November 21, 2004

The mother of a nine-year-old boy named Mark received a phone call in the middle of the afternoon. It was the teacher from her son’s school. “Mrs. Smith, something unusual happened today in your son’s third grade class. Your son did something that surprised me so much that I thought you should know about it immediately. Nothing like this has happened in all my years of teaching. This morning I was teaching a lesson on creative writing. And as I always do, I tell the story of the ant and the grasshopper: The ant works hard all summer and stores up plenty of food. But the grasshopper plays all summer and does no work. Then winter comes. The grasshopper begins to starve because he has no food. So he begs, ‘Please Mr. Ant, you have so much food. Please let me eat, too.’ Then I say, “Boys and girls, your job is to write the end of the story.”

“As in all the years past, most of the students said the ant shared his food through the winter, and both the ant and the grasshopper lived. A few children wrote, ‘No, Mr. Grasshopper. You should have worked in the summer. Now, I have just enough food for myself. So the ant lived and the grasshopper died.’ But your son Mark ended the story in a way different from any other child, ever. He wrote, “So the ant gave all of his food to the grasshopper; and the grasshopper lived through the winter. But the ant died.” And then, at the bottom of the page, Mark had drawn a picture -of three crosses!”Not the ending we would have imagined, is it?

I don’t think we could have imagined the ending to the following story, either.Jesus, our King, had been taken to the outskirts of Jerusalem. The valley of Gehenna is nearby where one can smell the stench of burning refuse and human waste that the breeze from the Mediterranean brings to a nearby hill called Golgotha. This is the place of execution, the place where crosses are erected and criminals are put to death. There are shredded clothes and pieces of bone scattered about the hill, tossed to and fro by ravaging dogs that typically tore the bodies off of the crosses at Golgotha. Our King has been sentenced as a criminal and He hangs on a cross centered between two other crucifixes where other criminals are about to meet the end of their lives.

At this point Jesus looks like a pitiful king, a defeated monarch who has seemingly lost his kingdom. Those who loved him are simply hoping he will die soon so that his misery and humiliation will be over. The king has no more loyal subjects. His enemies mock him. He is surrounded by Roman soldiers who are throwing dice to decide who gets his clothes. Gentiles and Jews alike are attempting to outdo one another with their merciless jeers. One Pharisee elbows another and whispers, “He saved others. Why doesn’t he save himself if he is God’s anointed one?” In other words, “What good is a king who can heal leprosy and blindness, cast out demons, and raise people from the dead if he can’t even rescue himself from a cross and bring down his enemies once and for all?” Jesus is not really a king in these people’s eyes, and we need to be honest with ourselves. If we had been present at that gruesome scene at Golgotha, we wouldn’t consider Jesus much of a king either.What Kind of a King is Jesus??

He was a King whom the World did Not See.Instead of leading people to Jesus as their King, the rulers of the people led them away from Jesus.Instead of using his kingly titles to praise Him, they used them to make fun of Him: “He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Christ of God, the Chosen One.”This guy is suffering the judgment of God!How could he save anyone else or give them eternal life?What kind of a king is Jesus?He couldn’t possibly be the Christ, the Chosen One of God!

From the beginning, God had promised to send a Savior to save the world from its sins.God’s OT people called this Promised One by the name of Christ or Messiah.These names, meaning “anointed one,” looked forward to One that God would set aside and anoint for this special work of being the Savior of the world.They knew the anointed One would be loved by God, and that He would be a King.But when they looked at Jesus dying on the cross, they did not see what they expected!Jesus could not possibly be their King!They didn’t understand that Jesus the King had to die so you and I could be members of his kingdom!They knew God would show special love to his Chosen One.They did not see God showing any love to Jesus on the cross, so how could he be the “Chosen One?”They didn’t understand that the Messiah had been chosen to suffer!By his suffering, Jesus was proving that He was the Chosen One.

But the rulers couldn’t see this.Nor could the soldiers.Nor could Pilate, even though the sign he made spelled out a clear truth. “THIS IS THE KING!”Yeah, what kind of king?? One that the world didn’t see.One that even the man hanging next to Him didn’t see.A man who was on his deathbed, who needed the King more desperately than anyone else there, began biting the hand which could have saved him.He didn’t see a Savior.He didn’t see a King.

