"With me in paradise"-Sermon for Proper 29, Christ the King Sunday, Luke 23:33-43
Today is Christ the King Sunday, which is the last Sunday of the Church year. As many of you likely know the First Sunday of Advent, which believe it or not is next Sunday, begins a new year in the life of the church. And, when recalling such anniversaries that mark time for us, I am always reminded of the old adage that though our days may seem long…our years…especially as we age…seem so very short. And, symbolically and thematically it makes sense that the church begins its year and a new liturgical cycle by preparing for the beginning of Jesus’ story. For, in Advent, we prepare, and joyfully so, for our annual celebration of Christmas…the birth of the Babe of Bethlehem. And, though, the First Sunday of Advent is likely never to replace January 1st on the world’s calendar marking the first day of the new year, I still believe having an awareness of the Seasons of the Church Year and the themes they highlight in the story of Jesus’ life, as we move from Advent to Christmas to Epiphany to Lent to Easter to Pentecost and on, remind me, remind us that time ultimately belongs to God…and there is such good news for us in this revelation. For such truth reminds us then…that time belongs to and can only rightfully be understood through the power and potential of love alone…for God is love. And, as Paul reminds us, love never ends.
And yet, as Nathaniel Hawthorne reminds us, “Time flies over us, but leaves its shadow behind.” And, as we look back in time over our lives lived, we may, indeed, see some shadows…some darkness dappled among the light. Experiences of loss, poor choices made, a bad ending of things, a self-centered decision that left someone wounded, a relationship that ended that we wish had not or at least not ended as it did…perhaps the best word to sum this up is…regret. This brings to my mind the riddle offered by Gollum to Bilbo in a competition for the “one ring to rule them all” in the Hobbit, “It cannot be seen, cannot be felt, cannot be heard, cannot be smelt. It lies behind stars and under hills, and empty holes it fills. It comes first and follows after, ends life, kills laughter.” Time is, of course, the riddle’s answer and time can feel like a heartless and relentless task master. Like Geoffrey Chaucer wrote, “Time and tide wait for no man.” Meaning time can feel like it moves at breakneck speed…something we have little to no control over…leaving us little chance for do overs…little time to make a better ending of things…not enough time to accomplish all we hope to complete with our one, too brief, life.
I wrote a poem during sabbatical in 2017 called “Time Flow (Two thoughts)”. And, the first half of the poem, the first thought, reads:
I was reminded recently,
Chronos ate his children
Indeed, I know my grandfathers’ names
They are Wiley and Miles
But their fathers’ names ring no bells
Lost to time
At least the stream I live in
There are the genes of course
But no memories
Time moving in one direction
Like an unstoppable train
The armored variety
Cutting in half everything in its path
An amoral and non-sentient seemingly omnipotent being
That make no mistake
Claims victory in the end
It seems in such a terrible hurry to get to where it is going
A universe expanding
Till anything touches nothing
Torn apart with no semblance of meaning
Yikes! Sorry to be such a downer…I promise not to end my musing here! For, though today may indeed be the last day of the church year…Advent…a new year…and the story of birth…of beginning…the beginning of the very salvation of the world…that Advent both leads us to and prepares us for…is just a week away. As Tony Campollo would famously say, “It may feel like Friday…but Sunday is coming!”
And, in fact, in our Gospel reading, on this Christ the King Sunday, we find Jesus our king at Good Friday and on the cross. It seems like his time is running out…and in as painfilled and inglorious a way as possible…with his mother and other friends and followers left to look on lost in tears and grief. The two references to Jesus as a king that Luke notes in our Gospel reading…both the soldiers’ insulting words and the sign hanging over his head are intended as utter mockery. It is not a very kingly like moment, at least, as the world may perceive kingliness. This is no Celebration of Life like, say, that which we witnessed upon the loss of Queen Elizabeth only a short time ago. There is no pomp and circumstance. We are not in Westminster Abby. Once Jesus has breathed his last, he will not be placed in a wooden casket adorned with flowers, draped in a flag, and covered with golden symbols of power…crown, orb, sword and scepter. Queen Elizabeth was a Godly woman who lived her faith out loud. She made a difference for good for God. She led the Church of England, our Mother Church, faithfully, and she is rightly honored for living an inspirational life. But Jesus’ kingship, the life he lived in his time on earth, looked very different…from his birth on the floor of a stable, among sheep manure and straw…to his end at a place called the Skull…crucified among criminals…and as an enemy of the state.
And yet, here at the end of his earthly life, not his whole life…but his earthly life…we find what it really means…not to be a monarch as our world understands it…but to be the King of All Creation. For, as Jesus our king hangs dying on the cross, he promises all of us broken humans, the ones directly participating in his death, the ones dying alongside him, and each of us…he offers us all…forgiveness and paradise…forgiveness and paradise. Monarchs, Autocrats, even Presidents and Prime Ministers wield power…sometimes for good and sometimes for ill…but all can and will be undone…all such leaders and all they accomplish are subject to the whims of those who follow and ultimately to time. But not so of Jesus’ divine kingship…it is subject to neither. Jesus’ power, perfected in humility and rooted in love alone, offers the forgiveness needed to begin again and again and again until paradise is our only and forever end. For the paradise offered in Jesus’ death and resurrection is timeless. One might even say that Jesus’ death and resurrection, which are the defining moments of Jesus’s kingship, destroys time as a linear reality with some sort of defined beginning and end…and reestablishes time as always a hopeful and never-ending new beginning.
And, friends, I hope like me, this bursts your heart wide open, for I hope it totally reorients your own understanding of time. For our time is not limited to a certain number of days, and the time we have already lived through doesn’t have to cast any sort of shadow over the endless time that stands before us. Each new day is not the next till our last…but the opportunity to begin again…to extend and receive forgiveness…to be reconciled to God and one another…to revel in the endless newness of it all…to embrace the present…to love and enjoy the ones you are with now….to make the very most and do the most good with the beginning of each new day…our endless day. And, to this end, here is the second half, my second thought, in my “Time Flow (Two Thoughts)” poem:
Then there is also the most-simple blessedness of tomorrow
A new day
The sun rising in the east with blinding light
The orientation in which we set our altars
Welcoming the new day
Beckoning the sun to come
A looking forward with hope
Reveille played in the church dome
It’s time to wake up
It’s time to wake up in the morning
For our vision is forward looking
Our best days lie ahead
Ten dimensions to explore
Earth to be worked with hands in dirt
Seed, sun, nutrients and, yes, time
From which life springs, afresh
A deep breath in the present moment
Reveling in what is now and what will surely be
Oh, time where is you victory
Oh, time where is your sting
Charles Schultz, whose faith was so evident in his “Peanuts” comics once wrote, “Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It is already tomorrow in Australia.” As much as I wish I could take away all regret about the past and remove all worries for what tomorrow may bring, such power is beyond my own and both are deeply rooted in the human condition. Maybe sometimes they even serve a higher purpose…regret may change future behavior and worry may empower sound goal setting and meaningful preparation.
But…but, I hope we might most of all lean into the promises of which Jesus’ kingship, fulfilled in cross and empty tomb, assure us of. For they assure us that time has no power over the possibility of forgiveness or our place in an endless paradise with those we love…those we see and those we see no longer. And, that holding fast to such truth, it might entirely shape who we choose to be in the present…and in each new present moment, which is not the next till the last…but a new beginning followed by the next new beginning…forever and for all eternity…through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ our King. Amen.