. I suppose most people who take the time to consider Jesus on the cross see hopelessness. They can’t see how Jesus’ crucifixion proves that He is the King of kings.

But we who follow Christ have been helped to see things differently. Paul writes about these two different ways of seeing Jesus on the cross in First Corinthians in the New Testament. If you would, please turn to page 657 in the pew Bibles. Look at 1 Corinthians, chapter 1, verse 18. Read along with me silently. Paul says: “…the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”

Only one person in today’s Gospel lesson was foolish enough to see the power of God in Christ’s crucifixion. He was one of the criminals. He looked at the suffering Jesus on the cross and saw not a defeated man, but the King of kings. He was so certain of Jesus being the King that he turned to Jesus and said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” Jesus promised, not because the criminal deserved it, but because he both confessed his sins and professed his faith in Jesus, that he would on that very day be with Him in paradise.

Why did that one man see Jesus as the King of kings that Good Friday?

As good Lutherans who read our Bibles, we all know that it wasn’t because he was smarter than the others, or that he was a better person, or that he had done more good things. None of these things create faith or give us our places in Christ’s kingdom. Faith that saves us from sin and death is a gift from God. In another place in the New Testament, Paul says, “No one can confess ‘Jesus is Lord,’ unless he is guided by the Holy Spirit” (1 Corinthians 12:3, TEV). God creates and sustains faith in those who are open to seeing Jesus as their Savior and their King. Today’s Gospel lesson shows us that only one kind of person is open to seeing Christ as King. Only one kind of person will pay attention when God’s Spirit prompts them to confess their sins or follow Jesus Christ.

Michelle Akers was the first American woman to play professional soccer in Europe. After scoring ten goals in five games in the first-ever Women’s Cup in 1991, she signed an endorsement deal that brought her fame and money. She got a tryout to be a place kicker with the Dallas Cowboys, her longest attempt going 52-yards.

But in 1993, she was diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue and Immune Dysfunction Syndrome. “When it was really bad,” Akers says, “I couldn’t sit up in a chair. The racking migraines stranded me at home, unable even to get up to brush my teeth or eat.” Five minute walks required two days on the couch to recover.

Strength and hard work, the two kings on whom Akers had relied her entire life, could no longer be called on to help her. She says that it was unbearable to not be the “best in the world” or the person who could always bounce back from any injury. “I was forced to spend a lot of time thinking about who I was. I didn’t like what I saw,” she says. Then, her husband left her.

It was then that Akers was invited by her strength coach to worship with him. She didn’t know why exactly, but Akers accepted the invitation. It was the beginning of a new life with Christ as her king. Looking back, Akers says, she thinks that for years God had been calling her to follow. But, certain that she knew what she was doing, sure that she could make her own decisions, convinced even that she didn’t need forgiveness or help with living her life, she ignored God and the Church. Akers says “It took total devastation before I could [surrender] and say, ‘Okay, God. You can have my life. Please help me.”

Who sees Jesus Christ as King? People who see that their lives are broken without Him.

They see Jesus as King first of all, because they see themselves as they are: as sinners in need of forgiveness, as ordinary human beings who cannot make it without the eternal God.

They're also people who see that at the end of our power to cope or hope is a King Who fills His people with love and gives them the capacity to face any cross in the certainty that they belong to God forever!

Years ago, at a national gathering of Lutheran youth in San Antonio, I met a nurse who worked in a nursing home. She told about caring for a retired pastor who was dying and had, for some time, been in a coma. She knew his favorite song and so, standing by his bed one day, sang it to him: “Yes, Jesus loves me; Yes, Jesus loves me; Yes, Jesus loves me, the Bible tells me so.” At that the pastor lifted himself from the bed as far as his weak arms would allow and looked the nurse straight in the eye to tell her, “Don’t you ever forget it!” Then, he fell back on his pillow and died.

In Jesus, the One Who, from His cross, forgave those who killed Him, we see the King...

• Who stands by us no matter what...
• Who heals our deepest hurts…
• Who forgives our sins…
• Who always loves us…
• and Who gives all who turn from sin and follow Him paradise.

Today, Christ our King tells us to consider all these things and then gives us a simple message: Don’t you ever forget any of that! Amen

See the King?

[This sermon was shared with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church, Logan, Ohio, during worship this morning.]

