Last Sunday of the Church Year

Last Sunday in the Church Year (Proper 29)

November 20, 2022

Text: Luke 23:27-43

            Let’s get one thing straight… Jesus is the King.  Don’t be fooled by elections or geo-political movements, by the glitzy and the glamorous, or the powerful movers and shakers of the world.  Don’t look at wealth, or grandeur, celebrity, or military might.  Do not let the appearance of things deceive you.  Jesus is the King.  All other powers, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, are subject to Him.  And if that is true (and it is), it’s time for us to start acting like it.  It is time for us to repent of our sins, take shelter under His cross, and live confidently, in hope, and with joy, as those who, in Holy Baptism, bear the Name and insignia of our King, Jesus.

            That is to say, if Jesus is the King (and He is!), it is time for us to weep for ourselves and for our children.  That is repentance.  It is time to mourn our sins, our rejection of our Lord’s rule and reign over us, our rejection of His Word, the things we don’t understand, the things we don’t like.  It is time to mourn our submission to all the other pretenders to the throne, the things, the people, the powers that we have feared, loved, and trusted above Him.  If Jesus is the King (and He is!), it is time to take shelter under the banner of His cross, which shields us from God’s wrath.  Jesus is the Green Tree.  He stands in the breach between us and God’s just and fiery wrath over our sins.  He takes that wrath, the punishment we deserve, upon Himself, to shelter and save us.  And if that is what happens to the Green Tree, God’s Son, His Righteous One, what do you suppose will happen to the dry, dead wood that is us poor sinners if we do not repent, if we are not under the protection of the Crucified?  Just ask the Jerusalem that finally and fully rejected Jesus.  In AD 70, the city that rejected her King was destroyed by the Romans, and lacking the shelter of the Savior, the inhabitants cried out to the mountains, “Fall on us,” and to the hills, “Cover us.”  “We’d rather die quickly and catastrophically, than suffer God’s just wrath.”  This is a warning for us.  It is a type of the Judgement to come upon the whole world, and upon every rival king and enemy of God. 

            If Jesus is the King (and He is!), it means that He is the Judge.  In the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, we get a little glimpse of the Judgment Day to come.  What does He do?  He makes a separation between those on His right, and those on His left.  It is reminiscent of the sheep and the goats in Matthew 25.  As they came to the place called “The Skull,” there they crucified Him between two criminals, Luke says in our text, “one on his right and one on his left” (Luke 23:33).  See, it is precisely here, on the cross, that Jesus does His work of judging, even as He will judge in glory on the Last Day.  As we behold our Lord on the cross, there is the Judge, the King, enthroned.  He is crowned with thorns, and robed in royal crimson.  Even Pilate must acknowledge it.  INRI, the sign you see in so much crucifixion art.  It is Latin, Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum, “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews!”

            And what is His Judgment?  It is just here that it all takes a cosmically unexpected turn.  “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (v. 34).  Forgiveness!  That is His Judgment.  That is His verdict.  Forgiveness of sins.  For the daughters of Jerusalem and the disciples who deserted Him.  For Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin, and the Jews who cried out for His blood.  For Pilate, and for Herod, and for the Roman soldiers who nailed His limbs to the wood.  For His murderers.  For sinners.  For you.  Here the Judgment is pronounced on the basis of the universal atonement Jesus is making in His body for the sins of the whole world.  And it effects nothing less than the objective justification of the whole world.  That is to say, there is forgiveness of sins for anyone who would have it!  Amnesty.  And more than amnesty… Absolution!  And justification, righteousness, given as a gift.  And acceptance as a citizen of the Kingdom, in fact, a child, a son, of the King, with all the rights and privileges pertaining thereto.  Jesus can do that, because He is the eternal Son of the Father.  He is the King. 

            But we know that so many would not have it.  They would not receive, subjectively, the objective gift that Jesus gives them.  Because that would mean to submit to His rule.  And so there are the Jewish rulers, scoffing at Him, unknowingly echoing Satan and fulfilling Psalm 22 against Him: “He saved others; let him save himself, if he is the Christ of God, his Chosen One!” (Luke 23:35).  But He won’t do it, of course, for He has not come to save Himself, but us, and these very men who are rejecting Him. 

            Then there are the soldiers, gambling over His clothes at the foot of His cross, mocking Him, and offering Him their vinegar swill.  “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!” (v. 33). 

            And there is the criminal who rails at Him, “Are you not the Christ?”  (Of course, he doesn’t believe that for a minute!)  “Save yourself and us!” (v. 39). 

