Sermon for the Last Sunday after Pentecost, Solemn Mass,
November 22, 2009, by the Reverend Stephen Gerth

Year B: Daniel 7:9-14; Psalm 93; Revelation 1:1-8;Mark 11:1-11*

In Mark, Jesus’ ministry begins with him going to Galilee and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe in the gospel.”[1] In today’s lesson, the crowd cries, “Blessed is the kingdom of our father David that is coming!”[2] On his cross the inscription for Jesus will read, “The King of the Jews.”[3]

It is curious in many ways that we are celebrating Christ the King. Jesus doesn’t care about being a king. Nowhere in this gospel does he take up that mantle. When Pilate asks him if he is the king of the Jews, Jesus is not interested in explaining or defending himself. But who was Jesus? And who knew who he really was. In Mark’s gospel the only person who seems to know him really is Jesus himself. Jesus will answer one question about who he is and that’s when he is on trial before the chief priests and the whole council. He’s asked, “Are you the Christ?” ’ And Jesus said, “I am.”[4]

But even Jesus doesn’t know entirely what it means for him to be the Christ, the Son of the Blessed.

People who come to him don’t understand who is at all. Some need healing; they come. Some are hungry; they come. Some want to hear something good; they come. Some want to judge and be angry; they come, too.  They come to see him break their rules about the Sabbath, to see him eat with sinners.

His words about the kingdom of God touched something inside people. Sometimes Jesus really did know more about others than any ordinary person could know; but he didn’t know everything.  And in the end, this king doesn’t know how he would died.

In Mark, as Jesus enters Jerusalem, Jesus has told his disciples three different times that the Son of Man will be condemned, killed and on the third day rise. But, when it came to the cross, Jesus doesn’t remember that.

Only once in Mark does Jesus address God directly as Father – when he is in the garden, when he asks for the cup to be passed from him.[5] If there is an answer, and I don’t think it’s fair to say there was an answer is because what Jesus found after he asked his Father to remove the cup was to find disciples sleeping and the betrayer arriving. And most important of all, nailed to the cross, he does not expect to be abandoned by God, but, in Mark he is. The last thing he says in this gospel is not, “Into thy hands I commit my spirit!”[6] It is simply, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me.”[7]

Yesterday a priest I know remarked to me that he just lived his life by believing that God is in control of everything. I can’t go there. I responded without thinking really, “What about my mother’s Alzheimer’s? What about Auschwitz?” I would not be a Christian if I had to believe God was in control. There’s too much sin and evil in this world for me to believe that.

I Jesus probably did die as Mark described it, abandoned by all he knew.  I also he rose from the dead. Resurrection explains God.

Resurrection is the belief that unlocked the words and deeds for those who will see Jesus rise. I think resurrection can unlock his words and deeds for all who hear of it. Resurrection is in some sense the last chapter of creation. So what about the kingship of Christ? What about this sacred meal we have come today to eat? 

Every once in a while, we tweak the blurbs in the Sunday bulletins. The current version of “About the Service” begins with the sentence, “Solemn Mass is the full traditional form of Sunday morning Christian worship.” It could easily begin with the words, “Mass is the weekly celebration of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.” Or, less elegantly, with the words, “Every Eucharist is a celebration of Easter, not Good Friday, not the Last Supper, but Easter.”

The kingship of Christ, all these earthly images for him who is beyond all, is entirely secondary to Easter. And like Christmas, Epiphany, Pentecost or any day of the year, these days only have meaning for us these days are essentially Easter. And that is why, week after week, day after day, Christians can gather. It is Easter that is the game changer. And unlike Jesus who dies without knowing the resurrection, you and I can die in faith, believing that there is.

I do believe in a merciful God, a God who is far more understanding of human frailty than some of us human beings are. The other day as I walked from the train, I saw an older women, looking out, who seemed more than lost in her thoughts. She seemed lost in the burdens of this world. And for some reason I had the idea they were just burdens that came her way – not that . Her face reminded me how hard it is for us to journey through life. 

Growing up as a Southern Baptist tradition, I heard a lot about “crowns of glory” – others may have heard that too – that replaces the Christ’s crown of thorns. The phrases “crown of glory”[8] and “crown of life”[9] come to us from the New Testament. But the crown that matters is the latter. The heart of it all is resurrection, life for Christ, life for us, life to do the work Jesus has given us to do.  The center of it all is life. And if Jesus is king, it’s not because of his crown of glory, it’s because of his crown of life.

+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.