Last Sunday after Pentecost, Cp29, November 24, 2019 Christ the King
Jeremiah 23:1-6 Ps. 46
Col. 1:11-20 Luke 23:23-33
We might think that billboards were a modern invention for mass advertising, but we find from the Gospels that the cross of Jesus Christ was also a billboard. On the cross of Jesus, it was written, "The King of the Jews."
This inscription would be interesting to ponder during the actual time of Jesus. Why would writing be placed upon a cross? Who would see it? How many people who would be in the audience for the event that lasted just a few hours would actually be literate? Would it be an internal joke among the Roman soldiers who could read? Crucifixions were public spectacles to discourage others about even thinking about rebellion and insurrections.
It is hard for me to understand who the actual viewers would have been to see the words written on the cross.
What is easier for me to understand is the literary function of this billboard within the early Christian community. "The King of Jews," being written on the cross in the account of the crucifixion is a proclamation of the profound irony which was involved in the cross of Jesus.
Today is the feast of Christ the King and this is perhaps the original irony which instigated the split between the church and the synagogue.
The feast of Christ the King, became a feast because a pope observed the success of the Bolshevik revolution and secular and atheistic political movements in Europe. How could Christians celebrate an event of Christian politics? So, we have the arising of the feast of Christ the King.
We know that for us that not only was Christ as king, an ironic notion; the very notion of monarchical governance is a big problem for us as Americans. We formed our country because we did not believe that monarchy was true to the nature of free independent people who could determine their own governance.
Americans love the romance of European tourism monarchies and gossip about the Royal family. We enjoy the Disney fantasies about royalty, even while we are very skeptical about the notion of kings and monarchies.
In the Hebrew Scripture, the notion of kingship was originally problematic. The tribes of Israel were a loose federation governed by prophets, seers and judges. The tribes of Israel begged the last famous Judge Samuel to give them a king who would lead an army to protect because all of their enemies had kings with armies. Samuel, warned them that it was not God's will. He warned them that a king would be a "socialism of one; a king is a very demanding central government." The king would take your young men for his army and he would take a disproportionate amount of the goods and services of the country to support his life style. Reluctantly, God and Samuel, agreed to have a God chosen king, who would be invested in the act of pouring oil on the head. This anointing is where the word and notion of Messiah derives. The oil is symbolic of God's spirit selecting and initiating God's chosen leader. This is also perhaps a variation of the ancient notion of the "divine right" of kings that is found in many ancient societies. It is also the highest religious political propaganda because, "if God has chosen the leader, then how can mere people oppose such a leader?" It becomes blasphemy to oppose the divine king."
Let us ponder how the designation of "The King of the Jews" is a highly ironic notion for first century Palestine. In the time of Jesus, who was the actual King of the Jews? It was the Caesar and his local representative, King Herod. So, the Roman soldiers who knew that Caesar was King, mocked the small town prophet king as being but a joke. In the Passion story, the notion of Jesus as a King was presented as a threat to the Caesar. Jesus as King was seen as disclosed to the Roman authorities by the Jewish religious leaders who paid Judas 30 pieces of silver for this secret knowledge held by the followers of Jesus. They confessed Jesus as being the chief candidate for this mythical successor of King David, the Messiah. The Passion crowd cried, "We have no king but Caesar," which meant that Jesus was presented to Pilate and Herod as a competing pretender to the throne.
That Jesus died a death on the cross was proof that he was not a military king Messiah like David who would be so great as to deliver Israel from the domination of Caesar. And because Jesus was not a military Messiah, at the death of Jesus, his followers scattered. How could Jesus on the cross be the Messiah? And so we understand the chief reason that the synagogue separated from the Jesus Movement. It was the irony about how Jesus was the king; it was the irony of not being able to believe one's eyes. For most of the members of the synagogue, Jesus could not be a true Davidic Messiah king because he did not deliver Israel. In fact, Israel was destroyed by the Roman armies with Jerusalem and the Temple being razed to the ground in the year 70. How could Jesus be the Davidic Messiah with such devastation of the homeland?
The irony of Jesus as a king and as a Messiah was fulfilled in the early church, through what I would call the mysticism of Jesus Movement. What is the mysticism of the early church which would bring a person to confess Jesus as the Messiah? The followers of Jesus had the privilege of the mystical encounters with Risen Christ which was so real, they were convinced that he was still living. If Jesus of Nazareth, transcended death and appeared as the Risen Christ, this powerful post-death transformation was more than enough proof of Jesus being God's chosen and anointed Messiah-King.
But you see the problem. If you did not have the mystical experience of the Risen Christ, you could only believe your eyes and think that Messiah would be a powerful military king. One can sympathize with people who did not have the mystical experience of the Risen Christ; one can sympathize with those who did not have this baptism of the Holy Spirit to be able to experience this interior and vital King of Hearts.
Jesus as the Messiah became evident to those who had this experience of the Risen Christ and understood this parallel kingdom of God that transcended the visible world which was still in control of the tyrants of the world.
Now do you understand the irony of the billboard on the cross of Jesus, "This is the King of the Jews?"
It was an irony because the Risen Christ had become known and revealed as the Messiah to the Jews who had this mystical experience of the Risen Christ, but also to the Gentiles who had the same mystical experience available to them as well.
The history of the church throughout the ages is the history of the irony of Christ as king. Even when Christianity converted kings and rulers and when so-called Christian Emperors and Kings tried to pretend they were the kingdom of the Messiah, it has not been evident that they could make it heaven on earth. It has more often been the case that Christian leaders and popes with absolute power also found the all too human way to be absolutely corrupt. And yet in the continuous failure to make heaven on earth, the irony of Christ as King and Messiah continues.
How does it continue? It continues as an inside job. Christ is the Messiah the King is known in the continuing availability of the mystical experience of the Risen Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit to transforms the inner lives of the person.
Sometimes the political situations in our world seem so corrupt and bereft of genuine care for the common good, we can get discouraged about the kingdom of the Messiah ever being actually within our grasp.
I believe that many religious people think that if we can convince the kings and the leaders of the world to support us, we can make our heaven on earth. But to ally ourselves with corrupt leaders for our own power is to compromise the values of Christ.
And we can easily betray the irony of Christ the Messiah. The Gospels of the early churches are the mystical spiritual manuals of the early churches; they present the inner mysticism within the narrative of the life of Jesus.
For those who have had the experience of the Risen Christ, they have entered into the path of identity with Jesus and with Paul, they could say, "I have been crucified with Christ, yet I live, yet not I for Christ lives within me."
The narrative of the life of Jesus in the Gospel is the narrative of the mystical identity with Christ. This includes the mystical irony of Jesus on the cross as the king of the Jews and as the king of anyone who wants to know the power of the death of Jesus become the mystical power within each of us to die to that which is unworthy.
On this feast of Christ the King, let us be true to the mystical experience of the Risen Christ becoming the King of our hearts who has initiated us into a parallel kingdom of God. And the wonderful thing about this mystical experience is that many, many times in our lives we find experiences in this visible world which partakes of the delicious presence of the Risen Christ, who is our King and Messiah. Amen.
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