Do we always see a King when we look at Jesus?Do we treat Him with the absolute awe and honour He deserves from us as the King of the universe?Or do we try using Him like our cell phones, as a practical convenience when we need to talk to someone or get help? Do we bring our very best to Him at all times, or try to pass off our “sour wine” to Him?When we praise Him as our “King,” do we really mean it?After we sing about Him as our King here, do we go and treat Him as our King the rest of the week?Do we ever sense that He is failing in his job as our King?“Jesus, aren’t you our King?Save us!Help me out here!Stop letting bad things happen in my life!Get down off your cross and help me lift this burden!Come down from your throne and help me raise my family and deal with my relationships in life!Jesus, if you are my King, would you really let these things happen to me?”Friends, we don’t always fear God or see Jesus as our King, do we?

Jesus is a King, alright!A King like the world has never seen!Kings are supposed to command powers that protect them and when others attack them, kings are supposed to seek vengeance.Kings aren’t supposed to suffer.They are supposed to inflict suffering upon others.Yet this King suffers immensely, and instead of calling out for revenge against his enemies, He asks God to forgive them.What Kind of a King is Jesus?He is also A King who takes us to Paradise!A King who forgives…A King who had done nothing wrong, but was suffering for all of our wrongs.Suffering for our sins.Suffering for the fact we haven’t treated Him like a King!This King is a King who has forgiven us for our wrongs!

Prussian king Frederick the Great was once touring a Berlin prison. All the prisoners fell on their knees before him to proclaim their innocence – except for one man, who remained silent. Frederick called to him, "Why are you here?" “Armed robbery, Your Majesty,” was the reply. “And are you guilty?” “Yes indeed, Your Majesty, I deserve my punishment.” Frederick then summoned the jailer and ordered him, “Release this guilty wretch at once. I will not have him kept in this prison where he will corrupt all the fine innocent people who occupy it.” This is the kind of forgiveness our King offers! When we finally quit making excuses for what we’ve done, when we finally quit pretending to be innocent, when we finally repent, God has forgiveness for us just like Frederick the Great forgave and released the prisoner who admitted his guilt.

Often God uses the fear of death to bring about a fear of Him.The criminal on the other side of the cross finally realized he was a sinner, and he was afraid to stand before the judgment seat of God.So he turned in faith to the only One who could save him.“Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”A cry for help and a beautiful confession of faith!Remember me, meaning, have mercy on me.Remember me, meaning that he understood and believed that Jesus was his God and Savior. That Jesus was his King.

Jesus didn’t look like any kind of king, much less the King God promised to the world.He looked like a defeated man laughed at by his enemies.He looked like a criminal being put to death.Yet this other criminal believed that He was the King.He didn’t believe what his eyes and human reason told him.He believed that Jesus was the Son of God when he heard Him say, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”He didn’t know exactly when Jesus would display his glory and show the whole world He was a King.But he knew that there would come a time when all people would see Jesus as the King of the universe.And he wanted to be remembered in mercy on that day.

Jesus told him that that day was today!He gave him more hope and joy than he could ever have imagined to receive!He told him that this very day, when his body was dead and buried, his soul would be with Jesus in paradise, in heaven!He gave this sinful criminal the greatest hope and confidence with which he could now face his impending death.He would be in paradise TODAY!We already talked about how this wasn’t the ending that anyone would have pictured for Christ the King.Well, this wasn’t the ending that the criminal had expected!He would not have expected, by day’s end, to be in Christ’s Kingdom of paradise!

Because of our sins, it isn’t the ending we would expect either.That the King of creation, after living a life of doing nothing wrong, would suffer like this for us.Taking all the benefits that He had stored up from his hard work and giving them to us, who have wasted our lives away with sin and foolishness. He ends up dying, so that we might live.No, that’s not the ending we would have expected.But that’s the kind of King we have.A King who Takes us to Paradise!

No doubt, that criminal found it hard to believe how someone like him could ever have been forgiven!And as we look at how innocent our King is, and how amazing He is, and how we have failed him so often, don’t we often wonder how He could ever forgive us?

“Tie A Yellow Ribbon” is a song that tells of a man who’s been sent to prison. He’s served his time and is now coming home on the bus. He admits that the woman who once loved him has every right to reject him. He’s to blame. So he had written to tell her that if she forgives him, she should “tie a yellow ribbon ‘round the old oak tree.” If there is no yellow ribbon, he’ll just go riding by on the bus. As the miles roll by, all the man thinks about is that oak tree. Will it have a yellow ribbon on it? As the bus approaches the oak tree the man sees not one, but a hundred yellow ribbons!Like the man on the bus, we’re often fearful of death and what’s ahead. We know our hearts, we know our failures and we wonder if God will really forgive us and welcome us into paradise. The good news about Christ our King is that He will! When we, like the thief on the cross, turn to our King for salvation, He will welcome us into heaven! The yellow ribbons will be uncountable!All because of the kind of King we have!What Kind of King is Jesus?A King who forgives.A King who will take us to paradise!Amen.