For all reading this, take this as your cyber-worship-service. Make a cup of your favourite hot beverage, read the sermon at leisure, and laugh at the snow. God be with you if you have to go out in this today.
Opening prayer for the day:
O
God, our true life, to serve you is freedom, and to know you is
unending joy. We worship you, we glorify you, we give thank to your
for your great glory. Abide with us, reign in us, and make this world
into a fit habitation for your divine majesty, through Jesus Christ,
our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy
Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
The readings:
Jeremiah
23:1-6
Colossians
1:11-20
Luke
23:33-43
This WAS to be my sermon:
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.
- This is no place for a king. Yet we are told that this is where Jesus is at his most royal. There is obviously a different sort of kingship here.
- We expect kings to be apart from the people, above the common. Yet here we see Jesus in the place where criminals were executed. Many Christian thinkers hold that this is where Jesus is most the king and is most powerful in his weakness. A number of theologians teach that Jesus reigns from the cross.
- This is not at all what we'd expect. In many ways, Jesus did what was expected of him as a member of the chosen people. He worshipped in the synagogue and the Temple, he knew the Scriptures and interpreted them, he prayed and listened to God, often going off by himself to pray all night.
- On the other hand, it seems that Jesus rarely did what was expected of him as a teacher and as Messiah. Teachers were expected to debate other teachers and teach their disciples and followers according to the conventional wisdom of the times, and that was something Jesus did not do. He taught in a fresh way that the people had never heard even though he stood firmly in the prophetic tradition of Israel. The Messiah was expected to be a figure of earthly political and military power and Jesus was not that.
- As to being the Son of God, that was not expected at all!
- Jesus taught and turned ideas of salvation, grace, righteousness, and God's love inside-out and upside-down. Just so, he turns the ideas of kingship inside-out and upside-down.
- He acts as no king would be expected to act. He is not jealous for his status or desirous of acclamation.
- He conquers, leads, and rules by the force of love rather than the force of arms.
- He desires to serve rather than to be served.
- He will endure hatred and even execution without seeking pay-back.
- He will find his followers from among those who might not be expected to follow and from among those who were rejected by those who considered themselves righteous. He looked to those who most needed his message
- He will fulfil the Law by holding to the spirit of the Law rather than the letter. He taught as one who knows the real value of the Law and how best to keep it.
- He will be one of his people.
- He will suffer what his people suffer.
- He will reign from the place where he appears weakest and his greatest action on behalf of his people would be considered absolute failure by many.
- This is not the style of king our world is used to. In fact, it is quite the opposite of the expected.
- Since Jesus is not the king or saviour or Messiah that was expected, his kingdom, his message and means of salvation, and his anointing as Messiah would not be as expected.
- In Luke's Gospel today, we see Jesus at what many might consider his least kingly. Part of us might think that way as well. We might want to see him handle things differently and have him act as we might want a king to act.
- So let's be truthful with ourselves. There are places and times in every life where we have expectations, some of which are unspoken. Those are the places and times that resist grace and the reality of who Jesus is. Those are the places where we have not learned to surrender to grace yet. And here the important word is “yet.”
- We are part of God's kingdom and we have been baptized, acknowledging Jesus as our king. Daily we renew our acknowledgement and faith. In this kingdom, we do not rest as subjects but we follow our king in his way – the way of humble service and love for one another and the world.
- If we want a model of how our discipleship might be, we need go no further than the end of our Gospel reading today. There Luke records Jesus' last conversation with another person as he dies on the cross. His words are those of forgiveness and hope in the most unforgiving and hopeless place anyone could imagine. He responds to the expressed faith of the crucified criminal with a statement that turns all things, even death, upside-down.
- 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."
- Christ is our King and he calls us to follow where he leads, walking in his path. If we think this is too hard for us, we can remember a line from a movie filmed not too long ago: In a world where carpenters rise from the dead, all things are possible.
I ask you to please remember to pray for the father of a good friend of mine who was recently diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and for his whole family.
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| "Are we having fun yet?" Ice and snow, praise the Lord! |
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