Our Good Shepherd, Our King
Do you remember the good old days? We didn’t have to lock our doors. We could run around the neighborhood barefoot with little fear beyond sand spurs. Why, some say even our politics were civil. I don’t quite believe that.
Certainly some things were better, but other things were worse, far worse. By many measures the world is a safer, healthier and more prosperous place than it has ever been.
Yet, we have an abiding sense of things having been better once upon a time just the same. However good things are, we know they could be better.
I believe that sense runs much deeper than our childhood memories. I believe it runs much deeper than traditions that fade or lose their meaning from one generation to the next. (Yes, this week we see that for many people Thanksgiving is detached from the very idea of giving thanks.)
I believe it runs much deeper than the naïveté of childhood or going back to some unconscious memory of the quiet, safe and loving provision of our mother’s womb. And I believe it runs much deeper than humanity’s capacity to dream of possibilities that may be beyond our grasp at present.
At the very depths of our souls, we have a sense that things that are out of order were once in order and need to be put back to right. We want to get back to the garden of Eden, to that sense of unity with God, each other and nature that is pure, perfected in a way that our troubles don’t recur, and free us from the consequences of our mistakes, our conflicts, our sin.
Pure peace, pure justice, pure character and pure love have been corrupted.
What is true for the world is also true within each of us. Anyone who bears the scars of sin, anyone who has taken the very hard road to overcome a deep and ruinous sin in their own life knows it is a restoration project, even if it involves a lot of remodeling. Not restoring us to the person we were, but to the person we were ever meant to be.
That kind of project requires that we dig down deep to face the dragon of addiction, lust, jealousy, anger. But the dragon is us, part of our being. We need help.
While we know we are more than our physical bodies, a time comes when our bodies and even our minds fail. Who will save us then?
Jesus owned nothing except the clothes on his back. They stripped him of those as they attempted to strip him of his dignity. They could not. Try as they might, having beaten and mocked and hung him on a cross in a dump as an example to any who would disrupt the Jewish or Roman authorities, his dignity remained. “Father forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.” (Luke 23:34)
Just as Jesus was tempted three times by Satan in the wilderness, he is mocked three times by the Jewish leaders, the Roman soldiers and one of the criminals beside him to “save himself.”
But he didn’t go to the cross for himself. He went to the cross for us. He went to the cross to take on the burden of our sin – the general state of our sinful being – as well as our sins, our particular acts of disobedience, of straying from God’s will.
And there was also an inscription over him, “This is the King of the Jews.” (Luke 23:38)
A good king does all he can to see to the welfare and prosperity of his people. Our King laid down his life to restore us all.
We see the sweetest hint of his impending victory. The second thief asks Jesus to remember him when he comes into his kingdom. Jesus replies, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” (Luke 23:43)
The word Paradise comes from the Persian word for a walled garden. A garden is a place where the beauty of nature intersects with the human creativity. It is peaceful, protected, everything set right, everything restored to what it was ever meant to be.
This is our hope. This is our destiny. This is our promise made by Christ himself on the cross. The thief repented and set his heart on Jesus and so secured his place with him forever. Peace is made through the blood of the cross. Everything will be set right through the blood of the cross.
With this hope and promise our deepest desire has been secured. It is done, complete. May you be made strong, able to endure everything because you know that you have been rescued from the darkness and transferred into His kingdom.
All of this through the blood of the cross.
AMEN!