Christ the King
"When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory.” I don’t think that MGM or Tri-Star Pictures could do this scene justice. I will admit that I would love to see an IMAX movie attempt to capture it on film. Not even the grand opulence of the movie “Cleopatra” or the drama of “The 10 Commandments” with Charleton Heston would come close. Face it, we just have no real experience with royalty, and particularly with divine royalty.
Some of you, I know, have been to England and have seen the changing of the guards and viewed the Crown Jewels. Others have been to Russia to view the treasures of the Tsars. The rest of us, if we are lucky, have visited the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., and that is the closest that we have come to the fringe of royalty. Yet, while each of the places I have listed inspires a certain amount of awe, we see them all as outsiders… as though we are watching a play on stage. It is not real for us, because we have never had a king.
But, in our text today, we have a king… a king who comes to judge all the peoples of the world. Christ the King comes in all his glory with all his angels to sit upon his throne for the purpose of judging the world. And, in his first act, he separates the peoples of the earth like a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. The sheep are to be on the right side of him and the goats on the left side. Now, sheep are not the brightest and most obedient animals in the world. There is no way that this shepherd king can just stand there and point the sheep in the right direction. They have to be herded… nudged… coaxed… or pushed to where they were to be. More than once, I guarantee, one of the goats… who are generally more active than sheep… would try to get into the sheep pen. And the sheep, as clueless as they tend to be, probably end up in the wrong place as well, if the shepherd isn’t watching closely. (P)
These are the righteous and the unrighteous of the world. Well, let me ask you: how hard would you try to get from the left side to the right side if you, as a goat, knew what was coming? And as for the sheep who mistakenly wander in the wrong direction… well, all I can say is that they definitely need a shepherd to keep an eye on them. One interesting thing about the sheep and the goats that are raised in the hill country of Palestine is that they are different… in size… in color… and in nature. The sheep… especially with a full coat of thick wool… tend to be much larger… lighter colored… and more pedantic. For this reason, they say that, even at dusk, it is possible for the shepherd to separate the sheep from the goats without any problem… because he can simply tell, at a glance, which is which.
And so it is with Christ the King. He knows… simply by looking at us… which of us are the righteous and which are the unrighteous. There’s no agonizing over this decision. It’s pretty cut and dried. Unlike humans who judge each other by outward appearances, God is able to see the heart and, thus, God can easily tell who is righteous and who is not. Those he puts on his right have been blessed and are still being blessed by the Father. As for the others, they have been cursed and are still being cursed by God. Those who are blessed inherit a kingdom that has been prepared for them… and is still being prepared for them… and will always be prepared for them… from the foundation of the world. As for the cursed, they are sent into the eternal fire that has been prepared… and is being prepared for the Devil and his angels… and will always be prepared for Satan and his minions.
OK. I admit it. This is one of those texts that I, as a Presbyterian, really don’t like. It makes me nervous. I like the image of the helpless sheep. I like the image of the good shepherd. I even like the razzle dazzle of Christ as a king, seated in all his glory on the throne. But the thought of my Savior judging me on my righteousness and determining my fate for all eternity makes me really uncomfortable. So, I find myself asking whether this is one of those days when I need to put a bigger check in the offering plate… or visit more people in the hospital… or volunteer at a homeless shelter? How do I make this uncomfortable feeling go away?
To begin an answer to that question, I want to examine, for a time, the role of a king. I had the privilege of growing up in Thailand and knowing, from my earliest youth, that a king sat on the throne. As I grew up, I heard many, many stories about that king. That king, Bumipol Adulyej, still sits on the throne and rules as Rama IX, the ninth in a line of kings who unified a group of warring city-states into a country that has never known the oppressive presence of a colonial power. Thailand, in fact, served as the buffer between British Burma and French Indochina… dancing with great agility to keep either from claiming her borders.
There are some famous kings in the Chakri dynasty – kings whose stories I learned to tell. There’s King Mongkut, Rama IV, who ruled the land when Anna Leonowens (of “Anna and the King of Siam” fame) came to be the governess to the Crown Prince in the nineteenth century. One of the more amusing stories about his reign… at least from our US perspective… is the offer that King Mongkut made to President Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War. He wanted to send some war elephants to Lincoln to aid his cause. I am not really sure how President Lincoln talked him out of that one, but it must have been a very interesting conversation. King Mongkut’s son, Crown Prince Chulalongkorn, became Rama V. He is remembered as the greatest of the Rama kings, for he freed the slaves… secured the country’s borders… and brought modern technology into Thailand.
