This Is Jesus, King of the Jews"

"This Is Jesus, King of the Jews"
Matthew 27:35-40

This Sunday is called, “Christ The King Sunday.”  It’s the last Sunday in the long church season called Pentecost.  Pentecost starts with Pentecost Sunday, usually in late May or early June, and ends today—the last Sunday in November.

So the Christian calendar, and the Christian lectionary are making us pause, before Advent starts up next Sunday, and think about Christ as our King.

There are certain elements of kingliness.  They are what we associate with a king.  Like royal robes.

Jesus had a robe.  It was actually the only thing he owned.  Think of everything you own.  Jesus only had a robe.  Homespun.  No seam.  A simple piece of thick cloth he used to keep himself warm.  We don’t even know what color it was.  He wore it wherever he went.  He slept with it, using it for a blanket.  That’s it.

At Jesus’ crucifixion the Roman soldiers were throwing dice to see who would win Jesus’ robe.  Imagine that scene.  Above the soldiers is a naked man, whom they don’t care about, spiked to a cross.  Below him, the soldiers are gaming for the naked Jesus’ robe.

Imagine that robe.  As you watch them throw the dice, you know that this is the only thing Jesus owned in the world.  When they took his robe and clothes off his body to crucify him, they were taking all of his worldly goods.  Once one of the soldiers won Jesus’ robe and took possession of it, Jesus would have owned nothing.  Jesus, the King, was in the process of dying totally naked.  That is, totally possession-less.

What the soldiers were doing was routine at executions.  Gaining the extra clothes of the executed was a “perk” of the job.  Imagine what it would have been like for Jesus, hearing down below him, the soldiers rolling dice for his robe.  Imagine Jesus thinking about his robe and what it represented.  Did Jesus close his eyes and remember?

Did Jesus remember back to the hemorrhaging woman, whose condition had lasted 12 years (Mark 5:25-34)?  She had spent all her money trying to get well.  She had no other options but one.  She had heard about Jesus.  Jesus was her last gasp attempt at getting well and being free of her condition.  She thought to herself, as the gospel story tells us, “If I can just put a finger on his robe, I can get well.”  And that’s what she did.  She slipped up behind Jesus, touched the hem of his robe, and was healed.  Just touched his robe!  His only possession.

Did Jesus remember how the towns would round up all their sick whenever he would be traveling through?  How, as Matthew’s gospel tells us, all those who were rounded up simply “asked permission to touch the edge of his robe.”  And whoever touched that robe was healed (Matthew 14:34-36).

And did Jesus remember, as he hung on the cross, above the soldiers who gambled for his robe, how during one time of prayer, that robe was changed.  How, there on the mountain, when Moses and Elijah suddenly appeared and talked with Jesus, how “his clothes became blinding white” (Luke 9:29).  How, during that Transfiguration, everything about Jesus changed to brightness, especially his robe.

Did Jesus wonder, as he hung there upon the cross, if the soldier who won his robe knew exactly what he had won?  What power had flowed through that robe?  How many people’s lives had been affected simply by a touch upon that robe?  How many diseases had been healed by the hem of that robe?  His robe.  Jesus’ clothing symbol of his kingship upon the earth.


Then Matthew tells about the sign.  As a King processed through a city, a sign would be held up on a standard, letting everyone know who this King was.

But when you’re crucified, the only sign you got was tacked above the head.  The only thing the sign announced was the crime of the one being crucified.  Most likely, Jesus had to wear the sign around his neck as he carried the cross through Jerusalem on the way to Skull Hill.  Everyone would have been able to read the crime for which Jesus was receiving capital punishment:  “This Is Jesus, The King Of The Jews.”  To make sure everyone could read it, the sign was written in the three predominant languages of the day: Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic.

The sign was not made by the Jews.  It was made by the Roman soldiers, probably on orders from the governor.  The sign was a calculated slap in the face of the Jewish authorities.  The Jews saw Jesus as a hostile threat to their system.  They took crucifixion with dead seriousness.

The Romans took a more playful view.  They saw no threat in Jesus, and viewed the Jewish seriousness as laughable.  In order to have a little fun with the Jews, the Roman authorities fashioned this sign.  They saw Jesus’ crucifixion as an orchestrated farce, more an aspect of the Jewish leadership’s paranoia than anything else.  So, by making the sign, the Roman’s were making Jesus out to be a tragic court jester, tweaking the Jews with Jesus’ death.

But under that sign, Jesus is invisible for who he really is.  The sign is a way for both the Romans and the Jews to deny the awesome holiness of Jesus.  Authorities on both sides only seek to use Jesus as a ping pong ball between the paddles of their assumed authority, to do with Jesus as they will.  The Jews claimed Jesus as no king.  The Romans saw Jesus as no threat.  Indeed, the sign should have read, if the truth be known by Jews and Romans, “This Is Jesus, The King Of The World.”  And his throne was a cross, with a sign above it.


And lastly, a King had those who helped him rule.  There may have been a person who had the office of The Hand of the King, who was second in command, who took care of all the King’s messy work.  In Men’s Bible Study, we are looking at the story of Joseph.  Joseph, the Hebrew who was sold into slavery by his dysfunctional brothers, became the second in command in Egypt to Pharaoh himself.

These dignitaries who served the King would have chairs beside the throne of the King, one on the left, and one on the right.

In Matthew’s story of the cross, we are told Jesus was executed with two criminals.  Jesus’ cross was placed in the middle of the crosses of the criminals.  The word that Matthew used to describe these two others literally means “one who seizes.”  That is, one who seizes the property of another, as in a thief.  Or, one who seizes authority from another, as a revolutionary would.

These two criminals were either robbers or revolutionaries.  Or both.  That may say something about how Jesus was being viewed at his Crucifixion.  A revolutionary.  An overthrower.  The question that forces us to ask is, “What exactly was Jesus trying to overthrow?”  What revolution was he trying to unleash?  Discovering the correct answer to those questions will help us understand the meaning of the cross, and Jesus’ true Kingship.

Knowing what we do, now, about a King and his throne, and the two seats on either side, why does Matthew make sure we know Jesus was crucified between two criminals and not just on the end of the three?

Do you remember the question that was tossed at the disciples most often by the Jewish authorities:  “Why does your Master eat and drink with sinners?”  At times the Jewish leaders mustered up the guts to ask Jesus that question themselves.

Why did Jesus live amongst sinners?  Why did Jesus eat and drink and live between sinners?  Jesus’ answer was a parable:  “Where are doctors needed most?  Isn’t a doctor’s work with those who are sick and not the healthy?”

Jesus lived between the sick, the maimed, the rejects, the nerds, the geeks, the made-fun-of, the leftovers, the given-up-on, the throw-a-ways, the invisible, the socially unacceptable, even the criminals.  How appropriate, Matthew is telling us, that this Jesus who lived between such people should also die between such people.  But not only between them—for them.  Two thieves on the right and on the left of the kings throne/cross.  That’s how Jesus, “The King Of The Jews” lived, and it’s how he died.  It is what made him most kingly.

This cross is a terribly poignant scene.  There is so much to see.  I hope by seeing all the elements of Jesus’ Kingship, you will come to love him as your King.