• Jesus was a real man, a Palestinian Jew who was born, lived and died in Israel
• The Romans executed him as a threat to security
• Jesus’ followers continued following him after his death

We know from the historians of the day there was a man named Jesus who lived and died on the cross. From all accounts he was in many ways an ordinary sort of fellow. He may have been much more, but no one has ever seriously doubted that he was a lot like the rest of us in many ways.  

The Bible, which we can all expect wants to portray Jesus in the best possible light, does not leave us in doubt here. The Bible tells us how Jesus knew what it was like to grow tired or to be hungry. It shows Jesus being angry and frustrated, disappointed, feeling love for others and grief.  

We hear how Jesus was tempted as we are, how he worked and was obedient to his parents, and even how he was a bit of a problem for his parents. So Jesus was if nothing else a normal human who lived and died.  

We also know that Jesus did not die of natural causes. All four Gospels are fixated on the story of Jesus’ death and it is worth noting that this would have been the most embarrassing fact for those who had followed Jesus. Jesus was not the first or last person to be proclaimed Messiah. In the few centuries on either side of Jesus’ own life, there were other Jewish leaders who proclaimed themselves to be God’s chosen one.  

Some of these other would-be Messiahs, such as Bar Kochba, gathered much larger followings than Jesus. However, all these groups ended when the leader died. The Jesus Movement was very different. In many ways it only got rolling once Jesus was dead and resurrected. 

So the central fact we must come to terms with, especially if we want to proclaim Jesus as King, is that the Roman government killed him as threat to the peace in Israel. As this is true, Jesus could not have been just a good moral teacher or even a healer. Yes, Rome was always overly ready to put to death anyone who threatened their power, but they did not kill every religious leader in Israel. There must have been something about the rebel Rabbi that made the Roman ruler feel vulnerable to revolution.

There was that commotion in the Temple when Jesus’ overturned the tables of the moneychangers. But action against the Temple was not necessarily a threat to Rome. I think instead of being some isolated incident, it was every word he preach and everything Jesus did that put him at odds with both the religious and secular leaders in Jerusalem as well as the Roman authorities there and beyond. 

Jesus fundamental preaching was of a reversal of the way the world works. Jesus regularly taught that some of the last would be first and some of the first would be last. Jesus loved the unlovable and showed contempt for those with worldly trappings of success. What was worse, Jesus claimed that this upside-down view of the world was a God’s eye view of the way things are. 

Nowhere is this seen more clearly than in Jesus’ suffering and death. Jesus’ crucifixion was the ultimate reversal. The outward reality was that another faithful Jew was being killed by Rome for putting hope into the hearts of Israel. From all outward signs, it was the end for Jesus and his movement. Rome had all the power and authority and Jesus could do nothing to stop them.  

This is the way the people at the scene saw it. The soldiers who crucified Jesus mocked him cruelly, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!” One of the criminals crucified alongside Jesus said, “Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!” 

We read this passage with hindsight and can see the crucifixion in the light of Easter Sunday. We know that the outward reality hid the deeper truth—Jesus was the one with the power and authority. But Jesus knew that if he saved himself, he could not save others. Jesus stayed on the cross because he never gave up on loving us, even when the price of that love was torture and death.  

This brings us to face another agreed upon historic fact about Jesus of Nazareth—Jesus’ followers claimed their teacher rose from the grave on the third day. Of course, there is no historic proof for what they claimed, but there is no doubt that this was a central teaching of the earliest Christians. Jesus’ followers were willing to die for the declaration that Jesus had not just died, but he had died and been resurrected never to die again. 

This claim for Jesus’ resurrection is at the heart of our boast that Jesus is the King of Kings. If it is true, that Jesus was raised from the dead, then he has more power and authority than any person who came before him or has come since. Yet, Jesus taught that those in power are to use their abilities for the powerless. And Jesus showed he meant it with all his being by staying on the cross, knowing that to save others meant that he could not save himself.  

Jesus proved his power in powerlessness. Jesus proved his kingly authority in submitting to God’s will. And Jesus calls on those who say they are his followers to do likewise. We are to turn the world upside down with God’s love. We are to claim as King the one killed as criminal. We are to join our king in standing up for the poor and the oppressed. We are to join our king in reaching out in love to those who no one loves.  

In his own lifetime, people projected all sorts of their own ideas of power and authority onto Jesus. Some wanted a warrior to lead a Jewish military victory over Rome. Others wanted a prophet to lead a religious victory over a priesthood gone complacent at the Temple in Jerusalem. Since Jesus death and resurrection, people have declared him to be a great teacher, a magician, a philosopher, a poet, prophet, or even a deluded fool.  

On this Christ the King Sunday, I want to challenge you with the question Jesus used to challenge his own followers, “Who do you say that he is?” It doesn’t matter so much who other people say that he is. “Who do you say that Jesus is?” Was Jesus just a teacher, poet, magician, politician, an outlaw or was he something more? The answer is personal. For what this king wanted and wants still is to be the king of your life.  

I’m going to play some scenes from Jesus’ life, taken from five different movies, while we hear Larry Norman’s song Outlaw. The lyrics name some of the ways people have seen Jesus through time. The song always comes back to the central fact that Jesus was killed because they said he was an outlaw. As the song and scenes from the movie play, ask yourself, “Who do you say that Jesus is?”  

For those of you who consider Jesus to be not just the King of Kings, but the lord of your life, how do you say that in your own life. Do others know who you say Jesus is through your words and actions? How can you let them know what you believe by how you live?

Amen.