The Forever King

The scriptures referred to are Jeremiah 23:1-6 and Luke 23:33-43.

In 1947 Winston Churchill said in speech to the House of Commons, “It has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried...” He then went on to defend democracy, of course. But you can see why some have given democracy this kind of backhanded compliment. Democracy is not the most efficient form of government because of the time and effort that must be put in to come up with a consensus on the issues. If you are thinking of efficiency alone, a dictatorship should work better. I say “should” because incompetent or lazy dictators or monarchs can also display a very inefficient style of governing. And if an absolute ruler is evil, you don't want him to be efficient in carrying out his policies. Which is why authoritarian rulers get rid of their opposition, by disbanding other political parties, locking up or executing rivals, muzzling the press and bringing the courts to heel. Our founding fathers tried to come up with a system of checks and balances to keep any one branch of government from having too much power. In addition they gave us 2 houses in Congress trying to ensure that to get anything passed you need 2 majorities to agree to it. The side effect of this is a certain built-in inefficiency in getting things done.

In our passage from Jeremiah God is denouncing the evil shepherds of his people. It was common in the ancient Near East to compare the king to a shepherd. A king is supposed to lead, protect and care for his people in much the same way as a shepherd does for his sheep. But kings were not elected and there was no legal way to remove them. So you were stuck with whoever inherited or seized the throne. And even in the line of Davidic kings, there were more who “did evil in the eyes of the Lord” than those who did right. All told, 11 out of the 19 kings of the southern kingdom of Judah did evil. And all the kings of Israel, the northern kingdom, did evil. So what is important in a person who has power is his character. Because he can do a lot of good or a lot of evil.

This Sunday we honor Christ the King. Unlike other kings, you can choose to be part of his kingdom or not. You are not automatically a citizen by mere birth somewhere or because your parents were. But in an age where we justifiably dismiss the very idea of giving anyone absolute power, why should we choose to trust Jesus and give him power over our lives?

The Bible has a lot to say about kings. The Hebrew word for king (melek) appears almost 2700 times in the Old Testament and the Greek word (basileus) occurs more than 125 times in the New Testament. The first reference to kings is in Genesis 14 and the last is in Revelation 21. For most of recorded history people were ruled by kings, who could be good, bad or indifferent.

The Bible also has a lot to say about what makes a good king. In Deuteronomy 17, the idea that there will one day be a king over Israel is foreseen and his qualifications are laid out. He must not accumulate too much military power or have many wives or acquire a lot of wealth. He must have a copy of God's law and he must study and obey it. And he must not think of himself as above his fellow citizens. (Deuteronomy 17:16-20)

So how does Jesus do in regards to these qualifications? He did not have any military power, doesn't appear to have married at all, let alone have multiple wives, and was not rich. (John 18:36; Matthew 19:12; 8:20) He knew God's law thoroughly and quoted it often. And he was a man who worked with his hands. (Mark 6:3) In fact it is remarkable that Jesus has been remembered at all because he did not win battles, build monuments to himself, gain political power or do any of the things that usually get someone a place in history. But his words have had a longer lasting influence on more people than the deeds of any king.

In Psalm 72, which is a prayer for God to give Solomon the ability to make fair decisions, it says, “For he will rescue the needy when they cry out for help, and the oppressed who have no defender. He will take pity on the poor and needy; the lives of the needy he will save. From harm and violence he will deliver them; he will value their lives.” (Psalm 72:12-14) In Proverbs 29 we are told that a king brings stability to the land by justice. He must not take bribes or listen to lies. If he wants his kingdom to last, he will judge the poor in truth. (Proverbs 29:4,12,14) He embodies God's principle that the powerful should protect the powerless.

And Jesus? He famously started his ministry by reading this passage from Isaiah: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and the regaining of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.” (Luke 4:18-19) And he proceeds to do so, preaching the good news of God's forgiveness and his love for all, releasing those who were captive to disease and sin, freeing those oppressed by the requirements that their religious leaders piled on them, and both metaphorically and literally giving sight to the blind. (John 8:34-36; Luke 13:16; Matthew 23:2-4; John 9:5-7) Furthermore, he tied our duty to him to our duty to the disadvantaged, saying whatever we do for them we do for him. (Matthew 25: 31-46)

Proverbs says a good king must ensure justice in his kingdom. (Proverbs 8:15) Proverbs 21:3 says, “To do righteousness and justice is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice.” But that doesn't mean strict justice is always desirable. Proverbs 20:28 says, “Mercy and truth preserve the king and his throne is upheld by mercy.” The Hebrew word for “mercy” here can also be translated “kindness” or “love.” The harsh infliction of justice is not the mark of a good king.

Jesus shows his mercy to sinners throughout his ministry but nowhere more so than in today's gospel reading. Jesus forgives a violent criminal (Mark 15:27) who somehow recognizes in Jesus something regal. He says, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” Jesus replies, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.” That is not only mercy but grace. The man admits he deserves his horrible death for what he's done. Pinioned on a cross, the man can do nothing to undo his crimes and deserve forgiveness. But Jesus sees his repentance and his humility towards him and graciously tells him he will be admitted to God's kingdom. In fact, this unnamed criminal is the only person in the Bible Jesus explicitly says will be with him in paradise.

Of course the real surprise is that Jesus asked God to forgive his executioners. Killing an innocent man is bad enough but you'd think that killing God's Son would be unforgivable. But Jesus said there is only 1 unforgivable sin and this is not it. Still—could you forgive those who were deliberately causing your death? God can. And therein lies hope for all of us.

