Summary: This passage forces us to recognize ourselves, to ask ourselves who we really need to be in order truly to be subjects of Christ, our true King.
Today is the final day of the liturgical season we call "Ordinary Time," the Season After Pentecost - and the day is Christ the King Sunday, or, to use the more modern parlance, Reign of Christ Sunday. Today's passage shows us that Jesus is no "ordinary" king, and, to claim him as our king, we can be no ordinary subjects.
It is a special Sunday: though not one such as Christmas or Easter, still a Sunday of special recognition, a Sabbath among Sabbaths. In this passage, we see Jesus recognized only by a tiny minority, a minority of one, as Christ - the king.
This is an ironic recognition, ironic on a number of levels. Luke's account is full of irony. It is ironic that Jesus - this bedraggled victim being tortured between two criminals - in any way would be called "King" in the first place. Indeed, the only use of the word king by anyone in any position of responsibility, is mocking, ironic - You're supposed to be some kind of king? Act like one! And yet, the ones mocking him are, in spite of themselves, proclaiming an ultimate truth. Christ is king - the King.
So whose king is this, anyway?
Jesus is marched by Roman soldiers to a place called The Skull (apparently some kind of unusual looking rock formation). Simon of Cyrene is behind him, dragging his cross for him, because Jesus is now too physically debilitated to carry it himself. There Jesus is crucified - literally nailed to a cross made of two rough pieces of wood and then hung there upright for all to see, to slowly suffocate as the muscles in his chest grow too weak to support his weight and fill his lungs. He is placed between two criminals who are also crucified.
This is our king: Jesus, placed between two criminals, subjected to the most gruesome, painful, humiliating form of torture and execution imaginable. It is punishment meant to serve as an example - punishment, like all punishments, meant to serve as some kind of deterrent.
This is our king: ranked with, executed with, counted among criminals and regarded as a criminal. Our king is regarded as a criminal by the State. Why? What "crime" has he committed, to deserve such horror being intentionally visited upon him?
To echo Pilate, "... what evil has he done?"1
What has he done to deserve this?
In what way is he, in spite of all this, "king"? Whose king? What manner of "king"? This is our king? Some "king," right?
There are three populations here who could be classified as "subjects" for Christ, our king:
There are the people. Egged on by the religious authorities, they were earlier portrayed as clamoring for his execution. Now, they suddenly seem non-committal; they just stand and watch.
And then we have the leaders of these people who stand and watch. These leaders are complicit in what is happening to Christ, and so they seem to have a special need to justify themselves. They jeer. They scoff. Look at him! "He saved others (interesting that they acknowledge that); let him save himself" if he is indeed the king he claims to be!
The leaders have a vested interest in proving that he's not in any way such a king. And they want to make sure the people know it. They say, in effect, Look at him! All he can do is hang there and die, like any other mortal! He can't save himself! He's nobody's king!
Another population of potential subjects: the soldiers. They also mock. They would have the same need to justify themselves as the leaders do, in that they are the ones who actually visit this awful torture on this wretched soul, going so far as to take the very clothing from off Jesus' back to distribute among themselves. Ha! If you're this king you claim to be, save yourself! Come down off the cross and deal with us, if you're king!
There's even a sign on the cross over Jesus' head: "This is the King of the Jews" - this poor naked tortured helpless human, This is the King of the Jews! In other gospels, the religious authorities complicit in putting Jesus on the cross are stung by that taunt, but apparently not here.
Finally, we have those two criminals, one on each side of Christ, our king. One of them joins the leaders and people and soldiers in mocking Jesus, in his own way. If you're this king, save yourself - and not only yourself, us too! Thus the thief identifies Christ, our king, as one of them. Jesus is identified as a criminal, and is counted among the criminals by a criminal.
And then, Christ, our king, in the midst of all of these dubious subjects, his torturers and tormentors, does something truly remarkable. He forgives. "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing."
"... they do not know what they are doing." No, indeed they don't. This is the ultimate irony. They do not know what they are doing - well, all except one of them doesn't know what they are doing. The religious authorities are indeed handing over their king to the occupying power to be killed - in earlier chapters, they, and the now curiously non-committal people, literally demanded his execution. They hand him over because they don't believe him to be king - or perhaps want no part of the kind of king he claims to be. A king who identifies with the marginalized? A king who makes the spirit of the Law superior to the letter? A king who makes no moves whatsoever to assert ... well, kingship, and gather an army to throw out the occupying power? No, thank you! They expel him. They hand him over to the occupying power to signal submission, to continue on with a status quo they have learned, however begrudgingly, to live with. They hand him over - and to mock him, they call him king by way of saying he isn't - if it seems circular, it is, in a way that is even in itself ironic.
The people watch;
The leaders taunt and deride;
The soldiers mock;
One of the criminals taunts, derides, mocks....
There is one who knows what he is doing, or one who at least apparently sees clearly what is really going on. It is that second thief.
His vision is clear. He rebukes the other thief in the midst of that miscreant's reviling and deriding Jesus. "Do you not fear God ...?" he asks - seeing, in a way that none of the others do, Jesus' connection to God. He sees that he and the other thief are getting what they deserve. He sees that Jesus is innocent.
And he sees no earthly possibility of being saved from this most earthly of punishments. His spiritually unclouded eyes already see another kind of salvation, a salvation that is not of this world. He makes no demand that Jesus somehow rescue him from his cross. His only request of Jesus is "...remember me when you come in your kingdom."
And, in return, he receives, from Christ, his and our king, that most poignant of benedictions: "Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise."
This story is frightening in its implications, on a number of levels. The leaders and the people of this chosen nation cannot recognize the one who is truly their king, even when he stands among them.
The soldiers, servants of the mightiest empire in the world of that time, in service to a Caesar and an empire that are now historical footnotes, treat him like a common criminal.
A criminal sees in him only a desperate way out of his desperate state.
What about us? What do we see? Whom do we identify with, in this tale both sordid and hopeful?
The leaders? Do we value our status quo, the peace we have made with the world of today - a world as cruel and unjust as it ever was, even if that cruelty and injustice have left us personally untouched?
The people? Standing there watching, still not committed one way or another, waiting to see what happens next?
That insolent and desperate thief, just looking for a way out of his immediate predicament?
Or that one thief - the one who recognizes his own guilt, sees that there's no way out of his predicament that he can devise? Who sees the purity and the innocence of Jesus, and who sees in Jesus the Son of God, and who cries out, "Jesus, remember me, when you come in your kingdom!"
We want to identify with Jesus, of course.
But who do we have to be, to claim that oneness with the Son of God, our Lord, our Savior - our King?
"Leaders" who don't really lead?
Just an everyday joe, putting one foot in front of the other, waiting for whatever comes next?
A functionary of whatever status quo is in power now?
A thief just looking for a way out?
No - to identify as subjects of Christ, the King, we may have to put aside our respectability and identify, forthrightly, as some kind of wretch - a dying thief, knowing his own powerlessness, his own guilt, his own complicity, and simply crying out to Christ, our King, Jesus, remember me ...! Amen.