Grace and Peace to you from God, our father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
When I was a lad we used to go down to my Grandmother’s farm and the boy cousins would always end up in the hay mow of the barn. Our favorite game was to climb up to the top of the mow, and defend the top from all attackers. We played our bucolic version of "King of the Mountain”. My cousin Roy was the oldest and naturally the strongest and could be the cruelest. So three of us decided to gang up on him, work together and bring him down a peg or two. As luck would have it we did, and once we got him down the three of us sat on his hands and feet and taunted and mocked him, “King of the mountain eh?” Looks like the King got dethroned. Roy was about 12, I suppose, and finally burst into tears from the humiliation and scorn. Aren’t we human being a cruel lot really?
Today’s lesson is saturated with irony. It is incredibly ironic that Pilate calls Jesus King of the Jews because he is a prisoner, rejected by Jewish leadership and the Jewish people. The people reject their rightful King and hail Barabbas, the murderer, the Prince of Insurrection and national pride as their Lord; and the Prince of Peace, the Regent of the Kingdom of God they reject.
The soldiers have a coronation ceremony in the Praetorium. Ironically, they give Jesus a royal robe and a crown of shame and torment. But the ultimate irony is that they are crowning the King of the Universe, God himself in Christ. And God is using them to bring to fullness the plan that had been worked at before time began. Our redemption bought with the blood of God, and at the expense of God’s dignity and honor.
St. Mark reports the details to us relentlessly. The King of the Universe is nailed between two robbers, but they are mere symbols of the theft that humankind had made over the centuries and millennia, the usurping of God’s right and honor. We take down the King from the throne and regularly install ourselves there. All participate in the murder and mayhem.
And at his last breath, in utter abandonment, God in Christ dies on the cross. And St. Mark reminds us that the curtain of the temple rips open from top to bottom.
That curtain stood as a divider between the profane or common courtyard of the temple and the inner sanctum, the “Holy of Holies”. That curtain was an impenetrable wall signifying that God was not available; God was too holy to touch this world and this life. And at Jesus’ death God rips away the veil, (as Isaiah said), that is cast over all people, the funeral pall that covered all of us.
Now we are free. God has given us, in Christ’s death, access to the divine self. St. Paul in Philippians reminds us of the meaning of this horrible death. Jesus humbled himself took the form of a slave and in slavery to death, gives life to us.
This last Friday I heard a story about a little girl who was afraid of the dark. Her Mom and Dad were sensitive to her fears and provided a light, a night light. As she grew they eventually started to turn off the light, , always reassuring her like good Christian parents that God was with her. One night, she woke up terrified from a bad dream. She wanted her mother to join her in bed and her om crawled in with her. They talked and her mother assured her that God was with her. And her little one said, “I know, but when I’m really, really frightened I need someone with skin”.
Isn’t that who Jesus is? God with skin on, God in the flesh.
No matter how terrified we are. Whether we fear rejection, pain, scorn, mocking, humiliation, Jesus has been there. As early church theologians made it plain for us in saying “What God has not assumed, God had not redeemed”. Today’s lesson from Mark, today’s story and recollection of the passion of God in Christ make vivid for us that there is nothing in human experience that God has not already both encompassed and assumed in Jesus.
Therefore we hail you Christ Jesus, as King of the Jews and King over us. Be our peace with God now and evermore.
In Christ Name. Amen.
Who We Are