The Lamb-King

Proper 29 (called by some, “Christ the King Sunday”); Luke 23:33-43

11/20/2016 - St. Paul’s, Jim Melnyk: “The Lamb-King”

Four score and eleven years ago – that’s 91 years ago for those who don’t count in scores anymore – the Roman Catholic Church created a new feast day.  In 1925 Pope Pius XI created the Feast of Christ the King to be celebrated on the last Sunday before Advent.  His thinking, at least in part, was to “advance the message of God in Christ over and against that of the political forces moving in the world at that time – people like Mussolini and Hitler” who were just beginning to push the edges of power (Carey G. Mack, quoted in Synthesis). 

Now, the whole idea of the kingship of Christ itself goes back to antiquity – back to the early pages of Christian Scripture.  But the whole idea of kingship is pretty much foreign to us in the United States – at least experientially so.  In fact, our history in this country prides itself in overthrowing monarchy, and living into the great experiment we call a democratic republic. 

So, for most of us, kingship or monarchy has more to do with history or civics classes, or even Hollywood, than with real-life experience.

Yet every year on this last Sunday of Pentecost our gospel lessons deal with kingship – whether it be Matthew’s parable of the final judgment, John’s account of Jesus standing trial before Pilate, Luke’s invitation to stand at the foot of the cross as Jesus breathes his last, or one of the versions of the Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem, taken from either Mark’s or Luke’s gospel. 

Each choice we are presented with year-after-year – each lesson from the gospels – challenges us to choose how we will see Jesus.  Will we see Jesus through the eyes of much of the world and much of the institutional church – a vengeful King riding against his enemies with a flaming sword in hand?  Or, will we see Jesus through the eyes of his life and ministry, and perhaps through the eyes of the very early church, before it made a covenant with the empire that sought to take its life?  Too often we choose the former, glorying in the splendor of heavenly kingship, power and authority.  And that’s what can be so troubling about this Sunday for me.

What is there about the life of Jesus as we know it from the gospels that would ever make us think Jesus wanted to be a king?  In John’s gospel – after the feeding of the multitude – the people seek to force kingship upon Jesus and the young rabbi high-tails it across the lake.  Later, with the title attributed to him rather mockingly by religious leaders and Pilate, Jesus remarks, “My kingdom is not of this world.”  It’s the closest he ever comes to making any claim on kingship.  And yet even this somewhat cryptic claim can’t be understood within the language, either literal or metaphorical, of any kind of known or experienced human kingship.

No matter how different a picture Jesus paints with his parables, sayings, and actions, the church seems to always come back to the image of the Risen Christ enthroned in some far-off heavenly realm, with armies at his command, loyal subjects standing by, the earth and the enemies of the true faith a footstool beneath his feet.  Think about it!  What’s the very first image that really comes to mind when you hear the phrase “Christ the King?”

Author Frederick Schmidt tells us that “as ‘King of Kings and Lord of Lords,’” (an image found in this morning's Collect of the Day, and lifted straight out of the Book of Revelation) “[the Risen Christ] rightly bears the titles that Nero and others have attempted to appropriate for themselves ”(Conversations with Scripture: Revelation, p. 84-5).          

But, in Revelation the King, the Lion of Judah, is the Lamb that was slain.  The resurrected Christ bears the wounds of his crucifixion and wears the robes that are marked with his own blood, and “the army that accompanies the Lamb into battle is not dressed for it…wearing white festival robes [and carrying no weapons – they're not even invited to take part in the battle or in the judgment]…” (ibid).  In fact, “the [last] battle John describes [in Revelation] only has one combatant – the Lamb... [and] the one and only weapon used by the Lamb is the Word (Rev. 19:21)” (ibid).  It is the Lamb that was slain who ends up sitting upon the throne in the New Jerusalem – the heavenly city come down to earth for all God’s people.

Paul, when he’s at his best, says it best: “For freedom Christ has set us free” (Gal. 5:1), and in today's lesson, “For in [Christ] all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross” (Col. 1:19-20).  Reconciliation and peacemaking, not power and violence, are the hallmarks of the King of Heaven.             

Even the image of God’s reign offered by Jesus has been corrupted by our understanding of kingship.  We read in the parables about the “basileia” of God, or the “basileia” of heaven, translating the Greek as “kingdom.”  It’s better translated as “city” of God, or “city” of heaven.  I think, better yet, as “community” or “communion” of God – “communion” of heaven.  The translation “kingdom” only works when we understand how utterly subversive it is meant to be – overthrowing the mighty who trust in their own power and authority, and those who seek only to be served, and to oppress those they fear or cannot use or control.

The kingship of Jesus is so not of this earth – so not of our human experience – that perhaps we do need this Sunday to remember how it is the Risen Christ reigns.  Jesus is the one who willingly lays down his own life that we might see the vulnerability of God’s love for us.  Jesus is the one who stands with those who are cast to the margins or cast underfoot.  Jesus is the One who draws the circle of God’s love in ever-widening circles, inviting, welcoming, and including all – all – God’s people.  If we can’t redefine his kingship as the One who lives and loves with us, as the One who suffers and serves, the One who laughs and cries, who struggles and dies with us, then I’m afraid we’ve lost sight of the Christ made known to us in the Gospels.  And if Jesus were to choose that anyone be made a footstool before the throne of God – then my bet is that Jesus, himself, would be the one stretched out on the ground beneath us, struggling to keep our faces out of the dust!

Jesus says it another way, offered in both Matthew’s and Mark’s gospels: “the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve” (Matt. 20, Mark 10).  Rather than power and control – rather than fear and exclusion, Jesus speaks of bread and light, of living water and life.  “I came,” Jesus tells us, “that [the world] might have life, and have it abundantly.” (John 10:10).  Jesus goes on to say how this is made real for those of us who follow: Our life is made abundant as we abide in him and in his love, and he abides in us.  It is Jesus who, as teacher and Lord, washes his disciples’ feet commanding those of us who would follow him to do the same “A new commandment I give to you: love one another” (John 13).

This is our king – One who serves – One who embraces both outcast and privileged alike. The One who meets people in their joys and sorrows, in their expectations and anguish of life, and Who stays with us – stays with us!  One who comes among us as a servant – One who lays down his life for the life of the world. 

Who in their right minds would seek a servant-king upon the executioner’s cross?  Can the church – can we – redefine kingship and share that vision with the world?  Will we embrace a kingship so utterly “not of this world” that our lives will confound those whose lives depend upon power, authority and control?  Can we embrace and proclaim a kingship that finds its power in reconciliation and peacemaking, in justice and in mercy, in caring for and about the very least among us?  Can we embrace and proclaim a kingship that finds its power in practicing radical welcome and in the full inclusion proclaimed through the Gospel of Christ?

“Keep your eyes on the Prince of Peace,” wrote Henri Nouwen.  Keep your eyes on “the one who doesn't cling to his divine power; the one who refuses to turn stones into bread, jump from great heights, and rule with great power; the one who says, ‘blessed are the poor, the gentle, those who mourn, those who hunger and thirst for justice, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, and those persecuted for justice.’ ... Keep your eyes on him who becomes poor with the poor, weak with the weak, and who is rejected with the rejected. That one, Jesus, is the source of all peace.” This great truth is captured in the final verse of hymn 585:

“Here is God: no monarch he,

throned in easy state to reign;

here is God, whose arms of love

aching, spent, the world sustain.”  (The Hymnal 1982, Hymn 585)