            So, to this day, there are the many who will not receive the forgiveness and justification Jesus here freely gives.  They scoff at Him.  They mock Him.  They rail against Him.  He dies for them, but they would rather face God’s wrath on their own merits.  They will not take shelter under His cross.  And they will cry, on that Day, to the mountains, “Fall on us,” and to the hills, “cover us.”  But there is no cover to protect you from God’s wrath.  Except Jesus and His cross and death. 

            Ah, but then there is the second criminal.  Something has happened to him as he witnesses the spectacle, as he beholds our Lord taking the divine judgment against our sins upon Himself, and pronouncing in its place the gracious Judgment of forgiveness and life upon sinners.  This criminal recognizes that, on his part, he belongs on the cross, and frankly, in hell.  His punishment is just.  To realize that, and confess it, is repentance.  But the criminal knows that Jesus, for His part, has done nothing wrong.  In fact, He has done everything right.  He is right.  He is righteous, and so righteousness is His to give. 

            Now, we don’t know a whole lot about this criminal, but whatever the case, we do know that doing it his own way, living by his own rules, has brought him to this point where he hangs, naked and bleeding, in excruciating (crucifixion, excruciating) pain.  He’s earned this.  He probably doesn’t have much book learning.  He probably isn’t very sophisticated.  If I were a betting man, I’d bet he doesn’t know much theology (not good theology, anyway). 

            But he has heard the Word, now, from the King’s own mouth.  “Forgive them.  Forgive them.”  And he believes it.  He will have it.  Yes, even him, even this wretched, good for nothing, callous criminal.  He claims nothing for himself.  No merit.  No worthiness.  He’s not pleading for a second chance to make things right.  He rebukes his compatriot, and confesses his sins.  And then he prays.  He prays to Jesus, hanging there next to him on the cross.  “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom” (v. 42).  It is a prayer and a confession… of faith… that Jesus is the true and rightful King, and that Jesus… even now, even as he hangs, dying, on the cross… can save him!  And King Jesus makes the poor malefactor a promise he can take with him to the bank, to the royal court, to his dying breath: “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise” (v. 43). 

            Beloved, if Jesus is the King (and He is!), that is what He does for you.  Forgiveness of sins.  Justification.  He dies, that you may be His own, and live under Him in His Kingdom, and serve Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness.  See, because of the Judgment that happened there and then, at the cross, we know what the Judgment will be when that Day comes, when King Jesus appears with the angels in His glory.  “Father, forgive them.”  That is the Judgement.  “I have taken the punishment of their sins upon Myself.  And I give them My righteousness.  Receive them, dear Father, now, as Your own.  Your children.  As You would receive Me.  For they are Mine, and so they are Yours, bought with My own precious blood.” 

            Now, this is all hidden, of course, under the cross and suffering.  Let it not be lost on you that our reading about Christ the King is the account of His crucifixion and death.  This is the great, confounding, backwards Christian story, that God’s Kingdom comes through Jesus’ innocent suffering and death.  But we know that is not the end of the story.  King Jesus is risen!  He lives!  He is seated, enthroned, now, at the right hand of God the Father Almighty.  He rules all things, all people, even the very devil.  They just don’t see it or acknowledge it yet.  He rules over it all for the good of His people.  We, ourselves, can’t always see it.  But what is hidden now, will be revealed on that Day.  And then all will have to confess it.

            Jesus is the King.  So, think about what that means, beloved.  It means you can live right now, today, in that confidence, in that reality.  Are you worried and troubled by the state of things in the world?  Do elections and politicians get you down?  Wars and rumors of wars?  Famines and earthquakes and other natural disasters?  Crime?  Injustice?  Murders, right here, in our own little town?  Never mind the world as they scoff, and mock, and persecute unto death.  How about the devil?  His accusations, his deceptions, his leading, if possible, even the elect into false belief, despair, and other great shame and vice.  And then, there is our own sad sack of flesh.  The spirit is willing.  We want to follow Jesus.  But our flesh is oh so weak.

            It is just such pretenders to the throne that Jesus overthrows by His death and resurrection.  He wipes them out by the shedding of His blood.  So that you may lift up your head in these gray and latter days, when our bodily eyes are blind to this new reality, until Christ comes again visibly and in all His glory, the Lord has given us His Word and Holy Sacraments.  He has given us Holy Baptism as the sign and seal that we are God’s own children, redeemed by Christ, the Crucified.  He has given us Absolution to leak the verdict out ahead of time, before the Judgement Day: All your sins are forgiven.  He has given us Scripture, and preaching, to steel our hearts and spread the news abroad, a royal proclamation.  And He has given us the Supper, a seat at the Royal Table, to dine with the living God.  Let’s get one thing straight, in spite of all appearances: Jesus is the King.  Acknowledge no other.  Repent of your sins and believe the Good News.  He died, but He lives, and reigns, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.  And He’s coming again.  He is coming for you.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son X, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.