In the name of God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Amen.
Today
as we celebrate Christ the King Sunday, our focus is turned to the
Cross of Christ. To begin, I’d like to quote from the opening paragraph of
perhaps the most influential writing about the Cross in the 20th
century. It comes from a book called The
Crucified God by Jürgen Moltmann. “The cross is not and cannot be loved.
Yet only the crucified Christ can bring the freedom which changes the world
because it is no longer afraid of death. In his time the crucified Christ was
regarded as a scandal and as foolishness. Today, too, it is considered
old-fashioned to put him in the centre of Christian faith and of theology. Yet
only when we are reminded of him, however untimely this may be, can we be set
free from the power of the facts of the present time, and from the laws and
compulsions of history, and be offered a future will never grow dark again.
Today the church and theology must return to the crucified Christ in order to
show the world the freedom that he offers. This is essential if we wish to
become what we assert we are: the church of Christ.” This sermon will turn our
gaze towards the crucified Jesus, whom we claim is the King of kings and Lord
of lords.
Gazing
is something that we don’t often do. Sight, you might say, is our most powerful
sense. We are always taking in visual data, sometimes to the point of being
overwhelmed. We can look and look, but never truly see. Our attention is often
captured by whatever is dazzling and glittering. Whatever is flashy catches our
attention. I don’t think many of us enjoy looking at photos of war, of famine,
of disasters, but we do look at famous paintings, shiny cars, and photos of
sunsets. It is in our nature to turn away from darkness. The invitation of
Christ the King is to cast our gaze upon the crucified Christ and truly see the
depths of the Cross. This though, is not our inclination. We tend to turn away
from the Cross because it’s too gruesome, too violent, too unsettling.
You
can find this happening in a lot of places. Often our theology does it for us
by putting the Crucifixion and the Resurrection in competition with each other.
Some focus on the “blood” of Christ, the idea of sacrifice, and forgiveness of
sins to the point that the Resurrection becomes an afterthought. Others,
though, almost ignore the Crucifixion altogether in favor of celebrating the
triumph of the Resurrection, saying that’s all that really matters. But both of
these approaches to the Cross are missing depth. In many churches that would be
labeled as “progressive,” such as this one, we tend to make that second error,
of overly focusing on the Resurrection to the point that the Crucifixion
becomes a minor detail. By putting too much emphasis on the Resurrection, we
might come away thinking that Jesus is the undefeated champion instead of the
broken and bruised Lamb of God. It is best to think of the Crucifixion and the
Resurrection not as separate events, but as two points of a single event –
namely the salvation of God. If we focus on one of those events over the other,
we lose a part of God’s saving grace.
But
in her wisdom, the Church makes us to look upon the Cross on Christ the King
Sunday as we close one liturgical year and prepare to enter a new one in Advent
next Sunday. The Cross really is the crux of our faith, and that pun is
absolutely intended. Having a bit of historical context might be helpful in
understanding what happened when Jesus died. In the Roman Empire, crucifixion
was often reserved for crimes of treason and sedition. It was punishment for
those who sought to elevate themselves against the Emperor. So crucifixion was
a humiliating and ironic punishment – taking those who wanted to elevate their
status and lifting their bloodied bodies high for all to see.
Often
what happened when Rome would conquer a people was that there was a victory
parade. The general would march into town to the coliseum and there would be
games of gladiators. After the bloodshed of battle, more slaughter followed.
And the people, or animals, that were killed as a spectator sport were seen as
symbols for the conquered. It’s really the idea of a scapegoat, someone who
carries the burden of blame for others. Jesus was certainly aware of this
tradition. His Crucifixion was preceded by a parade on Palm Sunday; but in a
twist, Jesus is both the conquering general and the sacrificed scapegoat.
And
in doing so, more than forgiving sins, what the Crucifixion is all about is
exposing this flawed system. The Crucifixion shows us that scapegoating doesn’t
work and it shows us just how depraved and corrupt human society can be, and how badly we need a Savior. Remember that the Crucifixion happened as the result of a collusion between the
most powerful nation in the world, Rome, and the most established religion in
the world, Judaism. Today, as members of the largest world religion,
Christianity, and as citizens of the most powerful nation in the world, the
United States, the Cross should remind us of the great evils that can be
accomplished by the power structures of this world.
We
do like having scapegoats, having other to blame, don’t we? And there’s been
plenty of it in our culture recently. America was great before those immigrants
came and took our jobs. Our country was full of morality before abortion and same-sex
marriage were allowed. If the Millenials, or blacks, would have voted in larger
numbers, Trump would have never won. If those clueless idealists would have voted
for someone other than their pipe-dream third party candidate, the election
could have gone differently. If Democrats hadn’t nominated someone with so many
skeletons in the closet, they could have won. Sound familiar? What scapegoating
allows us to do is to take our concerns and problems, and instead of asking
where we have failed and been complicit in our brokenness, we shift all of the
responsibility to someone else.
