Today, You…
Pastor Mathew Magera – 11/20/16 – Sermon 191
St. Thomas Lutheran Church, Trufant, MI
To God be the Glory!
Grace and peace to you from
God our Father, from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
Jesus is on his way to the
cross in our Gospel reading today, he is on his way to his death but also on
his way to be fully crowned as our King through his death and resurrection.
But, it is not only him on his way to the cross. Two criminals are going with
him to their death. We are on our way to the execution site, crosses on our
back. We have been sentenced to death. We have broken the Law, we are guilty.
Caesar has spoken, through Pilate, and has found us guilty. There is no hope
remaining. But, with Jesus, as we hear today, oddly enough brings us a hope we
could never have imagined, a hope that is so incredibly true. One of the
criminals chooses to place their hope in him, while the other would rather just
hang there and hope for an imaginary king who would spare his life and bring
him down from the cross. One is living into a promise that is founded beyond
this world. The other is living into the earthly kingdom and has no hope
whatsoever. Which one are you most likely to imitate?
It is Christ the King Sunday
and what better way to remind us about Christ's divine kingship over our lives
than to speak about the recent events of the past two weeks. Yes, I'm referring
to the election. I’m not speaking this from one side or the other. Our hope
cannot come from an earthly leader. If you voted for our President Elect, he
will not save our country. I will say the same thing about the other candidates
too. They would not have saved our country. We are well beyond the point where
a miracle president will unify our nation. Our political parties and moralistic
leanings have become so incredible diverse that I imagine every single
president in our future will be met with protesting and riotous crowds.
Just this past week, I read
of two awfully disturbing events that are very personal to me. At my high
school in northern Illinois, somebody wrote “White's Only” in one of the
bathroom stalls. It's uncalled for. Just a few days ago I learned that a
swastika was painted in one of the dorm buildings at my college in Pennsylvania.
Who’s to blame for this? People go straight to our President Elect. And do you
think the only reason this happened was because he won the election? The
divisions in our nation right now are so strong that no matter who won the
presidency both sides would have spoken up in acts of senseless despair and
pride just like this. We have become so pulled to one side or the other, the
tension growing so drastically thick, that, as a nation, no candidate will likely
ever be able to bring us back together.
I mean, can you see what is
going on here in only two weeks? On one side people are anticipating the end of
the free world as we know it. On the other, people are anticipating its new
beginning. Despair and optimism. Both of these are inappropriate responses for
us as Christians because they pin our hope hinging on the temporary holder of a
temporal man-made office. Our hope comes from Christ who is divinely appointed
as our eternal king, not by a popular vote or an Electoral College. The
unfortunate part about this is that we are on this ride whether we want to be
or not.
The two criminals were on
their way to the cross whether they wanted to be or not. We, like the
criminals, are on our way to the cross because of our sin. We are not in a very
good position and there is no hope of getting out of this. Our sin has done us
in. We must admit that it is our own sinfulness that has brought us to where we
are but in realizing that we are also met with the choice on how to experience
life in the time we have left. If we are to choose our rightful King, Jesus, we
have to submit to his reign and not what we want him to be for us. He’s not a
politician, we can’t persuade him to do something outside of his character.
It’s God’s will, not ours. Jesus didn't come off that cross. Even with all the
sneering and temptation. Come off that cross. Save yourself. Even the criminals
were in on it. If you're the Messiah, Jesus, come down from that cross, but
don't forget me too. That's us. We want Jesus to come down from that cross. We
want Jesus to break into our everyday and to make things right. We want him to
unify our divided nation. We want him to show himself. We want him to come and
fix this! Jesus does come off that cross, but his body limp and lifeless.
Nevertheless, He does come down and he does fix something that was broken. He
fixes us.
