Dear Friends in Christ,

You may be familiar with the anonymous piece of work I am about to read.  It is entitled:  “One Solitary Life.”

            He was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman.  He grew up in still another village, where He worked in a carpenter shop until He was thirty.

            Then for three years He was an itinerant preacher.  He was a defender of unpopular causes.  He counted among His friends the poor and the weak.  He associated with outcasts and lawbreakers.  He never wrote a book.  He never held an office.  He never had a family or owned a big house.

            He didn’t go to college.  He never visited a big city.  He never traveled more than two hundred miles from his place of birth.  He did none of the things one usually associates with greatness.  He had no credentials but Himself…

            He was only thirty-three when the tide of public opinion turned against Him.  His friends ran away.  He was turned over to His enemies and went through the mockery of a trial.

            He was nailed to a cross between two thieves.  While He was dying, His executioners gambled for His clothing, the only property He had on earth.  When He was dead, He was laid in a borrowed grave through the pity of a friend.

            Nearly 2000 years have come and gone, and today He is the central figure of the human race and the leader of mankind’s progress.

            All the armies that ever marched, all the navies that ever sailed, all the parliaments that ever sat, all the kings that ever reigned, all these together have not affected the life of man on this earth as much as that… ONE SOLITARY LIFE.

The description just heard would hardly suggest that Jesus is king material, at least according to the world’s standards.  In comparison to a Prince Charles or a modern Middle Eastern monarch who lives in a huge palace and moves about with all the trappings and importance attached to royalty, Jesus looks pretty outclassed with His humble and solitary life…

But as the reading suggests and as every believer knows, Jesus is a king.  In fact, He is the king.  The King of kings and the Lord of lords.  And to those who recognize Him as such, He bestows great blessings – now and eternally.

Our text for today talks about this.  At first glance, today’s reading may seem a bit misplaced; a portion of Scripture we’d expect to hear during Lent or on Good Friday, since it deals with Jesus’ crucifixion.  Upon further reflection, however, it is a more than appropriate text on which to end the church year.  With that in mind, let us spend our time this morning reflecting on

CHRIST THE KING

1.  The nature of His kingship

2.  The kingdom we’re a part of

We’ll proceed by working our way through this text and then drawing some conclusions and applications on how it speaks to us today.

“The people stood watching, and the rulers even sneered at him.  They said, ‘He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Christ of God, the Chosen One.’”  I probably don’t have to tell you where we are.  We’re at a location outside Jerusalem, known as the “Place of the Skull,” or, in the language of the day, “Golgotha.”  It is the day we have come to call Good Friday.

Just a few days earlier the people had been in the temple listening to Jesus and hanging on His every word.  He was their great hope then.  Maybe he was the one, they thought, who would restore Israel to the status of a great nation.  Maybe he was the one to lead them out from under the foreign domination of Rome.  With every “maybe” their hopes got higher.  But that was then.  Now it was different.  Now they saw him as a dying failure.

The religious rulers led the ridicule.  They had heard His talk about salvation and how He had come into the world to save sinners.  They had heard Him and others make the claim that He was nothing less than the Messiah – the One chosen by God to do a great work.  They understood exactly what He had said, but they didn’t comprehend it.  So now they throw it all back in His face.  They turned titles of truth and proclamations of praise into declarations of derision.  And they weren’t the only ones…

“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.’  There was a written notice above him, which read: THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS.  One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him:  ‘Aren’t you the Christ?  Save yourself and us!’”  Three more examples of disrespect…

First, from the Roman soldiers.  Today we’ll often hear about the importance of men being sensitive and compassionate.  Not these guys.   In their line of work, sensitivity was not in the job description and compassion was excess baggage.  Their offer of wine vinegar (the Greek word indicates this was the sour, cheap wine fit only for common soldiers to drink) was neither an act of kindness nor a semi-sympathetic offer of a narcotic.  It was another taunt.  “Hey king, try this not-so-royal drink!” was what they meant.  And then, mockingbird-like, they repeat the ridicule of the Jewish leaders.

Pontius Pilate also gets in on the act.  He’s the one behind the sign tacked on the cross.  It was a double barreled shot against both Jesus and the Jews, with whom he shared a mutual dislike.  Again, the point to be made was:  This pathetic man hanging on the cross is a king?

But perhaps the greatest lack of respect came from what would seem to be the most unlikely place:  one of the criminals.  He also challenged Jesus to save Himself and those hanging on crosses with Him.  This taunt, however, brought a just as unlikely response… “But the other criminal rebuked him.  ‘Don’t you fear God,’ he said, ‘since you are under the same sentence?  We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve.  But this man has done nothing wrong.’”