The current king, Rama IX, has been on the throne for my entire lifetime. He ascended to the throne in 1946 at the age of nineteen when an assassin killed his older brother. Educated in the United States and Switzerland, he is a consummate politician and statesman… as well as a superb jazz musician. Now almost eighty years old, his health is beginning to deteriorate. But, in turbulent Southeast Asia, for more than half a century, under his guidance, Thailand has had a relatively stable government. Now the world’s longest reigning monarch, he is beloved of his people in a way that is difficult for those of us who have not known a monarchy to understand. What most endears him to his people is his humbleness… his love for his people… and his genuine desire to make Thailand a better place for people to live and work. The tremendous investment of his time and effort into projects that will improve the living conditions of the poor has created an unbreakable bond between him and his subjects. He and his lovely wife, Queen Sirikit, who was once a commoner herself, still serve as advocates for the poor and disadvantaged in their country today.
What King Bumipol has taught his subjects, by simply being who he is, is how to be a good shepherd… the kind of shepherd that Ezekiel was talking about in our reading from the old testament this morning. God entrusted his people to the kings of Israel and they had let him down. What God wanted was someone who would care for his people in the way that a shepherd cares for his sheep. King Bumipol, by his example, demonstrates humility… patience… generosity… and care for the poor. He is not afraid to get out and get his hands dirty to learn more about his country and his people. He is also not afraid to confront the evil that seeks to tear apart this small Asian kingdom every day. Isn’t this a piece of the same lesson that Jesus Christ taught us by coming to earth and living among us? In that simple action, he taught us that a king of royal birth… one due to inherit the kingdom of Most High… was willing to give up his crown and his throne out of love to come to earth in human form and live among us… in all of the muck and mire of our lives. Rather than a transcendent, unreachable monarch, he showed us how he was willing to be a servant to all. He showed us what being a king really means.
In doing so, Christ Jesus taught us how to live as citizens of this world… ministering to each other each day of our lives. He taught us how to be heirs to his Father’s kingdom by modeling what true kingship is and how to do it. He taught us how to be and how to act. He taught us how to provide the necessities of daily life to those around us… those whose lives we touch every day… those who come to us for what they need.
You see, charity is not something that we do once a week in church or whenever the Salvation Army calls. It is something that is so much a part of us that we do it unconsciously. Look again at our text and you will see that the righteous were just as surprised at the news of their benevolence as the unrighteous were at the news of their lack of charity towards others. This means that the righteous did not seek these people out for the purpose of doing good works in order to impress God and the world. They weren’t being recognized for that brief stint in the soup kitchen… or the check they wrote to a charitable foundation. This was something they weren’t even aware they had done and, therefore, never talked about. This means that the righteous were benevolent… were generous… were merciful… to those they came in contact with every day… to people whose paths crossed theirs in the day-to-day conduct of life. And they never knew that, in the faces of these people… these least ones… was the face of Jesus.
Someone’s path will cross yours today. You may not even notice. But you will have the opportunity to provide something that they need. It might be as simple as a kiss for your spouse. It might be a word of kindness or encouragement for your children. It might be a garden tool… an article of clothing… or a part of your newspaper for your neighbor. It might be directions to a building or a mall for a stranger in town. It may be a casserole for someone who is ill or it might be simply a listening ear for a friend. The question is this: Do you see the face of Jesus in everyone that you meet? Do you treat each person with the same love… respect… and kindness that Jesus treated the poor… the outcast… the despised of his world?
When we reflect for a moment on the life of Jesus, we quickly come to realize that, when he lived among us, he stood before a judge… just as we will stand… and are standing… and will always stand… before our judge. Jesus was humiliated… slandered… beaten… and, unjustly, condemned to death. He knew the pain and the shame of that condemnation. He knew the sense of betrayal and the loneliness of soul when friends deserted him in his hour of need. He also knew the unbelievable agony of death and separation from God. Who better to minister to our needs than someone who has been there before us? Who better to be our advocate than someone who has experienced the pain… the shame… the betrayal… the loneliness… the agony of condemnation and death? This is Jesus Christ… the one who is not only our judge, but the one who also serves as our advocate… our mediator… the one who laid down his own life so that we need not suffer condemnation and the eternal fires of hell.
A good shepherd, they say, is one who is willing to protect the sheep… even to the point of laying down his own life for the sheep. Christ is our good shepherd. He has already laid down his life for us. We have been cleansed by the blood of the lamb and now we appear before the judge… spotless and without blame… because he, our Savior, has carried our iniquities himself. Yes, we will be judged. But the one who judges us is the one who gave up his crown and his throne to come and live among us… because he loves us. We will be judged by the one who… by his own example… has taught us how to live… how to minister to others… how to be good shepherds. We will be judged by the one who has been judged himself. And the one who judges us will also be our advocate. He will appear with us before the throne and before the judge… interceding on our behalf… laying down his own life so that we might inherit eternal life.
This is Christ the King who came to earth to die for us out of the Father’s great love from the foundation of the world. This is Christ the King who was judged and condemned…condemned to death on our behalf. This is Christ the King who was raised in glory to sit in the eternal realm with the Father. This is Christ, our brother…our advocate…our friend who stands beside us as we approach the throne of judgment. This is our Judge, our Savior, and our King. Hallelujah! Amen.
Matthew 25:31-46