In this entire story of
Jesus going to the cross today, we are met with one small piece of good news
that starts with two simple words. Today, you. Today, you. Jesus says to the
criminal on his side, "Today, you will be with me in paradise." It's
a promise. It's hope. While the law of the land convicted him and sentenced him
to death, gave him what he deserved, Jesus frees him right there from the very
sentence he deserves as a sinner. And this word is for us today too. Today,
you. It's a promise. It's hope. Today, you will be with me in paradise. I know
what you’re thinking and no I don’t mean that every one of you is going to die
today. That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying that it is a freeing promise that
has two implications for us. First, it means of course that because of Jesus'
death we have been granted eternal pardon and will truly be with him in
paradise. But, second, though we may not die today Jesus says to us today we
will be with him in paradise and that's true too. We can change how we look at
the world and in doing so actually begin living in paradise just in how we
respond. The promise of 'today, you' is for us right now today. It is for us
who have been spared the purpose of the cross but are not without its pains. The
purpose of the cross is to kill sinners but it only killed one and that was
Jesus. If you are looking forward to these next four years with excitement,
this promise is for you. If you are afraid of what these next four years will
bring, this promise is for you. Both sides need to stop thinking about what one
man in an oval office can do and start putting our faith in what Christ has
already done for us.
That criminal on Jesus’ side
was offered a promise that changed his life. But, if you notice, he still died.
In the moments before he died, he likely lived a very changed life. We don’t
know. We can only imagine how he spent the last minutes or hours of his life
changed by that promise. He very well may have been hanging on that cross still
but while he still had breath, he had hope.
He wasn’t expecting it. He wasn’t expecting to get out of this, he just
wanted to be remembered. But, Jesus gave him something more. More than being
remembered, Jesus gave him the kingdom about which he spoke right there on the
cross. We still endure a world of physical, emotional and mental pain and a
physical death as a result of sin and we don’t deserve that kingdom but Jesus
gives it to us right now and like the criminal on the cross we can experience
that kingdom and be that kingdom right now.
We need to be the
peacemakers. Only Christ can bring peace and he works it through us. Yes, the
riots are bad. The destruction viewed as unacceptable from people on both
sides. But, the protests themselves are not bad. We may like them or not like
them, they may need to take on different forms, but they are acceptable as long
as you understand that at their heart they are not simply whining about the
election results. At their heart, these protests are trying to send a message.
We as the church need to listen to this message. We cannot be stuck in our
little world on how we think the world should be run. We need to engage people
who are different from us. We need to love people who are different from us.
They are people. With real fears. Whether legitimate or not, groups of people
are feeling afraid for their civil rights, personal security, and social
regression. Instead of ignoring them, rejecting them, or slandering them,
LISTEN to them. We need to offer that promise to others who are suffering from
these recent events. We can't say, "I don't care about them." We
can't say, "They don't belong here." We must offer the promise. We
must speak the good news. Jesus didn't turn to the criminals and tell them they
don’t belong there, that they were good for nothing, that he didn't care about
them. He didn’t do that to us, so why should we be doing it to others?
We need to be peacemakers,
bridge builders, and conversation starters. We need to be the active healers,
to encourage cross-aisle listening, and create safe spaces for those who feel
afraid and oppressed. We need to be a witness to Jesus’ kingship and a
prophetic voice to the culture. Most of all, as we stand whether on the left,
the right, or somewhere in the middle, we need to be ambassadors of Christ’s
love. Jesus says, “Today, you will be with me in paradise.” You, not anyone
else. You. Today. We can either hang on those words and look around at what
horrible shape we’re in and hope for a miracle, or we can allow our minds to be
changed by that promise and begin to see the world differently because of it,
like a new pair of glasses, and allow that change within us to be the miracle
we seek.
So, back to the cross that
we’re on. Are you the criminal seeking someone to be a miracle for you? Or are
you the criminal willing to let a miracle be done to you? Let’s not look at
these next four years as a chance for someone new to make or break our country.
Instead let’s look to Christ our King who has always been there offering to
make something new out of our brokenness. Turn to Jesus and listen to the
promise, "Today, you will be with me in paradise." And let's start
living into that promise here in the United States today. To God be the glory,
now and always. Amen.