Luke 23:33-43
A family was moving to a new town. As they approached the outskirts of the place, they decided to stop at a local filling station and ask the attendant there what the town was like. “Well,” he said, “what was the last place you lived in like?” The family said, “It was awful. Neighbors were unfriendly. Delivery and repair people never showed up on time. Dogs barked at all hours. Our bosses were scrooges and the kids never once had a good teacher.” The attendant considered their answer for a while and said, “This place is pretty much like that. You’d be better off moving on.”

Later that day, same scenario. Another family showed up at the filling station and wanted to know what this new town was like. “What was your old town like?” the attendant asked. “It was great,” the family said. “Everyone was so friendly. The businesspeople did their best to get things done on time and always went above the call of duty. We had great bosses and the kids’ teachers were fantastic! Even the dogs were quiet.” The attendant considered their answer and said, “This place is pretty much like that. You’re going to love it here!”

Sometimes what we see is the thing we’re looking for.

We see it because we’re open to seeing it.

I bring all of this up because on this Christ the King Sunday, the last Sunday of the Church Year, our Gospel lesson seems, at first, to be out of place. After all, we’ve just come through Thanksgiving and Black Friday and are looking ahead to Christmas and all the January bills. But the Gospel lesson is the story of Jesus’ crucifixion, an account of the first Good Friday.

But the lesson seems out of place for an even more important reason: Nobody seems less like a king than a man executed on a cross.

Not many will look at the crucified Jesus and see a king, let alone the King of kings. A young woman our daughter Sarah knows rediscovered her faith in Jesus while she was a teenager. When that happened, she bought a simple cross necklace and put it on. One morning, her father spotted her wearing it and asked what was going on. (After all, he'd raised her to be a good little agnostic.) She explained that she wanted to be able to see the cross in the mirror every time she washed her hands or combed her hair. It would remind her of Christ. Her father was repulsed. “Do you have any idea what happened on the cross?” he asked. He went on to explain in detail what a humiliating and life-crushing experience crucifixion was.

To that young woman’s father, Jesus’ death on a cross was proof that Jesus was no king, just another pathetic victim of the world. To him, the story of Jesus on the cross ended not in the Savior paying the price for our sins and in His resurrection from the dead so that all who repudiate their sin and believe in Jesus will live with God forever. To him, Jesus’ story ended in death for Jesus and for us all. Intent on making his own way in the world, what that man wanted to see was exactly what he saw.

In our lesson today, the jealous religious leaders who sought Jesus’ death, the cynical soldiers who gambled for His clothes, and one of the criminals crucified with Him all saw Jesus as they wanted to see Him. Each in their way, taunted Jesus, seeing Him as a loser headed for utter humilation and defeat. “He saved others,” the religious leaders say. “If He is the son of God, let Him save Himself.” “If you really are the king,” the soldiers taunt, “save Yourself.” “Aren’t You the Messiah?” one of the criminals asks, “Then get us off the hook and save yourself.”

Whether the leaders, the soldiers, or the first criminal harbored notions that Jesus really was the Messiah, God’s anointed King, it’s hard to say. One suspects that the religious leaders knew that Jesus was the King, but wanted to get rid of anyone who might threaten their guilt-tripping stranglehold over the people of first century Judea.

And I think that the others who taunted Jesus that day were cynics who believed, like the father of our daughter’s friend, that life must end at the grave. Even the crowds who gazed on these events in silence appear to see only hopelessness in Jesus’ crucifixion.

I suppose most people who take the time to consider Jesus on the cross see things that way. They can’t see how Jesus’ crucifixion proves that He is the King of kings.

But we who follow Christ have been helped to see things differently. Paul writes about these two different ways of seeing Jesus on the cross in First Corinthians in the New Testament. The “message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing,” he says. “But to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”

Only one person in today’s lesson saw the power of God in Christ’s crucifixion. He looked at the suffering Jesus on the cross and saw not a defeated man, but the King.

He was so certain of Jesus being the King that he turned to Jesus and said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”

Jesus promised him not because the criminal deserved it, but because he had confessed both his sins and his faith in Jesus, that he would on that very day be with Him in paradise.

Why did that one man see Jesus as the King of kings that Good Friday?

As good Lutherans who read our Bibles, we all know that it wasn’t because he was smarter than the others, or that he was a better person, or that he had done more good things. None of these things create faith or give us our places in Christ’s kingdom. Faith that saves us from sin and death is a gift from God. In another place in the New Testament, Paul says, “No one can confess ‘Jesus is Lord,’ unless he is guided by the Holy Spirit” (1 Corinthians 12:3, TEV).