Jesus is called “King of the Jews” here but ironically. The religious leaders do not believe that he is. In fact, when they saw that Pilate had a sign made that said “Jesus of Nazareth, the king of the Jews,” they went to Pilate to ask him that it read instead, “This man said, I am the king of the Jews.” Pilate refuses. Inadvertently he is right.

And throughout his ministry, people knew that Jesus was a king. People called him “son of David.” (Mark 10:47; Matthew 15:22) They knew he was a descendant of the great king who united the nation 1000 years before Jesus. Even the title “Son of God” was considered a royal title, because of the special relationship of the king to God. (Matthew 26:63; 2 Samuel 7:14) The biggest giveaway is the title Jesus used for himself: the Son of Man. It could simply be a way of referring to someone as a human being but Jesus uses it too deliberately for it to mean simply that. His audience would instantly think of the passage in Daniel where it says, “I was watching in the night visions, and with the clouds of the sky one like a son of man was approaching. He went up to the Ancient of Days and was escorted before him. To him was given ruling authority, honor and sovereignty. All peoples, nations, and language groups were serving him. His authority is eternal and will not pass away. His kingdom will not be destroyed.” (Daniel 7:13-14) This is no mere human king. This is God's forever king.

And of course the title Christ, or in Hebrew Messiah, was usually seen as a royal title. It means “the Anointed” and God's people anointed their prophets, priests and kings. Jewish scholars debated which of these roles the Messiah would fulfill but the popular choice was that of king. Those who called Jesus Christ were usually thinking of him as God's anointed king.

When Jesus asked the Twelve who they thought he was, Peter says, “You are the Christ.” Jesus says Peter is right and then immediately starts telling them that “the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and experts in the law, and be killed, and after three days rise again.” I think Peter stops listening after the words “be killed” and starts to rebuke Jesus. Jesus in turn rebukes Peter, telling him, “You are not setting your mind on God's interests, but on man's.” (Mark 8:27-33)

One can totally understand Peter's concerns, though. What good is a dead king? I think Peter forgot that kings often went into battle at the head of their men, exposing themselves to the possibility of being killed. Except in this case the enemy was death itself and Jesus was going in first. Essentially he was on a suicide mission.

Because the other enemy was sin, the rupture of our relationships with not only God but with each other and with ourselves. The result is death, separation from God, the source of life and all goodness. And as much people don't like thinking or talking about death, they really don't like people talking about sin. It has almost disappeared from modern discourse. We don't like to be reminded that the root of our problems is not confined to someone else we can scapegoat but is in ourselves as well. It comes in many varieties: greed, rage, envy, lust, laziness, selfishness. But they all spring from our arrogance, our trying to take the reins from God, and control everything and everyone for our own benefit. We think we know better than God. We may pay him lip service and make him our mascot. But we really don't want him telling us how we should live. It's not God's will we want done but our own. We want to be in charge. We know what we're doing. And yet we ignore the state of the world which has resulted from this attitude.

Jesus was going to have to tell people the unpalatable truth; he was going to give them the diagnosis they didn't want to hear. Their enemy wasn't the Romans; it was themselves. Everyone's worst enemy is themselves and the certainty that they are right and everybody else is wrong. And the people that would resist that the most were, then as now, those who did have a measure of control over others. The powerful, especially those who wielded the word of God and claimed power in his name, would not like it.

And what was worse is that they couldn't point out flaws in Jesus' arguments. Because, and this was really appalling, Jesus was right. What he said was true.

And he was good. They couldn't find fault in his life. They couldn't say, “Well, you're no better than us. You're flawed, too. Why should we listen to you?” Unlike them, he didn't misuse his power. He used it to heal the sick and to feed the hungry and to forgive sinners. Once when 4 men burrowed through the roof of the house he was in so they could lower their paralyzed friend to him, Jesus told the man, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” And the religious leaders were shocked. It was blasphemy. Only God can forgive sins. So Jesus called them on this line of thought. Sure, it's easy to say someone's sins are forgiven. What's harder is to tell a paralyzed man to walk again. And so to show them that he does have the authority to forgive sins, Jesus says, “I tell you, take up your mat and go home.” And the man does. How can you argue with that?

Jesus was not only right but he showed it in everything he said and did. And it drove those in power mad. And when you can't disprove what a man says, you try to silence him. If you can't deny the truth, you bury it. And the person telling the truth as well.

But you can't kill the truth. It always comes back. In the 1960s the sugar industry tried to bury the fact that obesity was increasing because of all the sugar in our modern foods. They got tame scientists to say it was fat that made us fat. And so we turned to low fat diets. And still we got fatter. Finally the truth emerged. They knew it all along. The same thing happened with the tobacco industry in regards to their product causing cancer and with the oil industry in regards to their product causing global warming. The truth just won't stay buried.

Nor did Jesus. Nor has the truth he proclaimed. We are all sinners. That's the bad news. But by trusting in Jesus Christ, the God who is love incarnate, and letting him rule in our lives we are saved from our sins, the destructive and self-destructive ways we think, speak and act. That's the good news.

The book of Judges chronicles a time of chaos, of cycles of suffering from oppression and salvation from conflict, only to end with a war between the tribes of Israel. The book concludes with this verse: “In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes.” (Judges 21:25) Yet they had a king all along: God. They just didn't listen to him or do as he said. And, as we saw, switching to a human king did not solve their problem. But people still think giving someone fallible total power is an attractive solution.

Our allegiance is to Jesus the Christ, the Lord's Anointed, Son of God, Son of Man, who is both human and divine, who is both just and merciful, who is not tempted by temporal power or wealth or personal pleasure. He is our shepherd, caring for us, protecting us, and leading us through the chaos of everyone acting on their own, doing what is right in their own eyes, until we get to his kingdom, the kingdom of the God who is love.