Kingship turned upside down

Proper 29-B Nov. 22, 2009
2 Samuel 23:1-7
Ps. 132:1-19
Rev 1:4b-8
John 18:33-37

We're not supposed to like kings and queens and royalty in this country, but there is something about the institution that appeals to us. Think about how the press and public treated Senator Edward Kennedy at his death – so much adulation, so many allusions to the Kennedys as our “royal family.” Like any royal, Kennedy certainly had flaws, but we would overlook them when he was able to do what a leader was supposed to do, especially when he set aside his personal self-interest to serve people who needed the care of the government, to help this nation live up to our ideals of liberty and justice for all. Like the Jews of ancient Israel, or of Jesus’ day, we yearn for an ideal ruler, a king like David, a sovereign under whose leadership our lives and our society would prosper and live in peace and security.

This Sunday, the Sunday before Advent, is called Christ the King, a celebration of the reign of Christ. During this last Sunday of the church year, and just before the beginning of the next, the lessons and collect look at the completion of the ministry of Our Lord and the inauguration of his universal kingdom, the new age when all "the peoples of the earth, divided and enslaved by sin [are] brought together under his most gracious rule."

Jews living during the time of Jesus needed a hope like this, a hope that life under God's rule would be better than life under Roman rule. Judaism was barely tolerated, a legally allowed diversion from the worship of the Emperor. The Jews could remember the time when they controlled their own country and so resented the Roman occupiers all the more.

The people hoped for a political and religious restoration which would turn things back to the way they used to be. Would God send a military leader? A divine explosion? A plague of locusts?

None of these hopes came to fruition. God intervened, but not in the way anyone expected. In our gospel today, Pilate asks Jesus if he is a king. Jesus answers that his kingship is not of this world; he said, "I have come to bear witness to the truth," and with this, the king went out to suffer and die. Jesus knew what people expected of a king, something out of Star Wars, like that great final battle between Luke Skywalker and the Dark Side, someone to lead them to victory in Armegeddon. Yet Jesus said, I am the man. Yes, I am the king. Now I go to die. Like the poor young woman visited by an angel, who said yes, I will bear this child, who, though born in an ordinary barn, will become king.

The kingship of Christ celebrates the last victory, but it celebrates a victory that turned the expectations of kingship upside down. Jesus went out as the servant to suffer and die, and the forces of evil thought they had won. Armegeddon was fought and good apparently lost because Jesus died on the cross. Lightning flashed, the veil of the Temple was torn in two, and quiet fell upon the earth.

Three days later, after the smoke had cleared from the battle, the light began to dawn quite literally on those first few who had met the Risen Christ and understood for the first time what he had been talking about. Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it again. Three days later those few followers understood what kingship this Jesus was talking about. Jesus in his suffering had proven his kingship. Jesus was the Son of Man, his favorite title for himself, coming with power to receive the kingdom from the Ancient of Days. A king with humble human origins, who brought about a whole new order of creation, victorious over the powers of death that would pull us down into misery.

Today, then, we come to the end of the story about Jesus, only to turn around next Sunday and begin again: we will hear from the beginning the story of Jesus’ life among us, what it means to follow him in the Way, to carry some of his kingly burden of compassion for the powerless and the least, to spread some of his Good News that the reign God intends for us is one of justice and peace. To follow him is also to do what Jesus commanded us to do in that last supper with his disciples: to gather with our friends and neighbors, to break bread and drink wine in remembrance of him. We do that, then, in remembrance, and in hope, that with all saints and angels, with friends and enemies and beloved ones, past, present and yet to come, we will gather for this feast around the banquet table in the household of God.