And in his explanation of the Third Article of the Apostles’ Creed, Martin Luther, says, “I believe that I cannot by my own understanding or strength believe in Jesus Christ or come to him, but instead the Holy Spirit has called me through the gospel, enlightened me with his gifts, made me holy, and kept me in the true faith…”

God creates and sustains faith in those who are open to seeing Jesus as their Savior and their King.

Today’s Gospel lesson shows us that only one kind of person is open to seeing Christ as King. Only one kind of person will pay attention when God’s Spirit prompts them to confess their sins or follow Jesus Christ.

Michelle Akers was the first American woman to play professional soccer in Europe. After scoring ten goals in five games in the first-ever Women’s Cup in 1991, she signed an endorsement deal that brought her fame and money. She even got a tryout to be a place kicker with the Dallas Cowboys, her longest attempt going 52-yards.

But in 1993, she was diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue and Immune Dysfunction Syndrome. “When it was really bad,” Akers says, “I couldn’t sit up in a chair. The racking migraines stranded me at home, unable even to get up to brush my teeth or eat.” Five minute walks required two days on the couch to recover.

Strength and hard work, the two kings on whom Akers had relied her entire life, could no longer be called on to help her. She says that it was unbearable to not be the “best in the world” or the person who could always bounce back from any injury.

“I was forced to spend a lot of time thinking about who I was. I didn’t like what I saw,” she says. Then, her husband left her.

It was then that Akers was invited by her strength coach to worship with him. She didn’t know why exactly, but Akers accepted the invitation. It was the beginning of a new life with Christ as her king.

Looking back, Akers says, she thinks that for years God had been calling her to follow. But, certain that she knew what she was doing, sure that she could make her own decisions, convinced even that she didn’t need forgiveness or help with living her life, she ignored God and the Church. Akers says “It took total devastation before I could [surrender] and say, ‘Okay, God. You can have my life. Please help me.”

Who sees Jesus Christ as King?

People who see that their lives are broken without Him.

They see Jesus as King first of all, because they see themselves as they are: as sinners in need of forgiveness, as ordinary human beings who cannot make it without the eternal God.

They're people who see that at the end of our power to cope or hope is a King Who fills His people with love and gives them the capacity to face any cross in the certainty that they belong to God forever!

Years ago, at a conference in San Antonio, I met a nurse who worked in a nursing home. She told about caring for a retired pastor who was dying and had, for some time, been in a coma. She knew his favorite song and so, standing by his bed, sang it to him. (You know the song, too. So, sing the refrain with me now.) “Yes, Jesus loves me; Yes, Jesus loves me; Yes, Jesus loves me, the Bible tells me so.” At that the pastor lifted himself from the bed and looked the nurse straight in the eyes to tell her, “Don’t you ever forget it!” Then, he fell back on his pillow and died.

In Jesus, the One Who, from His cross, forgave those who killed Him, we see the King...

Who stands by us no matter what...
Who heals our deepest hurts…
Who forgives our sins…
Who always loves us…
and Who gives all who turn from sin and follow Him paradise.

On this Christ the King Sunday, my message to you is simple: Don’t you ever forget any of that! Amen

[The image above incorporates the crown of a king with the first two letters of Jesus' title, Christ, from the Greek alphabet. Greek, being the language of international trade and discourse in the first century, is the language in the New Testament was written. Greek then occupied a place in the world that English does today.]

[Michelle Akers' story is recounted in Perfect Illustrations for Every Topic and Occasion, where it's taken from an article that appeared in Christian Reader in 2000.]

Third Pass at This Sunday's Bible Lessons

[The first pass, here, explains what this is all about. You can find the second pass here.]

In this installment, we’ll be looking at the Gospel lesson for this Sunday, November 25.

A Few General Comments
1. This may seem like a strange Gospel lesson for a Sunday set aside for the celebration of Christ as King. But, it’s only through the cross that Christ claims His kingdom. Without His death on the cross, sin and death would still have the last word over the lives of those who turn from sin (repent) and believe in Him.

2. At the end of Luke’s account of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness, Luke says, “When the devil had finished every test, he departed from [Jesus] until an opportune time” (Luke 4:13).

The cross was that “opportune time.” Jesus could have eluded the agony of the cross. But without His death, He couldn’t have died for our sin. Nor could He have risen from the dead. He couldn’t have claimed His kingdom. Throughout His ministry, Jesus set His face toward Jerusalem, intent on fulfilling His mission (Luke 9:53). Here, on the cross, as in the wilderness, He faces down three temptations (23:35, 36-37, 39).

In each instance, the temptation is that Jesus “save Himself.” But this wasn’t Jesus’ mission. He came to save others (Luke 2:11).

