All Authority on Heaven and Earth

Jesus the Revolutionary: Confronting Worldly Authorities

This morning we come to celebrate the very last Sunday of the Christian calendar: Reign of Christ Sunday (or Christ the King Sunday). This is a time when we celebrate the reality of Jesus’s reign over all creation. After his crucifixion, Jesus rose from the grave and ascended to the right hand of God the Father Almighty, to live and reign forever and ever. Sitting at the right hand of the Father, Christ judges the world and presides over the work of his Church.

It is on Reign of Christ Sunday that we celebrate Christ’s words, “All authority on heaven and on earth have been given to me.” On this day, we celebrate Christ’s victory over the forces of spiritual darkness and evil. Satan has been defeated. Death is no more. Jesus Christ has proclaimed victory, he reigns forever, and as our Lord and King we have confidence that he is presently at work setting the world to rights, making all things new, and restoring the order of creation to the way it was intended.

Yet, we might wonder why on this day, on the day which we celebrate the authority and power of Jesus, the Lectionary has us reading about Christ’s crucifixion. As we celebrate that Jesus is King, why would we turn our attention to his moment of greatest weakness and vulnerability, when worldly kings spit on him and mocked him, put him to death?

This is a most troubling passage, because a cross is no place for a king. In fact, the cross was Rome’s way of making clear that there were no kings but Caesar. The cross was reserved for the worst of criminals, and very often was used to humiliate and execute revolutionaries. In fact, Matthew and Mark’s gospel use this word, “revolutionary”, to describe the two men put to death with Jesus. When someone attempted to overthrow Roman rule, the cross was a clear sign that Caesar was in control, and that no one should dare stand against him.

So it is not insignificant that we read in Luke’s account, “Two others also, who were criminals, were lead away to be put to death with him.” In fact, it is possible to read the Greek here as saying, “two other criminals were lead away...”, meaning that Jesus is identified in a criminal himself. Either way, the context makes it quite clear that Jesus was considered a criminal if not by Luke, then certainly by the Jewish and Roman leaders. Yes, our king was condemned as a criminal, as the worst kind of criminal.

Christ, after all, means “King”, and the Romans did not take kindly to people other than Caesar using that title. Jesus’s crucifixion, then, was intended by the Jews and Romans to be a declaration of Christ’s powerlessness, foolishness, and utter defeat at the hands of Rome. As we well know, that is not quite how things turned out! Indeed, we turn to the crucifixion of Jesus today on Reign of Christ Sunday because it is the symbol not of his weakness and defeat, but of his power and victory! God truly does have a sense of humor!

Yet, we should never forget that Jesus’s journey to the cross happened because he openly challenged worldly authorities. This is an important message for us in our times, as we approach election year, as our nation undergoes an impeachment hearing, and as Christians seem content to accept our political systems with little or no critique or thought. Jesus was not one to adhere to the status quo. He was not one to mark “Pharisee” or “Sadducee” on the ballot box simply because that’s what all the other Jews were doing. He was not one to sit in silence as the political systems around him took advantage of the poor, created divisiveness among different people groups, and generally lead people away from the right worship of God.

Jesus was not afraid to speak out against these things, and neither should we be. Jesus was not one to hold the party line, “Pharisee”, Sadducee”, or “Zealot”, “Democrat” or “Republican”, and neither should we be. No, Jesus had but one master, the Father, and he held all parties accountable to Him. We Christians have adopted the cross as our universal symbol, and it should serve as a reminder that we too are called to bear the cross, to challenge the authorities of our day, to speak out against injustice, to hold fast to the one true Lord of the universe, God, not Caesar, President, Prime minister, or whatever title may be popular in the times, and to dutifully bear whatever consequences may come of it.

My Messiah: Jesus as Foil to Worldly Kings

It was for this boldness to challenge the earthly kings that Christ was crucified, and yet their crucifixion of him proves their own ineptitude and ignorance. Had they known what kind of King Christ was, they would have placed him anywhere but a cross!

The cross was a symbol of Rome’s power and might, and yet Jesus’s whole ministry was spent trying to show the people that such power was destined to fail. We see even as Jesus is dying the cross, the worldly powers don’t understand this. “If you are the Messiah, save yourself,” they jeer. Even the criminals beside Jesus mock him. What kind of king lets himself be crucified?

