The King of Fools? / Luke 23:32–38 / Pr. Ted A. Giese / Good Friday March 29th 2024 / Season Of Lent / Mount Olive Lutheran Church

Mount Olive Lutheran Church / Pr. Ted A. Giese / Good Friday March 29th 2024: Season of Lent / Luke 23:32–38 “The King of Fools?”

Two others, who were criminals, were led away to be put to death with [Jesus]. And when they came to the place that is called The Skull, there they crucified Him, and the criminals, one on His right and one on His left. And Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” And they cast lots to divide His garments. And the people stood by, watching, but the rulers scoffed at Him, saying, “He saved others; let Him save Himself, if He is the Christ of God, His Chosen One!” The soldiers also mocked Him, coming up and offering Him sour wine and saying, “If you are the King of the Jews, save Yourself!” There was also an inscription over Him, “This is the King of the Jews.”

Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in Your sight O Lord. Amen.

Grace peace and mercy to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Good Christian Friends. “No one laughs at God in a hospital. No one laughs at God in a war. No one’s laughing at God when they’re starving or freezing or so very poor. No one laughs at God when the doctor calls after some routine tests. No one’s laughing at God when it’s gotten real late and their kid’s not back from that party yet.”[1] No one laughs at a king to his face … unless they don’t see him as a king, and no one laughs at God to His face … unless they don’t believe that He’s God.

Today we’ve heard the Passion account from the Gospel of Saint John. Through our Wednesday Evening Lenten Services we heard the account from the Gospel of Saint Mark; many of the sermons were focused on the account of Jesus’ cross and passion from the Gospel of Saint Matthew. Saint John didn’t include much of the laughing at the King, laughing at God, stuff that we hear when we read the other three Gospels, but Saint John does include that Jesus was rejected by the leaders of the Jewish religious and political authorities. This shouldn’t be too surprising. Even today you’d be hard pressed to find leaders within the Jewish religious and political authorities who acknowledged Jesus as one of their kings, or as the King of kings and Lord of lords,[2] let alone God.

What about the Roman’s did they think that Jesus was the King of the Jews, the King of kings; did they believe Him to be God? Or did they laugh at Him too? The reason that men like the Roman Governor of Judea, Pontius Pilate, had to consider these claims, the reason his soldiers had to deal with the question was because there was a conflict over whether or not it was true. Was it deadly serious or was it some kind of foolish joke that had gotten out of hand? Was Jesus someone to bend the knee to in reverence or in jest; with awe upon their faces or with a sneer upon their lips?   

Near the beginning of the Gospel of John it was Saint Nathanael while he was being called by Jesus who first refers to Jesus as King, saying “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!”[3] And after three years of preaching and teaching, after three years of miracles, after three years of driving out demons and raising the dead; hot on the heels of raising Lazarus from the dead[4] as Jesus entered Jerusalem for the Passover Feast that year Saint John tells us that the people of Jerusalem and those there on pilgrimage from across the Roman Empire “took branches of palm trees and went out to meet [Jesus], crying out, “Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!”[5] They were not laughing at this King, they were not laughing at Jesus. They were not laughing at God. At that point few may have understood that Jesus was God, even still there was no contemptuous laughter, no mean spirited mockery coming from that crowd. For those who counted Jesus a fool, maybe even the king of fools the reverence of that crowd brought nothing but fear. The last thing on earth the leaders of the Jewish religious and political authorities wanted was for this Jesus to become their King. For them that would have been the cruelest joke of all and as far as they were concerned if anyone was to be laughing it would be them, for in plotting Jesus’ death they’d hoped to have the last laugh. They’d hoped that years later they would all be sitting around at some future Passover meal and one would say to the other, ‘remember that one Passover when all the poor feebleminded schmucks thought that show-off backwater Rabi from Nazareth was King of the Jews and then we had the Romans kill him?,’ ‘Ha, ha, ha! Wasn’t that funny?’ Then everyone at the table would break out into riotous laughter.

