2 Samuel 5:1–3
Colossians 1:12–20
Luke 23:35–43
Royalty was on view for all the world to see this past September. Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom died quietly and peacefully. We were able to see the pageantry that accompanied her funeral. Safe to say there were thousands in attendance to accompany her last earthly journey and pay their respects. Honor guards of every kind marched solemnly; heads of state from around the world filled Westminster Abbey. The British carried out the rituals in a way only they could, and we all marveled. And the Queen herself at the heart of it all was properly remembered for her life of service to the nation rooted in her Christian faith. Service was her motto and what lay behind her crown. At her funeral we saw royalty at its best, at least as we humans can do it.
Today we are gathered for royalty as well. We gather for our King. And we gather as our King is dying. And it is in his dying that we come to learn what kingship means for us. There is pageantry here of a very different kind than what we saw in September. There are those in attendance at this death of the “King of the Jews” as the placard on the cross calls him. We might want to listen in on what these attendants at the death of our King are saying and doing.
The religious leaders of the people want the King to use his power. They want him to use his power on himself now that he is in this shameful and helpless position. He saved others, now let him save himself. He has God’s seal and authority, let him use it. The soldiers who saw him victorious over other powers push him to save himself because he is the King. What kind of a King is he if he cannot use his power to get himself out of a bad situation? After all, what is power and authority for if not to get yourself out of trouble first. Then one of the closest attendants, a condemned man hanging next to him cries out, save yourself and us too. He claims fellowship but he sees that power should be used to get out of death.
What kind of a King is this? He remains powerless, helpless in the face of death. What kind of a messenger of God is this who cannot take care of himself and use his power to his own advantage? All these people remember what Jesus did in his life, they were awed by his manner of Kingship: he shared food with the weakest members of the kingdom, he touched the leper, he let loose women touch him, he walked among the poor, and he fed them. He was the shepherd king who brought healing to all who approached him. He never refused a request for help. And now he should use this power for himself. He is being mocked for having power and yet choosing to be powerless. Or tempted to change compassion into power.
But there is an exception to this way of thinking. There is another person present who seems to see things differently. There is someone there who will not abuse Jesus or mock him in his powerless condition. There seems to be one person there who knows his own place. It is someone who knows their own place that can approach Jesus with the right word. This attendant at Jesus’ side is a criminal, a wrong doer. He is being punished justly for his crime. He deserves death and he accepts it. He does not ask to be saved from the fate assigned to him. He does not ask Jesus to exercise his kingship and give him a changed sentence, to get him off this instrument of torture and death. He does not beg or demand Jesus to fix up his present problem.
Is it that he understands kingship and kingdom in a different way? He sees that King Jesus is the true victim, the oppressed person. He sees Jesus as the innocent one, the non-criminal. Maybe he sees Jesus as the abused person whom society has put on the cross because it needed someone to mock, someone to goad, someone to be a failure. Maybe the criminal saw real injustice and he recognized it. He looked at Jesus and did not immediately think, I can use this man’s power to get myself free. He looked at Jesus and saw a king who was totally powerless. He saw the contradiction. He saw the contradiction and he saw beyond it.
From this strange king he asked only one thing. He only asked to be remembered. His request was that he not be forgotten. He didn’t say, get me out of this mess, and get me off this cross. He only asked to be remembered. There is a mystery here. A fellow criminal looks at this man Jesus and sees real Kingdom in his suffering, in his innocence, in his surrender. He looks at the powerless King and believes that in that powerlessness there is salvation. He believes that the King who will give himself up rather than defend with power must belong to a Kingdom that works differently from the one I am used to. It must be a Kingdom in which death is not the last word. It must be a Kingdom where even I who have betrayed my fellow human being and my God can be reconciled and live in peace.
So, the criminal who sees the Kingdom in Jesus asks for a very human thing: Remember me when you come into your Kingdom. Do not forget me. If this King would not remember him, then he would really be dead. In his strange faith this criminal realized that if he were to be remembered by a dying king, he would remain alive. Somehow if this King was wise enough to trust in a power greater than himself, a power that would work even in death, then this King knew that the cross was not an instrument of separation but a tool for bringing together. And the response of King Jesus? He reached out with the power of a promise and said: yes, today we will be together in paradise, the Garden of the King. Yes, you have seen correctly, the cross and my blood are the ways into the Kingdom. God has taken my side; he will stand by the innocent victim. And you, I will stand with you and together we will be in paradise.
Today at this altar we are about to remember our dying King and renew the covenant he made in his death. We are about to say yes— the cross and the blood are the symbols of our King. We are about to say again that the kingdom comes about by dying to the old and rising into the new. We are about to say again that the Kingdom comes only when you don’t cling to your own power but rather become powerless with King Jesus. Jesus the King made a covenant with his followers on the night before he died. It was a covenant sealed in his blood. It was the beginning of a covenant that would form a kingdom that would embrace all creation, all time and every person. At that last supper, our King shared what made him a king: being powerless for the sake of others.
We are about to remember what our King has done for us. And in that remembrance is the power of the Kingdom to bind us to God, God to us and we to one another. And in that remembrance is the power that overcomes death and leads to life. We are remembering because we have been and are being remembered.
~Prior, Fr. Joel Macul