- 1 Peter 2:9
When they came to the place that is called The Skull, they crucified Jesus there with the criminals, one on his right and one on his left. Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.” And they cast lots to divide his clothing. And the people stood by, watching; but the leaders scoffed at him, saying, “He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Messiah of God, his chosen one!” The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him sour wine, and saying, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!” There was also an inscription over him, “This is the King of the Jews.” One of the criminals who were hanged there kept deriding him and saying, “Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!” But the other rebuked him, saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.” Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” He replied, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” - Luke 23:33-43
This is Christ the King Sunday.
Somewhere along the way, church wordsmiths renamed it “Reign of Christ” Sunday. All kings are dudes, they reasoned, and it seemed chauvinistic to refer to Jesus as a King.
It is also difficult for us dwellers of the 21st century to identify with kings, kingdoms, and other monarchial paraphernalia.
The monarch most of us can name is the saintly Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain, but we fully understand she is merely glitter on the ordinariness of a pinstriped parliamentary democracy. She has no power and even the most miscreant members of her court know they can safely misbehave without losing their heads.
It has been a long time since there were monarchs around we could look up to as metaphors to help us comprehend the ascendant royalty of Jesus. If we compare him to Queen Elizabeth, Christ the King might be seen as beautiful stained glass camouflage on a lackluster church.
But when have kings and kingdoms ever been a useful analogy to help people understand Jesus?
Even those who first heard the comparison would have thought immediately of King Herod or the Emperor Tiberius, both known for their brutality and debauchery.
Or, if the more scripturally literate chose to reflect on Kings David or Solomon, it would be instantly clear that neither one of them was Christlike. David was an adulterer who consummated his enamors by having Bathsheba’s husband neatly dispatched, and Solomon was an enthusiastic polygamist whose wives led him down the path to serial to idolatry (I Kings 11:9-13).
Has there ever been a monarch whose reign reminded us of God’s reign? It is, in fact, very difficult to survey the monarchies of Europe, Asia, or Africa without reaching the conclusion the kings and queens were, with few exceptions, murderously megalomaniacal and calculatingly cruel.
Even the greatest rulers – Henry VIII, Catherine the Great, Shaka Zulu, Emperor Jai Jing – survived by killing, jailing, or torturing their challengers.
And the most saintly of monarchs, Good King Wenceslaus I (907-935 C.E.), was a mediocre king whose reputation was enhanced by his assassination at the hands of his brother, Boleslav the Cruel, himself a bad comparison for the reign of Christ.
Even so, it’s obvious that peoples over the centuries tended to revere their kings, especially if the king kept the peace, made it possible for the surfs to live without starving, and kept pogroms to a minimum.
Many of us like to think standards of good kinging were established in the legends of King Arthur and popularized by librettist Alan Jay Lerner and composer Frederick Loewe in Camelot:
Camelot! Camelot!
I know it gives a person pause,
But in Camelot, Camelot
Those are the legal laws.
The snow may never slush upon the hillside.
By nine p.m. the moonlight must appear.
In short, there's simply not
A more congenial spot
For happily-ever-aftering than here
In Camelot.
Camelot might tempt us to compare it to the reign of God, but as we English majors know, the realm eventually collapsed in seduction and treachery.
In Shalom Aleichem’s Fiddler on the Roof, we detect a more realistic picture of how people revere their monarchs. When the rabbi is asked if there is a prayer for the Tsar, he replies, “May the Lord bless and keep the Tsar – far away from us.” No doubt that was a familiar prayer in all cultures.
But if kings and queens were never good models for Christ the King, they became even less so after the First World War when most of the monarchies of Europe were wiped away, and the monarchs who survived became empty fronts for democratically elected prime ministers.
So when we think of “Christ the King,” what is it, exactly, that we are supposed to imagine?
When I was in college, I occasionally worshipped in a Mennonite living room church pastored by Dr. John L. Ruth, professor of English at Eastern Baptist College. John wore the traditional Mennonite plain coat, which made him look distinctly unworldly (unless one mistook his garb for a Nehru jacket).
In fact, he had a Ph.D. from Harvard and he was an important mentor for me during my undergraduate years.
John never stopped being a Mennonite pastor, and worship services in his small house were quietly spiritual and occasionally unpredictable.
I don’t recall ever hearing of the popular musical before then. As he put the disc on his ancient turntable, John said, “It probably doesn’t mean anything to us when we talk about Christ the King. What other metaphors would give us a clearer idea of who Jesus is and the kind of impact he has on society and our individual lives?”
As the needle began to hiss on the record, John said: “How about, ‘Superstar’?”
Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ
Who are you? What have you sacrificed?
Jesus Christ Superstar
Do you think you're what they say you are?
Tell me what you think about your friends at the top
Who'd you think besides yourself's the pick of the crop
Buddha was he where it's all? Is he where you are?
Could Mahomet move a mountain or was that just PR?
Did you mean to die like that? Was that a mistake or
Did you know your messy death would be a record-breaker?
Don't you get me wrong - I only wanna know
Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ
Who are you? What have you sacrificed?
Jesus Christ Superstar
Do you think you're what they say you are?
Jesus as superstar was an interesting idea in the late sixties. Mass media shined klieg lights on certain individuals and raised them far above mere mortals. Back then it was Elvis, not one of the Windsors, who was King. The Beatles attracted more people to their concerts than any church. John Lennon didn’t lie when he said, fully realizing the irony, “We’re more popular than Jesus.”
Alas, in 2013, there are no superstars around who make us think of Jesus the King. Elvis died on a toilet. The Beatles broke up. A long litany of the stars of my generation – Janis Joplin, Jimmy Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Jerry Garcia, and more – died of drug overdoses.
Today, even the most popular teen idols go out of their way to avoid being seen as models for youth. Miley Cyrus and Justin Bieber may be widely acclaimed and the Kardashians may be the best-known family on earth. But they are not the kind of superstars who tempt us to compare them with Christ the King.
So on Christ the King Sunday, November 24, 2013, are their any regal models we can point to as examples of what the reign of Christ is like?
Perhaps so, but I doubt they are either famous or regal. Jesus gave us a large hint about those who would be models of Christ’s reign when the mother of James and John came to Jesus and asked him to make her sons superstars.
Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee came to him with her sons, and kneeling before him, she asked a favor of him. And he said to her, “What do you want?” She said to him, “Declare that these two sons of mine will sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your kingdom.” But Jesus answered, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink?” They said to him, “We are able.” He said to them, “You will indeed drink my cup, but to sit at my right hand and at my left, this is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father.”
When the ten heard it, they were angry with the two brothers. But Jesus called them to him and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. It will not be so among you; but whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave; just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.” Matthew 20:20-28
The models we are seeking to represent Christ’s reign are neither monarchs nor superstars.
The models we are seeking are those everyday women and men, most of them unknown to the media and invisible to us, who have discovered they have been called out of darkness into God’s marvelous light; and all they ask in return is to proclaim Jesus’ love and God’s mighty acts.
That calling alone is what makes them a royal priesthood in the realm of Christ.
There was certainly no one lowlier or more obscure than the thief who found himself crucified next to Jesus, and no one can say this man lived a virtuous life. But he recognized God’s marvelous light when so many around him were blind to it. And by using his last agonized breaths to declare his faith, Jesus welcomed him into the royal priesthood of the reign of Christ.
It may be good to be the King, and there may be fame and fortune in celebrity and superstardom.
But in regal sweepstakes of the reign of Christ, Jesus reminded us, it is the last who shall be first and the first who shall be last.
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