Last Pentecost

May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)

SEASON: Last Pentecost
PROPER: 29 C
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: November 22, 1998

TEXT: Luke 23:35-43 - 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."

ISSUE: The passage reveals another great reversal. Jesus is King, indeed, but totally unlike the human concept of King. His kingship is revealed in this suffering servanthood, as a faithful obedient servant. The passage reveals Jesus as once again being tempted: save your self, save us, come down off the cross and start a war. Instead of plucking that apple, he remains faithful, and the new garden, the Garden of Paradise is restored to all who embrace Jesus as Lord. For each of us in our lives and living as we accept Jesus as Lord we find our paradise, our meaning, our relationship with the will and purposes of God.
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This Sunday marks the end of the church's year. It is called the Last Sunday of Pentecost, and more recently the Sunday which celebrates that Jesus is Christ the King. In the passage it is written "This is the King of the Jews." Of course, that sign over the cross was a mockery of Jesus, put there by the Romans to severely aggrevate and humiliate the Judean population. Only in time did the church come to proclaim that in fact Jesus is Christ the King.
We must, however, keep in mind that Gospel of Jesus Christ is full of great reversals. We have in recent months been reminded of how Jesus attempted to reverse much of the thinking of his time: the first shall be last, and the last first. The old widow lady gets her justice before the judge. Those who come last to work in the vineyard get the full days wage. The outrageous prodigal son is forgiven, and his righteous brother chastised. It is the good Samaritan that lifts up and rescues the vicitimized traveler. It is the Samaritan leper that returns to give thanks. The least, the last, the lost, the sinners are the ones who are lifted up in Jesus teachings and parables to the great and surprising shock of the people of his time, and even to our own.
Today there is another great reversal when it comes to the understanding of what a King is. Kings are thought of a lofty, above their subjects. They are the holders of power, and the bearers of authority. They are perceived as the wealthy. People bow and curtsy and give honorable titles to the world's potentates. We have a symbol we refer to as Christ the King, or The Christus Rex. The Christus Rex, which means Christ the King, often portrays Jesus dressed in royal robes and wearing a crown on the cross. There are some who are quite critical of this symbol as they see it as imposing our concept of kingship upon Jesus. When in fact, what we see as Christ the King in the Scripture is not like the world's image of royalty. It is the complete reverse: Jesus on the cross is not a ministry of power, manipulation, military might, or wealth. His crown is thorns, and this scepter is a cross of suffering. So unlike the king who is above his people, here is Christ the king who is in the midst of his people whose only power is in love and forgiveness to those around him. His kingship is marked not by crowns and power, but by a suffering servanthood in an effort to reveal to people the underserved love and forgiving grace of God.
As we come now to the end of the church's year, to the time of winding-up, taking stock, and revewing the past year, we see the shear humility of the Lord Jesus who comes into the very midst of his people. He does not lord himself over us, no cojoling, no manipulation, no force imposed, he comes only to simply teach in parables, search out the lost, heal the deaf, the dumb, the lame and the blind. He simply offers to reclaim all those alienated from the love of God.
Biblical scholars believe that his passage told by Luke of Jesus on the cross has a profound and significant meaning. It is another temptation story. Remember that when Jesus was baptize and began his ministry he was tempted by Satan. He was challenged to turn stones into bread, to bow down in worship Satan in exchange for the world, to throw himself down from the cross. Jesus passed the test, and did not succumb to Satan's temptations. According to the story, Satan reprted left him for awhile. (Luke 4:1f) In this account of Jesus on the cross there are another three temptations. The Judean leaders dare Jesus to come down from the cross, "He saved others let him save himself." The Romans mock and tempt him, offering sour wine and putting the sign over his cross, "If you are the King of the Judeans, why not save yourself? And finally, the thief, probably a freedom fighter, a zealous rebel dares him, "Are you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!" If only he will take on authority and power as the world knows it, he then can be the legitimate savior, because this is the stuff that people think will save them: might, power, wealth, success, prestige, trickery.
The scene is very much like, similar to, the early Garden of Eden story of Adam from Genesis. This story was the one where it all began. Adam is in the garden. God says to Adam, do not eat from the one tree, just be faithfully obedient and the Garden is yours. But Satan tempts him to be like God in the sense of taking on power and might in your life. So he takes the forbidden fruit from the tree and has to live outside the garden. His children, Cain and Abel, fight and Cain is killed, and the human mess begins. Humans are not and cannot be God. They have to be human servants of a loving God.
What Luke is conveying to the people of this time is that here is another Garden. Here is a new Adam who has passed the temptation test by faithful sacrificial obedience. Here is another tree that God has given. This tree is the cross. On this tree hangs another fruit of life. One poor lost thieving soul says, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." To which Jesus replies: "Truly, today you will be with me in paradise." The new Adam, the saving fruit is Jesus Christ is and to see him as King, as suffering servant, to be next to him is Paradise, the new Garden of Eden, the new Garden of God.
I know a lot of people like to think that someday when they die, and go to Heaven, they will be with God in the Garden. Wonderful! But Jesus says to the thief in misery, ' I tell you that today you will be, you are with me now, through your faith in Paradise. People like to think that they have to earn their way into heaven by being good, and if you become good enough you get a prize, called heaven. Jesus dares to say to the lost thief that it is by his faith in him, by faith in God, by loyalty, and trust that we are in Paradise already. To be next to Jesus Christ is Paradise. To be next to Jesus Christ, the New Adam, is to be in the Garden of God.
What Luke is conveying to the people of his time was that even though there was suffering, revolution, hardships, persecutions, the faithful were already in the Garden of God. To be next to Christ is Paradise come what may. It means that God is with us whatever the situations of our lives. He is in the midst of us, as he was in the midst of the suffering of the thieves. There may be a lot wrong with our world, and things may not go as we wish, but God in Christ is still with us. The saving loving forgiving grace of God is with us always, even at the worst of times.
Most all of us, I suppose have fantasies of life being without problems, pain, or suffering. We'd like to think that life could alsways be on some kind of an even keel without any kind of stress or distress. We might like to think of God as the greater fixer of all broken things, and Jesus as his kind of Superman on earth. If this kind of live were possible, would we not be more like robots or puppets than humans, and life so very dull. A heaven of bliss where all you do is push the clouds around could be so very dull. Is not life as it is something wonderful, miraculous, in its own rite? Is it not in the stuggles, the wrestling, the pain, the hardships, the anxieties and uncertainties of life that we find challenge and struggle for meaning? Have there not been times when things seemed at their worst that families and people pulled together, and the best that humanity has to offer came out of those situations?
What's important to me is not so much that life be perfect and always wonderful, or even that heaven be that way, but that knowing God is with us. This God revealed in the ways and teachings of Jesus reveals a God in the midst of human struggle and giving to it forgiveness, compassion, understanding, and love. God gives to us a freedom to live our lives as we wish, and at the same time of loving presence to be there for us whatever comes. As we embrace life and the loveliness of the suffering Christ, we embrace also a way of joining God in being people of love and forgiveness. The very ideal that we can be in partnership with God through the ways and teachings of Jesus Christ is another one of the great reversals. But a world and a life with all of its problems, agonies, and holocausts is still God's world; it is still his paradise, his garden when we accept the love and forgiveness, the hope revealed in Jesus Christ as the way, the truth, and the life. God in Christ Jesus is with us.