Last Sunday after Pentecost/Christ the King C(Jer 23:1-6; Cant 16; Col 1:11-20; Lk 23:33-43)11/25/2019 On this feast of Christ the King which we celebrate today, we see the king hung on the cross. This king is insulted and mocked. The religious leaders insult and scoff at him, “Save yourself if you’re the Messiah.” I sometimes imagine how I would respond to them if I were in Jesus’s shoes. I would just get myself off the cross, smack their heads, and say, “What now!?” or “How do you like them apples?” I would show them that I can very well save myself.
But this isn’t what Jesus does. He does something radically different from my imagined reaction of revenge. In this act of Jesus, who we see is the King of kings and the Lord of lords who does not belong to this world but to the Kingdom of God. So, when we say Jesus is the king, this is another word for the kingdom of God. Jesus himself is the embodied, enfleshed kingdom of God. He is the human form of God’s reign on earth. This is exactly what Saint Paul means when he says Jesus is “the image of the invisible God.” The invisible God is revealed in Jesus. The invisible God’s reign, the kingdom of God is seen and lived in the life of Jesus of Nazareth. Then, we might wonder why the Church has decided to conclude the last Sunday of the year with this feast of Christ the King. I can make two reasons why this works. First, it is to prepare and remind ourselves of who we are waiting to see right before the first Sunday of Advent. The baby born in the manger is the same one who we celebrate as the king of God’s kingdom. The other reason I can think of is that this act of Jesus on the cross we see in today’s gospel lesson is something that we are to follow and live out as his followers and disciples. We ourselves as baptized are to embody the kingdom of God in our lives as in Jesus. To do so, I would like us to focus on one saying of Jesus this morning: “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.” Forgiveness in our Christian tradition can be mistaken as forgetting and nullifying whatever wrong thing one has committed. Jesus’s forgiveness has nothing to do with this kind of understanding. It always has two sides of mercy and justice. God’s mercy is always available that one is unconditionally embraced by God’s love. Which also involves one’s change of heart. On the other hand, God’s justice is always realized as a wrongdoer takes serious responsibility of consequences for his actions. With his repentant heart, he is empowered by the Holy Spirit to face and go through all the consequences to serve justice. In the case of Jesus in today’s gospel lesson, God’s forgiveness of those who crucify Jesus is that they honestly face what they have done wrong to the innocent while they themselves ask for God’s forgiveness and accept God’s unconditional love which transform them. With this clear understanding of forgiveness in our tradition, the prayer of Jesus, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.” is something that we would like to memorize and utter in our hearts over and over again until it becomes our own words. (Which is also the reason why all of us here at Saint Agnes Church say the Words of Institution.) This prayer can be first applied to ourselves that we pray, “Father, forgive me; for I do not know what I am doing.” Ask for my own ignorance and then for others. Praying for others’ ignorance, however, is a harder task because we don’t like to forgive others first. Why would I ask for the forgiveness of others who hurt me when I don’t even forgive? This is an impossible task if we try to do this on our own according to our ego. As I repeatedly emphasize the power of the Holy Spirit who is abundantly and equally given to all of us, we are empowered to confess and pray the prayer of Jesus. Let’s unpack this saying of Jesus. Jesus asks God for the forgiveness of those who mock, insult, crucify, and kill him because they do not know what they are doing. This, however, seems quite odd. How come Jesus doesn’t say he forgives them first? Logically speaking, isn’t Jesus supposed to forgive them himself first and then to ask God’s forgiveness on behalf of them? So that the order is something like “Father, I forgive them. Please forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” Jesus somehow doesn’t feel like he has to forgive them, even at the moment of his own death when they are the ones who are crucifying him and killing him. He could’ve also prayed, “Father, punish them for what they are doing.” We can list all the things that he could’ve and should’ve done but we’re more interested in what prompted him to say that prayer and how he was empowered to pray for those who are killing him. In the eyes of Jesus, there is no you and me. He has overcome what divides him and others. He does not distinguish himself from others but sees everyone and everything as a whole. He is not locked up in his own ego but is freed from it. He is beyond his ego, his body, his feelings and thoughts. He only exists as he is, watching everyone as they are and everything as it is. He prays for the best of everyone which is the will of God. In him, there’s no one to forgive. They do not know what they are doing. They are not living in the kingdom of God. As in our collect for today, they are divided and enslaved by sin. They are not yet freed and brought together under Jesus’s most gracious rule. In Jesus, on the other hand, everyone at the moment of his death is part of him so that he seeks justice and forgiveness for the benefit and well-being of those who are doing wrong. The eyes of Jesus are the eyes of God. We too often believe that we can’t be like Jesus. This nevertheless contradicts the meaning of the term “Christian.” A Christian is the one who follows Christ. A Christian does what Christ does. If we were to simply admire Jesus, then we shouldn’t use the term Christian but “Christian-wannabe.” This unfortunate situation may be happening because we have forgotten and have not experienced or paid attention to the Holy Spirit dwelling and empowering in us. The Holy Spirit, the Breath of God is what sustains us right now at this moment. The Holy Spirit in us enacts, empowers, and observes all our thoughts, feelings, senses, actions, words, and everything. Our Christian spiritual life is then all about being attentive to the inner presence and work of the Holy Spirit. How we exercise our spirituality is to be in this presence of the Holy Spirit by actively checking in with ourselves and uttering intentionally to ourselves, “I am. I exist. The Spirit in me. Jesus in me. Abba Father in me.” This spiritual awakening tells us who we are in Christ. We don’t know what we are doing when we do not know who we are. In Christ, we know who we are and that we are. Our breath is just oxygen we breathe in and out but the breath of God that flows from head to toe. This spiritual exercise is what Saint Paul means by “transferring us into the kingdom of his Beloved Son.” We are constantly transferred into the presence of Christ the king. From this innermost depth of our being where the Holy Spirit reveals through our feelings, thoughts, and senses, Jesus’s prayer can truly become our prayer, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.” When this prayer becomes our own prayer in our everyday lives, we hear the voice of Jesus Christ, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me at Paradise.” in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. |
Paul"...life up your love to that cloud [of unknowing]...let God draw your love up to that cloud...through the help of his grace, to forget every other thing." Archives
January 2025
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