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The Last Sunday after Pentecost: Christ the King
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Scripture citation(s): Zechariah 9:9-16; Luke 19:11-27
A Sermon by
Fr. Spurlock
on
Zechariah 9:9-16; Luke 19:11-27
✛
Ruling over the Unruly
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I have here a cross that was given to me when I was confirmed. There is nothing special about it, it’s similar to many crosses that are purchased in church supply stores and hang in the homes of the faithful all over the world. But ever since the day that I received it, it has hung over my front door. It watches over my coming in and my going out. One day, not so many years ago, I was on my way out. As I approached the front door my eyes caught sight of this cross and it stopped me in my tracks, and then it spoke it to me. “You profess that I am Lord, but I am king everywhere except in your own home.”
Because kings, good and bad, figure so heavily into our biblical imagination, we can sometimes forget that Israel didn’t always have a king. The nation began with a father, Abraham, whose grandson Jacob had his name changed to Israel. Israel had twelve sons, each the head of a tribe. Because of a great famine the tribes moved down from the land of Canaan to Egypt where they prospered and grew in numbers, but were enslaved by the Egyptians and later liberated by God in a great exodus. Yes, there were always figures like Moses and Joshua who stood between God and the nation helping to mediate the relationship, but there was never any doubt that God was in charge. After the people settled in the Promised Land, judges were appointed to oversee the nation under God’s sovereignty. That is until the people asked the last of the judges, whose name was Samuel, to give them a king. Other nations had kings and Israel wanted one too. Samuel was offended by this but God assured him that the people were not rejecting Samuel’s oversight of the nation; they were rejecting God’s oversight. He told Samuel to give the people what they wanted: if they want a king, give them a king.
At first, the kings were hand-picked and anointed by God: Saul, David, Solomon and the nation grew from strength to strength. But after Solomon, the people began to pick their own kings and so began a slow but great decline until there was no longer a kingdom over which anyone could be king. Looking back, we see that this period of time without king or kingdom was an interregnum of sorts. The people, though now in exile in Babylon, had a longing; a deep hope that welled up that God would send them a new king. But not a king of their own choosing, rather God’s own anointed a messiah. This anointed one would re-establish the kingdom, defeat Israel’s enemies, and save the people.
The prophets gave voice to this longing; they looked to the future, stirred up this hope and proclaimed that God’s king would come in glory and power and majesty and that they would know him for who he was by the great signs that would accompany his advent. And so they waited. They waited through the days when Israel passed through the successive hands of foreign powers; through revolt and semi-autonomy under the Maccabees; and through the days when they fell into the hands of Rome. Under Rome, they were ruled by kings drawn from their own people, the Herodians, but no one mistook these tyrants and puppets for the messiah, and so the nation continued to wait and to hope.
Then one night in the town of Bethlehem, a baby was born whose name is Jesus. From the virgin birth, being born in Bethlehem, being filled with the holy spirit, an heir of David, from the tribe of Judah, making the lame to walk, the blind to see, the deaf to hear, the dead rise from their graves, rejected by his own people, cursed, scourged and hung on a tree, dead and in the grave for three days, resurrected and ascended to God’s right hand, all the signs that the prophets said would attend the messiah accompanied his birth, life, death and resurrection. Any one of that age who knew the signs would have seen Jesus for who he was; the anointed King the people of Israel had longed and hoped for.
But, the people and their priests cursed Jesus to his face and sent him for trial under the Roman prefect, Pontius Pilate. Not able to find any fault in Jesus, Pilate sought to set him free, but the priests, the religious leaders of the nation who so longed for God’s anointed one to come among them, would have none of it. So, Pilate, “brought Jesus forth, and sat down in the judgement seat in a place that is called the pavement… and he saith unto the Jews, Behold your king! But they cried out, Away with him, away with him, crucify him. Pilate saith unto them, Shall I crucify your king? The chief priests answered, We have no king but Caesar.”[i]
All that messianic longing and hope for God’s own anointed king who would establish his kingdom, defeat their enemies and save the people was but dust in their mouths. “We have no king but Caesar.” It was late in that day when Jesus died on the cross. He was quickly laid in a borrowed tomb so that everyone could rush home to observe the passover. Can’t you just see the priest, who earlier that day had cried out, we have no king but Caesar, now presiding at the meal crying, Lord, Lord, send us your messiah to be the herald of your kingdom, to defeat our enemies, send your messiah to save us.
We, who claim the name of Christian, are all the time crying Lord, Lord, and we proclaim a feast for Christ as King. It is a matter of creed and truth that he reigns over all the universe visible and invisible. But, we all have unruly bits of our lives, places where Christ is shut out and not permitted or given the freedom to reign; my own story of the cross being just one example. We carve out bits of God’s kingdom for ourselves and we say to Christ, you can do no good here, or, butt out, this is mine. As long as things are running smoothly we are content with this arrangement, but when trouble comes we take up our cry, Lord, Lord, all the while clinging to our own sovereignty. I wonder what good would come if you and I took the unruly bits of our lives out from under our own thumbs and let Christ hide them under the shadow of his wing.[ii] Those of us who cry Lord, Lord, also do well to raise the cry, King, King.
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[i] John 19.13-15
[ii] Psalm 17.8