Rome and the Temple
authorities didn’t want to consider how the poor were oppressed, how foreigners
were marginalized, how greed and self-interest had infected them, so instead of
looking at those problems, they said the real problem was this insurrectionist
Jesus, who sought to dismantle their power system. Scapegoats provide us easy
answers the complex problems. When there is legitimate pain, such as jobs going
overseas, instead of doing the difficult work exploring how are complicit in a
culture of materialism and economic imperialism, we blame others for stealing
our jobs.
In
his dying, Jesus puts the corruption of human hearts and society on trial and
the evidence that he presents is his broken body. The Cross exposes what we are
in the grips of: violence, scapegoating, and corruption. We see this unfolding
in Luke’s presentation of the Crucifixion. Jesus forgives those who are
betraying and killing him. The leaders scoff at him and mock him. Then one of
the criminals says “Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!” In that
request there is a sense of self-preservation over communal interest. It’s very
unlikely that this criminal was a disciple of Jesus, and yet he’s willing to
call him the Messiah if it gets him out of his current ordeal. And don’t we do
the same? We think our Presidents, or CEOs, or priests can solve all of our
problems for us. And when they don’t? Well, I’m thankful that crucifixion isn’t
as commonplace anymore.
Notice
that this Sunday is called Christ the King Sunday; it’s not about the
“martyrdom of Jesus.” Paradoxically, we proclaim that the Crucifixion was a
coronation; that Jesus’ elevation on the Cross was an enthronement liturgy. His
crown of thorns became the crown of Heaven. And so there is great hope in the
Cross, if we’re willing to gaze upon the brutality and pain of it. Jesus died
mostly alone, except for a few faithful women, poor, and rejected. Jesus didn’t
win the popular vote and he didn’t win the Electoral College. But what he did
was to go into the darkness of human hearts and society to show us the depths
of God’s abiding presence of love with us. If God, the Creator of Heaven and
Earth, can die on a Cross at the hands of creatures and result isn’t the end of
universe but Christ’s Kingship, well, then we trust that anything can be
redeemed, that we can never scare God off, that, in the end, all shall be well.
But we only see if this if we’re willing to look upon the Cross and see that
brokenness.
And
I’ll admit that this is difficult work. Recognizing the corruption of human
society and the depravity of human hearts as the cause of the Crucifixion is
not easy. When we think about Cross, we might want to look away from the pain,
betrayal, and suffering. Perhaps because we see our own complicity in it.
Perhaps because we are repulsed the bloodshed and violence. But I’d to invite
you to stay in that place of discomfort for a little while.
You’ve
likely heard of orthodoxy, which is about believing the right things. Perhaps
you’ve heard of orthopraxy, which is about doing the right things. But a less
known idea is that of orthopathy, feeling the right things. Throughout
Scripture, we read about how God is in our hearts. One of the better known
places comes from John, where Jesus says “Out of the believer’s heart shall
flow rivers of living water.” It’s a nice image, that God is always in our
hearts. But this is a bad translation. In many instances in Scripture, the word
that is actually used for “heart” is “gut.” God dwells in our innards, our
bowels, our viscera. And so if you have a visceral reaction to looking upon the
Cross of Christ, that is an orthopathic reaction, a good and holy emotion.
Because
God dwells in your gut, when you think about the Cross or human violence, you
should feel disgust in your belly. Feeling a bit sick to your stomach when you
see human pain and suffering is good and holy. It’s God, who dwells within you,
pounding from the inside saying “This isn’t okay and this isn’t right.” And so
we need to be careful about turning away from that feeling too quickly. When
you have that sinking feeling in your gut that things aren’t good, sit with
that emotion for a bit, trusting that it is God speaking from within you. Being repulsed
by the Cross is exactly what we should be feeling. That repulsion can become
the foundation for our acts of mercy and compassion in response to suffering.
That uneasy feeling might help us to look inward instead of searching for a
scapegoat to blame.
Christ
the King Sunday gives us the opportunity to gaze upon the Crucified Lord. My
advice it to let that image work on you instead of you trying to work on it.
It’s like a clock – if you try to take it apart to understand how it works, it
will no longer tell the time, which is its entire purpose. Don’t worry about
thinking the right things about the Cross. Don’t worry about doing the right
things in response to the Cross. Instead, gaze upon the Cross and see what
emotions God is stirring up in your belly. And then out of those feelings, ask
God to help you to be equipped for ministry by seeing the depths of God’s
presence, mercy, and love in the Cross. Our final hymn today will be “When I
Survey the Wondrous Cross.” As we sing it, pay attention to the words and
images it, and with every fiber of your being, as you sing, pray that you might
see the power, liberation, and love of the Crucified God.