The fact that Jesus didn’t save Himself is one bit of convincing evidence that He is the promised King and Messiah.

Verse-by-Verse Comments
33 When they came to the place that is called the Skull, they crucified Jesus there with the criminals, one on his right and one on his left.
1. Tradition says that the place of Jesus’ crucifixion was a hill, although that’s never specifically said. But it makes sense that it would have happened on a hill, a place of prominence where criminals would be humiliated and the power of the Roman government would be brandished.

2. Crucifixion was a horrible form of execution. It went way back before the Romans, but the Romans practiced it extensively.

Crosses didn’t always include cross beams, but were pikes on which the crucified were hung.

The executed were secured to their crosses with ropes or nails. In ancient Near East culture, the hand included everything from the tip of the middle finger to the elbow. So, when the Biblical accounts speak of nails driven through Jesus’ hands, it likely has in mind the practice of hammering nails between the two major bones of the lower arm.

Once the victim was on the cross, a rope was wrapped around the neck of the executed person. Trying to remain upright and growing weaker with every inhalation of breath, the victim would struggle to keep from falling onto the rope and suffocating. Most victims of crucifixion died of asphyxiation. Others died of exposure after enduring cycles of the heat of the day and the cold of the night. Death by either cause usually took a long time, which is why in the Gospel of John, there is surprise over Jesus’ rapid death. That only points to the fact that, even in death, Christ was in control, something underscored in Luke 23:46.

34 Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing. And they cast lots to divide his clothing.
1. The first martyr of the Christian faith, Stephen, prays the same prayer for his executioners as Jesus prays here for His (Acts 7:60).

The Spirit lives in the followers of Jesus, making it possible for them to do and say what wouldn’t come naturally to them, reflecting the life of Jesus living in them (Luke 21:14-15).

2. It was common practice for soldiers to gamble for the clothes of those they executed.

35 And the people stood by, watching; but the leaders scoffed at him, saying, “He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Messiah.”
1. Earlier, the people or the crowds, as they’re called in Luke’s Gospel, had evidently cried out for Jesus’ execution (Luke 23:18). But here, the crowd stands silently as the religious leaders scoff at Jesus. Their silence may stem from fear of the authorities or their own hope that the miracle-worker would now miraculously save Himself. Or maybe, like others who witnessed the way in which Jesus bore suffering and death that day, they began to suspect that really was the Messiah.

Evidence from this and the other gospels suggests to me that the religious leaders didn’t execute Jesus out of a lack of belief in Him as Messiah, but precisely because they believed He was the Messiah. He was a threat to the spiritual stranglehold they had over the people.

This is the first of the final three temptations in this account of Jesus’ crucifixion.

36-37 The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him sour wine, and saying, “If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself!”
1. This is the second temptation.

2. Why the soldiers offered Jesus “sour wine,” vinegar, is unknown. Soldiers commonly kept this drink with them.

39 One of the criminals who were hanged there kept deriding him and saying, “Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!”
1. This is the third of the final temptations of Jesus. This criminal would be perfectly happy to have Jesus prove to be the Messiah if it meant he could get off the hook for his sin.

None of us get “off the hook” for sin. We will either repent, submitting to the death of our old, sinful selves, or we will stubbornly refuse to repent and suffer eternal separation from God. And, except for those present on the day of Jesus’ return, we will die a physical death before experiencing resurrection. We have the same promise Jesus gave to his friend Martha after her brother Lazarus died, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die…” (John 11:25-26).

40-41 But the other rebuked him, saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.”
1. The second criminal, in effect, confesses his sins. He claims no right to heaven with God. He’s done no religious “works” that warrant eternity and he knows it.

He also understands that Jesus is without fault.

42 Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”
1. Now, comes an unlikely confession of faith. Somehow, in the suffering Jesus, who shares this man’s death sentence, He sees the promised Messiah.

The Life Application Study Bible notes on this passage point out that the second criminal evidences more faith in Jesus here than his disciples did. It cites Luke 24:21, where the disciples on the road to Emaus, express hopelessness over Jesus’ death. “We had hoped,” they tell the risen Jesus, Who they don’t yet recognize, that He was the Messiah. They couldn’t see how a dying Messiah could be their long-anticipated King. The second criminal “got” it.

