Pastor Jon Enter

Theme: What Kind of King Were You Expecting

Text: Luke 23:35-41

Most Americans born before 1953 probably remember exactly where they were on November 22, 1963. At exactly 12:30pm, President John F Kennedy was shot by an assassin while riding through the city of Dallas. Just eight minutes later at 12:38pm, Walter Cronkite interrupted the soap opera As the World Turns to announce on everyone’s TVs what happened. It’s impossible to know how President Kennedy would’ve been remembered had he not been assassinated. But today, in large part because of his assassination, the Kennedy family is one of the most well-known, talked about and admired families to ever serve the presidency.

Anyone who was in Jerusalem about 2,000 years ago knew exactly where they were the exact moment Jesus died. There was a massive earthquake that happened when Jesus breathed His last breath, when His earthly body and perfect God separated. I’m not sure how many people in that moment knew how much Jesus’ death would change eternity but one centurion did. Standing next to Jesus as He died, he exclaimed, “Sure He was the Son of God.” (Matthew 27:54)

Across America on that fateful day in 1963, churches opened their doors for anyone who wanted to come in. For many, the day of Kennedy’s assassination changed their lives forever. One priest from Marquette University in Milwaukee is remembered as saying, “Today is black Friday in the history of [our nation].” Of course, he wasn’t talking about getting great Black Friday deals on electronics at Best Buy. He was talking about a day that the darkness of death strangled the hope and optimism of a nation. But there was an original black Friday.

In our sermon text today, we go back to history’s first Black Friday, to the day of an even more famous assassination. But unlike the assassination that happened in 1963, this one, the death of Jesus, doesn’t strangle our hope and optimism. It brings them to life again. On November 22, 1963, the assassination of President Kennedy brought his reign to an end. But at the assassination of King Jesus, a new kingdom of hope for everyone who has ever felt like they needed a “happily-ever-after” was just beginning.

I read about this recently. Aaron Rowland was there in Dealey Plaza on the day Kennedy was killed. He was hoping to see the president as his motorcade drove by. But he saw something else while they were waiting. 16 minutes before Kennedy was shot, Aaron looked up at the Texas School Book Depository building and saw in one of the windows a man holding a rifle as if he was waiting to take a shot. He got his wife’s attention, pointed up to the window and said, “Do you want to see a Secret Service Agent?” Of course, that’s not what the man was. It was Lee Harvey Oswald, holding the gun he would use 16 minutes later to shoot the president. But Aaron didn’t know that. Just because you see something doesn’t mean you know what you’re looking at.

And that was certainly the case for a number of people in our sermon text. They looked at Jesus and saw someone who deserved to be taunted, to be mocked and insulted saying, “If He is God’s Messiah, the Chosen One.” (Luke 23:35) If? If He is? In other words, they thought He wasn’t. They thought if He was this mighty King, they expected something different, something better. “This is the King of the Jews” (Luke 23:38), the sign above Jesus said. But what kind of king can He be if His throne is a cross and a criminal hanging next to Him is the only one who seems to be defending Him? Well, in this case, He was the kind of king who could keep a promise.

Over the previous months, Jesus had promised again and again that these things were going to happen. He told His disciples, as well as anyone else who would listen, that He was on His way to Jerusalem to be mocked, spit upon, handed over, whipped, crucified and beaten. Go back even further than that, into the Old Testament, and you will find one promise after another telling all about the Son of God’s journey from heaven to hell, from the glory of heaven’s throne to His abandonment by His Father on the cross, all alone. Psalm 22 said that His bones would be sticking out so clearly that those standing next to Him could count every one of them. Isaiah promised that God would be stricken, smitten and afflicted, despised and rejected; that those who saw Him would see nothing close to beauty that would attract anyone to Him; that His blood would be spilled so we would be filled with the peace of God.

In other words, this was an assassination the whole world should have seen coming. It should’ve reminded them that we have a God who will keep His Word even if keeping it means incredible pain for Him. It should’ve reminded them that God can be trusted. But instead of paying attention to His Word, they focused on what was going wrong in front of them. Because this scene at Calvary was so dark, they didn’t see Jesus as God, as Savior, as the One they could trust.

