Why would we allow one person to
monopolise power and wealth in that way? Well, it seems to have happened
because the King then organised and led the army with the aim of ensuring peace
and prosperity for their subjects. Simply put, it was a quid pro quo
arrangement on the basis that, if you protect us, we’ll
allow you to lord it over us and enjoy a better quality of life.
Today we celebrate the Feast of Christ
the King but, of course, we are not celebrating Christ as the usual type of
human King. We are not even celebrating Christ as a greater type of monarch
than our current Queen – god-fearing as she
is and with greatly curtailed powers compared with many of her forbears.
Instead, we celebrate Christ as a King who turns the notion of Kingship on its
head; who, as our reading today (Luke 23. 33 - 43) makes clear, is seen as King at the point when
he is least powerful and most vulnerable –
at his own death.
The sign saying the King of the Jews
hung over Jesus’ head as he was dying on the cross was,
for Pilate, a statement of the charge against him. For the crowd on Golgotha,
it was a source of mockery – ‘Save
yourself, if you are the King of the Jews!’
For the second thief, it was a future hope –
‘Remember me, Jesus, when you come as
King!’ For Jesus it was a present reality.
The second thief asked ‘Remember me …
when you come as King’ and Jesus replied, ‘today
you will be in Paradise with me.’
Jesus was saying, ‘Today, not tomorrow or in the future,
is when I am King.’
What kind of King deliberately becomes
a victim and allows himself to killed though? It is the total reverse of what
we expect from a King. In Philippians 2 we read of Jesus letting go –
stripping himself – of everything which made him equal
with God in order to become a human being like us in order to serve us. On
Maundy Thursday, in particular, we celebrate Jesus’
decision to become a servant to those he had created when we re-enact his
washing of the disciples feet and his words that ‘You
call me Teacher and Lord, and it is right that you do so, because that is what
I am. I, your Lord and Teacher have just washed your feet.’
Our Lord and King is also a servant. In fact, service of others is the true
vocation and measure of Kingship.
More than this, his service of others,
as their King, leads all the way to his death on the cross –
the laying down of his own life for the sake of others. As Philippians 2 puts
it, ‘He was humble and walked the path of
obedience all the way to death – his death on the
cross.’ The true King lays down his own life
for the love of his people (all people). Jesus is that true King who turns the
meaning of Kingside upside down. No longer is Kingship to be understood in
terms of garnering wealth and power for oneself in other to defend others. Now
it is understood to be about service; giving your life that others might live.
Jesus, as the servant King, says to us, ‘I,
your Lord and Teacher, have just washed your feet. You, then, should wash one
another’s feet. I have set an example for you,
so that you will do just what I have done for you.’
Peter said to Jesus, ‘Never
at any time will you wash my feet!’
Jesus answered, ‘If I do not wash your feet, you will no
longer be my disciple.’ Some of us, on
Maundy Thursday, are like Peter and don’t
wish to have our feet washed. For whatever reason, we find it difficult to
publicly expose our feet and have someone else wash them. How much more
difficult, then, do we find it to genuinely follow Christ’s
example of service by laying down our lives for the sake of others?
Christ challenges all of us, myself
included, to let go of the things that prevent us from serving others just as
he left all that he had with God in heaven. To allow the force of challenge
that Christ as the Servant King poses to us we have to be prepared for the Holy
Spirit to question the extent to which we serve others now. Each of us do
currently serve and support others in and through this Church as well as in our
family, community and work commitments but, equally, each of us, myself
included, place constraints on the extent to which we serve others and may use
our service of some to mean that we are critical of others. To be true to the
revelation of Christ as Servant King, we need to allow God to challenge the
extent to which those constraints and attitudes are where he wants us to be.
Christ’s
example of service is a constant challenge to us to confront those areas of our
lives where we currently hold back from giving ourselves in service of others.
We naturally find it difficult to follow that example of service by fully
laying down our lives for the sake of others. But that is what we have to move
towards if we are to continue to experience his rule and reign –
his Kingship - in our lives. Jesus said to Peter, ‘If
I do not wash your feet, you will no longer be my disciple.’
because if we're not allowing him to serve us then we certainly won't be able
to follow in his footsteps by serving others:
“This is our God, the Servant King, / He
calls us now to follow him, / To bring our lives as a daily offering / Of
worship to the Servant King … So let us learn how
to serve, / And in our lives enthrone him; / Each other’s
needs to prefer, / For it is Christ we’re
serving.”
In what ways does the example
Christ sets as our King challenge each of us today in this area of serving
others? That is the true meaning of the feast of Christ the King.
‘After Jesus had washed their feet, he
put his outer garment back on and returned to his place at the table. “Do
you understand what I have just done to you?”
he asked. “You call me Teacher and Lord, and it is
right that you do so, because that is what I am. I, your Lord and Teacher have
just washed your feet. I, your Lord and Teacher, have just washed your feet.
You, then, should wash one another’s
feet. I have set an example for you, so that you will do just what I have done
for you. I am telling you the truth: no slave is greater than his master, and
no messenger is greater than the one who sent him. Now that you know this
truth, how happy you will be if you put it into practice.’
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Graham Kendrick - The Servant King.
No comments:
Post a Comment