It is significant to note that in Matthew and Mark’s account of the crucifixion we are told that in the beginning hours both criminals heaped insults on Jesus.  But something happened to one of them.  A transformation took place.  Maybe it was after he heard Jesus ask His Father to forgive those who nailed Him to the wood.  Maybe it was the instinctive understanding of a hardened man that Jesus didn’t belong there…

Whatever the case may have been, there on the cross, hours away from death, one of the criminals comes to faith.  This man knew he was a sinner and was, no doubt, afraid to stand before the judgment seat of God.  So he turned in faith to the only One who could save him.  And as an indication that he took his new faith seriously, he rebuked the other criminal who was making fun of his Lord.

“Then he said, ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.’”  This man knew to be true what all the others in our text thought to be ridiculous.  Jesus was and is a king.  The world saw a defeated and dejected shell of a man minutes from death.  Through the eyes of faith, this new believer saw his Savior…

And his Savior responds to his faith-filled request in a way that must have made him forget his pain and inwardly rejoice:  “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.”  “Paradise” calls to mind the idea of a perfect place, like the Garden of Eden.  In this perfect place – heaven – the criminal would find rest from his suffering.  And note that Jesus doesn’t tell this man he might make it to paradise if he’s good enough or if he does this or that.  He says, “You will be with me…”  This late-blooming Christian’s salvation rested entirely on knowing and believing Jesus to be his Savior from sin… just as ours does.

So far the text.  What are the lessons for us on this Christ the King Sunday?  We’ll limit ourselves to two.  The first lesson can be put this way:  Although Jesus Christ is misunder-stood, misinterpreted, misread and mocked by many, He is nevertheless the King of kings and Lord of lords.

The people in our text mocked and ridiculed Jesus.  First it was the crowd, then the church leaders, then the soldiers, then Pontius Pilate, and finally one of the criminals.  They mocked him because they didn’t understand what He was all about.  They didn’t understand that He was on that cross by His own choice because this was an integral part of God’s plan for our eternal salvation.  They only saw Him as being weak and powerless and very un-king like.  After all, they thought, if He has all that horsepower under His hood, why doesn’t He use it to better His situation or those of His followers?

Many today think the same way.  Sometimes even Christians wonder why God lets certain things happen, especially if they aren’t good.  I’m sure most of us have heard the questions (and if not asked by us in our moments of weakness, they are certainly asked of us by non-Christians).  If God is so powerful, why doesn’t he step in and stop wars and famines and cancer and terrorism and the host of other evils that rear their ugly head in our world?   The atheistic French philosopher Voltaire once made the comment that if there really is a God, then he must be the devil because of the things he allows to go on…

The essential question asked by the mockers at the cross is still heard today:  If God is so great, why doesn’t He do something? 

Is Jesus powerless?  Of course not.  Jesus is God, and with God nothing is impossible.  But Jesus has told us many times in Scripture that He is not the kind of king who will use His power to dismiss all earthly problems and trials.   He is not a giant rabbit’s foot or good luck charm who exists only to provide believers with a trouble-free life. 

His work is bigger than that.  He is a spiritual king.  And although He may not dismiss all earthly troubles from us, He has dismissed us from the eternally damning consequences of our sin and reserved a place for us in heaven.   Like Jesus said to Pontius Pilate:  “My kingdom is not of this world.”  His and ours is a spiritual kingdom.  And as He assured His disciples:  “In this world you will have trouble. (In other words, He allows just enough to let us know we’re not home yet).  But take heart!  I have overcome the world!”  And this He did this by His perfect life and sacrificial death as our God-appointed substitute…

The second lesson drawn from our text is this:  the kingdom which is ours now and will be ours eternally is called “paradise.”  Often when we have something special planned we say we are “looking forward to it.”  What we as believers have to look forward to is “paradise.”  And having something to look forward to makes any and all present difficulties more manageable and easier to bear.

What do you think it will be like in “paradise?”  The Apostle Paul talks about how the Lord at one time allowed him to be “caught up to Paradise.”  He goes on to say that there he heard “inexpressible things, things that man is not permitted to tell” because they are so wonderful… The Apostle John in the Book of Revelation describes the glimpse of heaven he was given in terms of beauty and grandness and as a place where there is no more mourning or crying or pain…  Psalm 16 speaks of heaven as a place where God “will fill [me] with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.”  For lack of a better term, “paradise” will be just that – a paradise… and it will never end.  And it is ours, thanks to Christ, our King.

Let’s bring our thoughts to a close. When Jesus was hanging of the cross He didn’t look very king-like or seem very powerful.  Many at that time didn’t and today many still don’t understand the nature of His rule and the kingdom He came to establish.  By God’s grace, we do. 

Our great assurance in life is that we live each day now under the watchful eye of Christ the King, and will eventually reign with Him forever in heaven.  So in our hearts and minds let us daily “crown him with many crowns” and enjoy our position as members of His Kingdom.  Amen.