Jeremiah 23:1-6; Luke 1:68-79; Colossians 1:11-20; Luke 23:33-43
Redemption. If there is any one word that describes what we celebrate today, Christ the King Sunday, that word is definitely Redemption.
My favorite movies, my favorite songs, and my favorite books and stories have always been the ones about redemption. Stories about struggle and sacrifice and journeys of faith in the midst of life, in the midst of mortality and imperfection, in the midst of selfishness and hatred and violence, the common thread when the human and the divine meet is redemption. In this adventure we call life, our existence on this spinning rock we inhabit that is controlled by the laws of physics and the whims of nature, the great equalizer, the thing that turns hearts of stone into hearts of flesh and blood is and will always be God’s gift of Redemption.
The prophet Jeremiah speaks today of bad shepherds leading sheep astray, in this case God’s sheep, his chosen people, who have been led astray by those who were supposed to lead his people with righteousness. God’s message to them through Jeremiah is justice, holding those bad shepherds accountable for scattering and destroying his flock. God declares that he will pay those bad shepherd back for the evil they have done to his people.
And then God through Jeremiah speaks of redemption. Redemption for his people who have been led astray, new shepherds that will guide them to paths of righteousness, mercy from God who will gather his people back together and bless them with plenty and will multiply their numbers again. God through Jeremiah speaks of not just restoring his people to the blessings he promised to Abraham long ago, but God promises them a new shepherd, a new kind of shepherd, one from the house of God’s beloved David, a kind of shepherd that has never existed before, will rise to rule them this time. A king different from all the kings before him, even God’s beloved David, a king who will execute justice and righteousness again in the land, true justice and righteousness, the one who will be called “ the Lord is our Righteousness” will rise and lead God’s people to redemption and salvation.
Paul in his letter to the Colossians today continues the theme of redemption. And Paul spells it right out for us. “For God has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” I hate to simply quote scripture in my sermon, but Paul says it all so eloquently and so humbly. Paul says, “Christ our King is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.” That’s Redemption.
And finally, we have Luke’s Gospel reading. Here we have Jesus at his crucifixion, a jarring departure from Jeremiah and Paul’s readings before it. Here is Jesus, in the full force of his passion, nailed to the cross and in horrific pain and shame, suffering the jeers and the hatred of those witnessing his death, being tempted to use his power to come down off the cross and save himself rather than saving all of creation. The Jewish leaders and the soldiers join in the humiliation of our Lord, a rare coming together of Jews and Romans seeking to discredit and humiliate the one who dared to challenge their twisted and human interpretations of justice and mercy.
In the midst of the mocking and the suffering, the two criminals crucified with Jesus make themselves heard. One taunting him, the other chastising the first for his short sightedness and his obliviousness to their own pending deaths, a death that the humble criminal accepts as just punishment for his own actions, a death he sees as unjust punishment for the man Jesus who is not guilty of any wrongdoing. “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.”
Jesus himself, in the very midst of suffering and dying, in the middle of being mocked and degraded, abandoned and literally left for dead by his male disciples, moves beyond his own suffering and gives the gift of redemption to the humble criminal. “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”
This is Christ our King. This is God at his finest, at his most merciful, at his most forgiving, at his most loving and compassionate and authentic self. This is God: who created us in his image; who gifted us with life and love on our journey through creation; who, when the time was right, sent us the gift of himself to walk part of our journey with us as humans through this life of suffering but also joy, of fear but also of love, of sin but also of redemption. Here John’s words summarize God’s amazing gift to us. He says, “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, so that everyone that believes in him may not die, but may have eternal life in him.” And “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”
The Good News today brothers and sisters is that God sent his son into the world so that, through his sacrifice of himself for us and for all of creation, we might be saved from our own imperfect natures and know the gift of redemption and forgiveness of sins. Through that gift that was freely given, without being earned or deserved, we know the true nature of God through the image and the actions of his greatest gift to all of creation, Jesus Christ our King. He rules not with force or coercion, but with reconciliation and redemption, with love and mercy. In him we live and move and have our being, and through him we have received the ultimate gift of salvation, eternal life with him and all his children.