Killing off the King to Have a Baby

The Christian year ends in a rather strange way. On the last Sunday of what is called "ordinary time" time takes a not so ordinary twist. All of the scripture readings have to do with Jesus dying. The one I picked this year has Jesus standing all beaten up and bleeding before Pilate. Pilate asks Jesus if he is in fact a king.

Jesus says something like, "Well that's what you must think." Pilate has no use for this guy who is making him work on a holiday and replies, "Look idiot I'm not a Jew...I kill Jews for a living and you better start showing some respect for your superiors."

Jesus' reply, which you have to read between the lines is, "Whatever." He then offers Pilate something that Pilate would never quite get. "Look Mr. King of Rome, my kingdom is something you would not understand anyway. My kingdom will be around when you are dust."

Pilate then finds some hand sanitizer and washes his hands of this poor soul thus showing Jesus once and for all who is really king. Of course we now know that there is no First Church of Pontius Pilate but there seem to be plenty of places around that have King Jesus at least on their signs out front.

But as soon as we kill of Jesus at the end of the year it is time to have the first day of the year that begins the Christian New Year. We call it Advent. We have the death and the birth right up next to each other. What gives?

It seems that for the Christian we need to be reminded about what kind of king that God sends in a manger. Actually the manger is not as far removed from the cross as one might at first think. There was the death of a dream that night that Mary was told there was "no room." After all she was promised by none other than an angel that she would be the mother of the new king of the world. What kind of king would be forced to be born in a barn.

So we face the death of expectations as we start the New Year. Advent is a season to be told, "ready...set....stop." This is no countdown for the shopping days left until the credit card statements come. For the Christian there is the speed-bump that jars us to a stop if we take it too fast.

Stop....you have a king that gets crucified by the world. Stop...you are to be servants of a servant king. Stop...the world can be different if you serve a different kind of king...the kind of king who rules with a shepherd's staff and who wears a crown of thorns.

This Sunday, as I have done in many years before, I will place a chair in the chancel area of my church, place the processional cross behind the chair, put a crown of thorns over the cross beam of that cross, lean a shepherd's staff on the cross....and invite my people to come kneel and say "thank you" to this servant king.

We face the death before we hear the soft cry of the baby. It is the reason we can say "thank you" to a God who is willing to come suffer with us and promise us a new day beyond our suffering. Shades of Christmas are present even as a wounded Jesus looks at another king and says, "My kingdom is not of this world.....but it will make a world of difference."

Before Mary has her baby we are reminded that things in the new kingdom will be upside down in order to set things right side up....Happy soon to be New Year...
jody