"Towards a New Kingdom," Sermon for November 20, 2016
Community
UMC, Quincy
“Towards
a New Kingdom”
Pastor
Andrew Davis
November
20, 2016
Jeremiah
23: 1-6
Luke
23: 33-43
I’m thinking that God has been trying to
tell me that our services have been too busy these last couple weeks, so this
week we get a little bit of a breather from so much going on before Advent
starts. This is also the time of year
when I tend to get hit with a cold and unfortunately, this past week is when I
happened to get hit. ‘Tis the season,
nevertheless. So, if you enjoy the
shorter sermons, this is your week!!
Plus, we have Thanksgiving on Thursday, meaning we are getting closer to
jumping head-first into the hustle and bustle of the Christmas shopping and
preparation season. However, today also
marks the end of the year for us in the church.
Not the actual end of the year when we watch the giant crystal ball drop
in Times Square, NYC, but the end of the church liturgical year. The church/liturgical year is divided up into
the Christmas cycle of Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany, then the Easter Cycle
which is Lent, Easter, and the Day of Pentecost which also has different colors
to it. So if you’ve ever wondered why
the colors change on our altar and on the pulpit at different times of the year,
that’s the main reason. Of course, this
is also something we can talk about at coffee and conversation on Mondays, I
tend to geek out to worship and liturgics.
In between cycles is Ordinary Time, which is marked by the color green,
a color we do see a lot of during the year.
But today, we come to Christ the King Sunday, in which we stand at the
bridge to Advent once again, as this Church year ends and a new cycle
begins. Throughout this liturgical year,
our gospel readings have primarily come from the book of Luke and in this
season after Pentecost, we have learned from Jesus about the Kingdom of God
through many of his teachings, in which Jesus points us towards a new
kingdom.
It seems quite ironic that we are
encountering a Gospel text that we ordinarily expect to hear just before
Easter, as we are now standing at Golgotha with Jesus and two others as they
are being crucified upon the cross.
Jesus is being mocked, adding further insult to injury, while the
soldiers question whether he really is the king of the Jewish people. See, in his triumphant entry into Jerusalem
in Luke 19: 28-40, he was seen as the new king, and a threat to the people who
were in power in the Roman Empire. Jesus
was also seen as a threat to the religious authorities in his time too, but
that’s because this whole new kingdom that Jesus taught about would not be like
any other, especially for the powerful. It
comes as no surprise that the use of the word “king” in this context by the
soldiers crucifying Jesus is more sarcastic and more of an insult to Jesus and
his followers, who can only stand by helplessly. But the words that really stand out, at least
for me is in verses 42-43 when one of the two bandits being crucified with
Jesus says “Jesus remember me when you come into your kingdom” while Jesus
tells him “I assure you that today you will be with me in paradise” (CEB). Jesus is pointing us towards a new kingdom, a
new kingdom that awaits us when we follow him and heed his teachings. That new kingdom that Jesus is showing us is
one where salvation and mercy reign.
More importantly, it is how we are living our lives today that will also
show us towards a new kingdom.
Despite all that Jesus is going through,
the gruesomeness of his crucifixion, the mocking and taunts by the Roman
soldiers, we see a glimmer of hope in Jesus’s words, “Today you will be with me
in Paradise…” (Lk. 23: 43, CEB). As the New Interpreter’s Commentary says,
like
the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame in Jesus’s parable of the great
banquet (Lk. 14: 21), the criminal would feast with Jesus that day in
paradise. Like the wretched Lazarus who
died at the rich man’s gate (16: 19-31), he would experience the blessing of
God’s mercy.[i]
And
that’s the main crux of this new kingdom that Jesus is pointing us towards, as
it’s a kingdom of mercy, a kingdom of peace, a kingdom of hope. If we are to back up even further to our
reading in Jeremiah, the prophet is pointing to a new kingdom and a new day
when he says in chapter 23, verses
The time is coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up a righteous descendant[a] from David’s line, and he will rule as a wise king. He will
do what is just and right in the land. 6 During his lifetime, Judah will be saved and
Israel will live in safety. And his name will be The Lord Is Our Righteousness
Even
the prophet saw that a new day was on the horizon, although Jeremiah was also
talking of a new future, as the present world of that time was corrupt. Yep, if we think our world is corrupt today,
it was corrupt then too! When we put two
and two together, we see that Jesus was believed to be the one to bring that
new day to the people, and even on the cross, talks of being with him in
paradise in the new kingdom. Even today,
we can still utter, “Jesus, remember me, when you come into your kingdom” (Lk.
23: 42, NRSV).
Jesus’s
message of a new kingdom is a great message of salvation, of being saved when
we come to Jesus and ask Jesus to remember us too. That is the good news, knowing that despite
all the calamities of the world and things that go on around us, we can still
come to Jesus, we can still confess our sins and wrongdoings to him, as this is
the amazing, perfect, abiding love that Jesus gives us from the cross and from what
he has taught us throughout his earthly ministry, even amidst the persecution
and the violent way he was executed. This
is how we are redeemed when we follow Jesus, as we too can be in paradise with
him when we complete this journey on earth.
This is God’s great story to us on the earth of now, a story that should
give us hope as Jesus’s followers and disciples. Jesus’s death is not the ultimate end of the
story because he will show us towards a new kingdom, even in his death.
What God will do next
is, of course, the heart of the Gospel. In raising Jesus from the dead, God
will vindicate him as Messiah and Lord, not to condemn, but to reign in
mercy. This is the gift of a new opportunity to return to God and the
gift of the Holy Spirit, renewing the promise "for you and for your
children, and for all who are far away, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to
him" (Acts 2:37-39).[ii]
It is a great time of renewal,
especially as we spend this week giving thanks to God for the things of this
past year which we are most thankful for, but also to begin preparing our
hearts and minds for the new hope that can be born in each of us at
Christmas. Next week, we start a new
year in the church once again, Advent in which we . We start the story over again, this time
according to the Gospel of Matthew. But
it is this new kingdom that we can keep hoping for and working towards, even
today. And based on what we see in the
news often, perhaps we need this new kingdom here on earth more than ever,
where all of God’s children will be in paradise with Jesus, especially all who
are considered marginalized by the rest of society. And so as we gather with our families and
friends this Thursday for Thanksgiving, let us continue to remember Christ, our
king and the amazing, unending love he showed for us as we keep working towards
and hoping towards a new kingdom.
In the name of the
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
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