“Jesus,
Remember Me When You Come into Your Kingdom”
Luke 23:33-43
First Presbyterian
Perhaps, on first consideration,
our gospel reading of the day seems out of place liturgically.
Today, we all know, is not Good Friday, but rather the Festival of Christ
the King. It is the final Sunday of
the church’s liturgical year and we are meant to celebrate the triumphant
culmination, the victorious gathering up, of all things in Christ.
What is the world coming to? The
world is coming to Christ, in God.
But let me say something about
Christ. “Christ” is not Jesus’
last name. I know you know that.
One would not, if Jesus had had a place to lay his head, knock on his
door and ask if he was Mr. Christ. Christ
is a designation, a title, of whom Jesus the Christ is a human and particular
manifestation. But Jesus exhausts
neither the whole idea or reality of God nor of the Christ. In her book entitled
The Cosmic Christ, Violet Tweedale says that the Cosmic Christ is “a
supernal glory filling the universe.” She
goes on to say of the Christ:
“I cannot believe that so sublime a Being, as such a title (Christ)
denotes, came to earth for the
first time two thousand years
ago in the body of a Jewish carpenter. If
there is any truth in this
story, then there must be
something more to it…What of the mighty civilizations that flourished
thousands of years B.C.?
Had they no Christ? Who
taught them the marvelous knowledge
they possessed?
What of the Sacred Scriptures of the world other than the…Bible that
teach
the same fundamental Christ
truths? Who inspired those scribes
who wrote scriptures thousands
of years B.C.? Had they no Christ? (I can confirm that the participants in our
Aging
and Saging group that meets on Thursdays to probe the wisdom of the
Tao Te Ching, the ancient Chinese scripture and second most published book
in the world behind The Bible, are finding corroborative resonance between the
two scriptures).
If it be true that the Being Who walked the earth in
real Christ, then it is
impossible for the ordinary intelligence of today to limit (the Christ) to
western Christianity.
To dwarf so mighty a subject is childish.
If the Christ is a reality, then
traces (and evidences) of the
Christ must exist throughout the world…The folly…of supposing
that one book and one church
can contain the Son of God must go, with much else that is
cramping the spiritual life
and dwarfing its Divine Inspirer.”
(The Cosmic Christ by Violet Tweedale, 2003, Kessinger Publishers, pp. 17-18)
When I say that the world is
coming to Christ, I mean to name the cosmic and universal Christ of whom John
writes in his gospel, “In the beginning was the Logos (which some translate
as the Word), and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was God.
He was in the beginning with God. All
things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into
being. What has come into being
through him was life, and the life was the light of all people.
The light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it.”
The Christian claim is that
Christians come to know the Logos of God, the Word of God, in and through Jesus
of Nazareth but, properly understood, it is not an exclusive claim.
There are other traditions that offer other expressions and
manifestations of the Christ, including other religious traditions as well as
nature itself. The light of the
world is for every soul, for all peoples, for all creation.
A “cosmic Christ,” it stands to reason, fills the whole world
with the light and life of God. It
is why theologian Sallie McFague can write about “the universe as God’s
body.” It is why John Calvin
called the creation “the theater of God’s glory.” Meister
Eckhart, the fourteenth century German mystic, went so far, and rightly so in my
opinion, as to insist that “each of us is also a ‘dabar,’ a word, of
God” through whom divine life and light may come into the world.
When I think of the man in whose honor our glorious new stained glass
windows are being dedicated today, our David, the way life and light fairly
danced in him through his searching mind, his generous heart, his indefatigable
spirit, I know that Eckhart is right.
Our gospel reading today shows
Jesus the Christ being taunted as the king of the Jews who could not save
himself. But Jesus already had said
that his kingdom is not of this world
even though it is for this world.
So this king, Christ the king, reigns not from a gilded throne of gold,
but from a cross, a cross on which he showed how completely he trusted God and
God’s ways. He would not under any
circumstances recant the gospel of love he came living and preaching nor recuse
himself from the consequences of doing so.
Remember how earlier in his ministry it was said of Jesus, “He
taught as one having authority”? He
had authority because there was no breach between what he said and how he lived.
He had authority because he had authenticity.
He in whom the Spirit of Christ was so evident had authority because he
did not parade his spiritual friendship with God as a personal benefit to be
exploited to his own advantage, but humbled himself to serve the last, lost,
least, and littlest of God’s children. He
had authority because he was a spendthrift lover who did not measure and weigh
the cost before doing justice and loving kindness.
Our reading also includes two kakourgoi,
two criminals, being crucified beside Jesus.
One of them mocked Jesus, the other embraced him.
Why some of us respond to the “supernal glory filling the
universe” and others do not is a mystery.
Why some of us repent – not so much saying sorry for our sins as
changing our minds and hearts and sensitivities in the direction of God and life
– and others of us do not is a mystery. But
one kakourgos said derisively to Jesus, “Are you not the Messiah?
Then save yourself and us.” And
the other one said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”
The criminal who was drawn to
Jesus had heard him pray for the forgiveness of his executioners…”Father,
forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
He had witnessed Jesus’ calm resolve and faithfulness even in the face
of an unjust verdict that was about to take his life.
He saw in Jesus the embodiment of a kingdom, a realm, a reality, in which
there is the possibility of being re-membered, of being put together again, of
being restored or, better yet, of being re-storied, and he wanted in on it.
And in the wanting of it, he received it.
“Today, you shall be with me in
I think that is it…we have to
want to see the hidden kingdom of which Christ is King in order for it to be
revealed to us in its fullness… and for its light to shine on us in a way that
heals our wounds and makes things new for us… and for our lives to be awakened
to that which is noble and good and true… that kingdom that is in and through
all things, the supernal glory filling the universe.
Do you want that for your life?
Do you want to see the hidden
Amen.
© Copyright 2007 First Presbyterian Church