Luke 23:33-43

It’s jarring that the last gospel reading of the church year, the Sunday before Thanksgiving, seems more appropriate for Good Friday. It’s also jarring to observe the festival of “Christ the King” this year when millions of Americans have taken to the streets for “No Kings!” protests. Our American fear of and distaste for monarchs is being challenged by a President who has stated he has the right to do whatever he wants as president, which critics interpret as a desire for the absolute power we associate with kings.

The title, “Christ the King,” is challenging all by itself. We rarely refer to Jesus as a king in progressive white congregations, in part because king is masculine. This concern never bothered me too much because my daughters read a series of books by Patricia Wrede in which Kazul, a female dragon, was King of the Dragons. When asked why she wasn’t queen of the dragons,” Kazul responded that “king” was her job title, and “queen of the dragons” was a very different job. Still, the assumption that king equals male bothers many people, and so “Reign of Christ” is often substituted for “Christ the King” on our Presbyterian liturgical calendars.

More troubling to me is that “king” smacks of hierarchy and domination, the kind of power we refer to as “power over” as opposed to “power with.” In our nation’s history, we associate kings with autocracy, oppression, ostentatious wealth, war-making, and inherited power as opposed to earned authority.

This passage is Luke’s version of Jesus on the cross, and it challenges us to take a look at what we mean by the word “king.” First, Jesus prays for forgiveness for all those involved in his crucifixion. He is being tortured, and he prays for forgiveness for those responsible for his torture. The crowd mocks him, saying that if he is indeed the Messiah, he should save himself. He does not. Then, he carries on a brief a conversation with his two fellow prisoners, also being crucified but for crimes they committed, while Luke emphasizes Jesus’ innocence.

What kind of king is this? In this passage, Jesus refuses to use the power of force or intimidation but instead appears in abject vulnerability. He doesn’t vow retribution, even against those who crucify him; instead, he offers forgiveness. He doesn’t come down off the cross to prove his kingly status but instead remains there, tortured, and humiliated, the representative of all who suffer unjustly.

So, perhaps a more important question: What kind of king do we want?

This is the question that was asked 100 years ago when Christ the King Sunday was added to the liturgical calendar. Christ the King Sunday was established in 1925 between the two World Wars. In the face of growing nationalism and secularism, Pope Pius XI wanted to remind Christians that their first allegiance is to God rather than to any earthly ruler. The Pope instituted this feast day in order to proclaim that Jesus Christ is the head, the ruler over all human institutions, countries, political entities, economies, cultures – everything. This was to remind the church that calling Jesus “Lord” – or “King” – was a radical act in the Roman Empire. When early Christians said that Jesus was Lord and King, they were also saying that Caesar and Herod were not. When they used “Christ as King” language, they were making a dangerous statement of resistance.

Calling Jesus “King” is still a radical act. Living as though he is the ruler of our lives is an even more radical act, and can even be a dangerous statement of resistance. In 1934, a group of Christians in Nazi Germany adopted a document known as the Theological Declaration of Barmen. In the view of the Christians who met in the city of Wuppertal-Barmen that May, the German Christian movement had corrupted church government by making it subservient to the state. They had introduced Nazi ideology into the German Protestant churches that contradicted the Christian gospel. The Declaration contains six propositions, each quoting from Scripture, stating its implications for the situation facing the German church, and rejecting the false doctrine of the German Christians. The second proposition concludes, “We reject the false doctrine, as though there were areas of our life in which we do not belong to Jesus Christ, but to other lords …” Both Karl Barth, who wrote most of the Declaration of Barmen, and Martin Niemöller, another pastor who signed the Declaration, were arrested for opposing the Nazi influence on the German church. Barth was exiled, and Niemöller spent seven years in a Nazi concentration camp.

So, what kind of king do we want?

Jesus is the king who points us toward what he called the Kingdom of God. You may call it the Kin-dom of God or the Reign of God if “kingdom” bothers you; the point is that it is what this world would look like if we actually did live as though God were the ruler of our hearts and minds, the ruler of every aspect of our lives. Jesus shows us in his life and ministry what that looks like: healing, feeding the hungry; welcoming outsiders, including those considered “unclean” by their culture; easing suffering, condemning greed; bringing good news to the poor, restoring sight to the blind, proclaiming release to captives, and setting the oppressed free (Luke 4:16-19); challenging rules and traditions that create insiders and outsiders or that create some who are privileged while others are marginalized; turning our notions of who is “blessed” on their heads; loving God and loving our neighbors as ourselves; loving even our enemies.

What kind of king do we want? Do we want the king who points to this Kingdom, who can lead us to this Kingdom? Or do we want the opposite?

David Lose writes, “Jesus is perhaps not the king or leader we may want, but he is the one we need.”

© Joanne Whitt 2025 all rights reserved.

Resources:
https://factually.co/fact-checks/politics/trump-king-accusations-explained-5914d5
https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/25/politics/trump-constitution-separation-of-powers
Scott Clark, “How Christ Is King,” November 19, 2019, https://www.togetherweserve.org/post/how-christ-is-king-luke-23-33-43-christ-the-king-sunday
David Lose, “What Kind of King Do You Want?” November 14, 2016, https://www.davidlose.net/tag/luke-2333-43/
Shannon J. Kershner, “Power and Strength,” November 20, 2016, https://www.fourthchurch.org/sermons/2016/112016.html
Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking: A Seeker’s ABC, revised and expanded (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1973, 1993).
The Theological Declaration of Barmen, Book of Confessions, Presbyterian Church (USA).