This was, without a doubt, my biggest stumbling block in coming to believe. I remember reading scripture as an atheist and thinking that the Gospel was pretty good, right up until the crucifixion. But if God were so great, why did he get killed? If Jesus were so powerful, why did he get beaten and tortured? Why were the Romans able to stand and mock him and spit on him with no consequence? If God were great and powerful, then why did he die? This seemed silly to me.

But, though I didn’t know it at the time, Christ’s suffering and death are precisely what reveal his power and greatness. Unlike all the kings of the world who send men out to die for them, unlike all the kings of the world who crush their enemies in a show of strength, Jesus took it upon himself to die, and Jesus decided not to crush his enemies, but to forgive them even as they crushed him. The kind of power displayed by these worldly kings is only temporary. There is no more Rome. There is no more Babylon, or Assyria. The power of Egypt has waned. The Germans have been humbled. And, one day, despite all our boasting of military might, there won’t be an America, or a China, or a Russia. This power is only temporary.

But the power of the cross, to lay down one’s life out of loving sacrifice, that power never fades. That power can, and has, changed the course of the world. This king we worship is unlike any other. He does not send others to die, but dies himself. He does not crush the heads of his enemies, but offers them forgiveness even as they curse him.

The Pharisees and Romans saw the Messiah as a threat because they believed he would raise an army and take the world by force. They feared his power because they assumed it was the same kind of power that they wielded. In fact, Christ’s power was far more dangerous. Jesus’s power was to prove to the Empire that their symbol of death, the symbol of all their strength and might, was a mirage. The cross is proof that worldly power is no power at all. The leaders of this world, despite their best efforts on the cross, were proven to be powerless in the face of Christ’s all-powerful love.

Get Behind Me: Satan’s Tempting Offer of Power

Holy love conquers all. The power of our king is not the power we see flaunted by worldly authorities. Yet, the Devil still will not give up tempting people with such power. When Jesus began his ministry, he was lead out into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan. There, the devil offered him the whole world,

Then the devil led him up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. 6 And the devil said to him, “To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please. 7 If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.”

The Devil tempted Christ with the power of worldly kings. “You can rule without sacrificing yourself, you can seize power by force rather than suffering.” Satan tempted Jesus in the wilderness to be the kind of Messiah the world expected him to be. Fortunately, Christ responded,

The New Revised Standard Version The Temptation of Jesus

“It is written,

‘Worship the Lord your God,

and serve only him.’ ”

In other words, “I have come not to be served but to serve”.

This was not the last time that our King Jesus would be tempted by worldly power, however. After Jesus revealed to his disciples the kind of Messiah God wanted him to be, after he shared that he must be crucified, loyal Peter cried out, “Lord, may it never be! This can’t happen to you.” Peter said to Jesus, “You’re the King, the Messiah! You don’t have to die, you can rule however you want!” Once again, Jesus recognized the devil’s work in tempting him, and responded, “Get behind me Satan! ...You are setting your mind on human things and not divine things”.

Even on the cross, Satan continued to tempt Jesus. The soldiers and leaders words echo the words of the devil, “Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself!” “Aren’t you the Son of God? Then turn this stone to bread!” “If you are the king of the Jews, then save yourself!” “If you are the Messiah, you don’t have to suffer and die! Take yourself down off that cross!” Indeed, we know, as Jesus himself says in , that at any time Jesus could have asked the Father and he would have sent a legion of Angels to protect him. But he did not.

Jesus never gave into the temptation of the devil, though Satan was no doubt persistent.

All Authority: Questioning Modern Political Assumptions

And would you believe, that even to this day Satan has not stopped tempting people with these things? The same kind of power offered to Jesus is the power the devil offers to every king, politician, and bureaucrat. In fact, it’s quite easy to see that no worldly king before or after Jesus has turned down such an offer.

A- Jesus the Revolutionary: Jesus Confronting Worldly Authorities

[But]

B- My Messiah: Jesus as a Foil to Worldly Expectations of a King

[Therefore]

C- Get Behind Me: Satan’s Tempting Offer of Power

[So What?]

D- All Authority: Questioning Modern Political Assumptions