2. As my colleague Rick Hinger points out, the word for remember used by the criminal is, in the original Greek, anamnesis. This is the precise word that Jesus uses when instituting the Lord’s Supper (“Do this for the remembrance of me…”). The idea is that to be remembered is more than simply to be recalled in memory. It has the idea of being “re-membered again,” to be together again. (In Holy Communion, we believe that time evaporates and we come into the presence of the “eternal now,” enjoying eternal fellowship with all who have believed in God in the past, present, and future, “in every time and place,” as we put it in our Communion liturgy.

43 He [Jesus] replied, “Truly, I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”
1. Jesus responds to the man’s repentance and belief in Him by declaring forgiveness and that, as a consequence, he will be in Jesus’ kingdom in the eternal now.

2. Paradise is a word borrowed from an ancient Persian language. It originally referred to an enclosed pleasure park, filled with trees, something which today we might also call a garden. In fact, these parks were the dominions of kings. In the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the Septuagint, with which Jesus would have been familiar, this is the word applied to the Garden of Eden. There is a sense in which, those who have become part of Jesus’ kingdom have been restored as residents of Eden, the place where the first human beings lived in perfect fellowship with God, unobstructed by sin.

A Pass at This Sunday's Bible Lessons

[Each week, I take at least one "pass" at the Bible lessons that will be read during worship at the congregation I serve as pastor, Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio. The passes are designed to help the people--and me--prepare for worship. Hopefully, others will find them helpful too, as we use the Church Year-related lectionary appointed for congregations of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), which is similar to the lectionaries of most other Christian traditions.]

The Bible Lessons:
Jeremiah 23:1-6
Psalm 46
Colossians 1:11-20
Luke 23:33-43

General Comments:
1. November 25 brings us to Christ the King Sunday, the last Sunday of the Church Year. For an overview of the meaning and uses of the Church Year, you can go here.

2. The first lesson was written by the Old Testament prophet Jeremiah. He was active as a prophet around 627 to 586 B.C., during the period when the last five kings of Judah were on their thrones.

Last week, we mentioned that the Old Testament lesson from Malachi was written after the Babylonian Exile. Jeremiah was written before that traumatic event. (In the Babylonian Captivity, thousands of citizens of Judah were forced into slavery in Babylon, the capital city of the Chaldeans, a nation that overran Judah. The captivity would only definitively end in about 538 B.C., when the Persians would conquer the Chaldeans.)

3. Some background that might help in understanding Jeremiah: Judah, also known as Judea, was what remained of the nation of Israel in the time of its first three kings: Saul, David, and Solomon. Solomon, David's son, was the most powerful of Israel's kings, expanding the country's economic and military might. But Solomon also began the process of perverting Israel's religious life. He countenanced the worship of many foreign deities, splintering Israel's loyalty to God, usually for the sake of getting along with neighboring nations with whom Solomon formed economic and military alliances. This process of syncretism led to Israel's undoing.

Solomon died in 970 B.C. Israel split in two in 930 B.C. The Northern Kingdom, which took the name of Israel, broke away from the rest of the former nation, seating its own king and centering its worship life in Samaria. (Samaritans still existed, as you know from reading the New Testament, in Jesus' day. Samaritans were hated by the residents of the Southern Kingdom.)

The Southern Kingdom, called Judah or Judea, strove to maintain the Davidic line for its kings, and was headquartered in Jerusalem, the site of the temple built on God's orders. It was in Bethlehem, David's hometown, then about five miles from Jerusalem, that the Old Testament said, the Messiah would be born.

The Northern Kingdom fell in 722 B.C. Prophets in both the north and the south were certain that the fall resulted from the nation's faithlessness.

Jeremiah believed that the Southern Kingdom was filled with a faithlessness that would eventually lead to that nation's downfall, a foreign king who worshiped a foreign god would be the instrument of the one God of the universe to bring judgment on God's people.

3. As was true of last week's Old Testament lesson from Malachi, Jeremiah's presentation in this passage doesn't end with judgment. He also holds out the possibility of restoration. In the preceding chapters, he presents condemnations of Judah's last five kings, the nation's civil rulers. At 23:1, he turns his attention to the religious leaders, shepherds who, he says, have led Judah away from God. But the main theme of these verses is Jeremiah's foretelling of the coming of Judah's last king, the Messiah.

4. In v. 6, the title given to the Messiah, “the Lord is our righteousness,” could as eaily be, "the Lord is our justice-bringer." This relates as much to the way in which the Messiah will save sinners from condemnation for their sin, bringing forgiveness to sinners justified by God, as it does to justice. As The Jerome Bible Commentary points out, "Isaiah had given a similar name to this future king--i.e., 'imannu 'el, 'God is with us.'"

More on the other lessons for this Sunday tomorrow, I hope.