Keep that in mind when you’re tempted to define your life or your happiness by how life looks around you. Just because you see or feel something painful doesn’t mean your life is going in the wrong direction. Just because you see hard times in your marriage doesn’t mean it’s beyond fixing. Just because your children are disobedient doesn’t mean there’s no hope for them. Just because no one says “thanks” doesn’t mean your hard work is worth nothing. Just because you can’t get around so well anymore doesn’t mean you’re not valuable in God’s kingdom. Just because you’re sick doesn’t mean you’re forgotten by God. The next time you’re tempted to look around at what’s happening in your life and get disappointed, remember Jesus’ assassination. Remember that what you see doesn’t always reveal what you’re really looking at. Just look at the criminal who defended Jesus. What do you see when you look at him?

We don’t know much about him. We don’t’ even know his name. We only know he was a thief and he deserved what he was getting—he said it himself. But we also know that, on the day Jesus was assassinated, this thief ended up in heaven. “I tell you the truth,” Jesus said, “today you will be with Me in paradise.” (Luke 23:43) And he didn’t even ask for that. He simply asked Jesus to remember him, to be somewhere in Jesus’ memory when this was all done.

Bobby Kennedy was the president’s brother and there were certain things he didn’t want anyone to remember. He was at home, just about to eat a tuna sandwich when the phone rang, and he was told his brother was dead. The first thing he did after he hung up was call the White House and order all the locks on his brother’s personal file cabinets be changed immediately so Lyndon Johnson couldn’t go through any of them. Jackie Kennedy ordered these files and others not be opened until after the deaths of their grandchildren. There are things they don’t want their grandchildren to know and they don’t want to be remembered by.

And how different does that make them from any other person? What do you not want people to know about you? What action did you do that you wish you could forget and you certainly don’t want displayed before family, friends, or the world? How many people know the full you and not the carefully created outward facing version of you? Do you tell the people who are closest to you everything? Really, everything?

When you pray, “Jesus, remember me” what do you mean? What do you want Jesus to remember? Are you asking Him to remember everything? Or do you pray there are some things He forgets?

After President Kennedy was shot, they radioed the hospital immediately and told them it was a “Code 3”. Code 3 meant there was an emergency more important than anything they were currently working on. That code was almost never used. In fact, the dispatcher at the hospital asked for more detail because she wasn’t sure what it meant. And, apparently, the more detail they gave wasn’t enough because, when they got the president to the hospital, no one was waiting for them. There was no stretcher, no emergency team, no surgeons prepped for surgery, not even a nurse outside to tell them where to take him. They waited outside the emergency entrance seemingly for minutes before anyone came. It probably wouldn’t have mattered in the end. But when the President of the United States was in his greatest need, on the day of his greatest pain, you don’t expect him to be treated like he wasn’t all that important, like nobody cared, like nobody remembered he was coming.

But even Jesus was treated that way. He knew how it felt to be forgotten, and not just by one hospital staff or by those who killed Him but by a whole world that’s been ignoring Him ever since the Garden of Eden, a world really good at just letting His loving heart break as they pleasure themselves on every imaginable form of selfishness. Even God knows how it feels to be forgotten.

And yet, a thief who knew he didn’t even have the right to dream of heaven doesn’t. He was a criminal, whose life was full of things he wished could been forgotten, who looked at God on this world’s blackest Friday and asked Him simply to remember him and was probably a bit surprised when the door to heaven sung wide opened. But he shouldn’t have been.

“I will forgive their wickedness and remember their sins no more” (Hebrews 8:12) God promised this blessing 600 years before this dark day. And at the cross, we see who God has always been: someone who keeps His Word even if keeping it means incredible personal pain, even if remembering our sins no more meant hiding them in the thick blanket of the holy blood that poured out of Him. “Save yourself.” (Luke 23) They cried three different times—because that’s everyone’s selfish standard for living in this world—caring more about yourself than anyone else. But Jesus didn’t. He cared more about you and giving you one thing in this dark world to believe in.

And when that’s what you see at the cross—something to believe in, Someone worth following and defending until the moment you stop breathing, then like that thief, no matter how many sins you have that you wish could be forgotten, no matter how often you have been forgotten about by someone or given up on, then you have found your reason for hope, your reason for true Joy. It’s Jesus! It’s Him. It’s your Savior who left heaven for you so you will be with Him forever and ever. Amen.