Pontius Pilate for his part wasn’t finding it funny, neither did his wife. After Jesus was arrested and He was being bounced back and forth between the various authorities like a hot potato Pilate’s wife sent word or warning to her husband saying, “Have nothing to do with that righteous man, for I have suffered much because of Him today in a dream.”[6] Pilate himself—who feared that he stood on edge of a riot—had likewise been troubled by worries concerning Jesus, his worries were that Jesus may in fact be the legitimate King of the Jews. When pressed by Pilate on this question Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But My kingdom is not from the world.” Then Pilate said to Him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to My voice.” Pilate said to Him, “What is truth?”[7] Was Pilate ready to laugh or cry? The accusation was that Jesus was no true king and later when Pilate had had his soldiers rough up and mock Jesus he had Jesus brought out before them and Pilate said to the Jews, “Behold your King!” They cried out, “Away with Him, away with Him, crucify Him!” that’s when Pilate said to them, “Shall I crucify your King?” The chief priests answered, “We have no king but Caesar.”[8] Nothing could be clearer. So perhaps Pilate figured he would have the last laugh when he ordered the inscription to be placed over Jesus’ head, “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.”[9] The leaders within the Jewish religious and political authorities were not laughing at those words. The Jewish chief priests and the rest of the Sadducees among those religious authorities didn’t believe in the resurrection of the dead, so if they had to bear the brunt of some Roman Governor’s feeble attempt at humour made at their expense they would bear it trusting that once Jesus was dead, in their estimation, their troubles concerning Him would soon die with Him.

The mockery and teasing of Jesus, the jests and jabs increase as the ones who have Him in their grip believe that they’d won. That He is powerless to defend Himself. Saint Matthew tells how Jesus was treated when the Roman soldiers took Jesus into the governor’s headquarters, how they gathered the whole battalion before Jesus. How they stripped Him naked and put a scarlet robe on Him—the sort one in authority would wear—how they twisting together not a crown of gold but a crown of thorns and put it on His head and put not a kingly jeweled sceptre of gold but a flimsy reed in Jesus’ right hand. Saint Matthew tells us how they kneeled before Jesus and mocked Him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” How they spat on Him and took the reed and struck Him on the head. And when they had mocked Him, they stripped Him of the robe and put His own clothes on Him and led Him away to crucify Him.[10]      

And at the cross once Jesus was crucified and lifted up Saint Luke tells us that the people stood by, watching, but the rulers scoffed at Jesus, saying, “He saved others; let Him save Himself, if He is the Christ of God, His Chosen One!” [Again we are told that] the soldiers also mocked Jesus, coming up and offering Him sour wine and saying, “If you are the King of the Jews, save Yourself!”[11] They were not laughing with Jesus, they were laughing at Him. This sort of cruelty of laughing at a man when He is beaten and blooded and dying is gut-wrenching. In that face of all of this, Jesus who had every right to be furious with them, for He was in fact their King, He was in fact the King of kings and Lord of lords, He was in fact God, and He was innocent of everything that He was accused with, did not lash out. This King crowned in a kind of glory that the World doesn’t understand extends to them the most gracious peace that the World cannot understand[12] when He says, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”[13]

Do you know people who laugh at Jesus today? Do you know people who laugh at Christians? There have certainly been high times for the church, times where we feel like Jesus riding into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, where the world seems to cheer us on and we are on top of the World. But there will also be times where we are like Jesus on Good Friday, stripped of everything, mocked and laughed at and sentenced to death. There are times when we as individual Christians may experience this to a greater or lesser degree. Have you been mocked for your faith in Jesus? Have you been mocked or made fun of, or laughed at for being Christian? Take heart before His crucifixion Jesus said these words to His disciples and He says them also to you this day, “If the World hates you, know that it has hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the World, the World would love you as its own; but because you are not of the World, but I chose you out of the World, therefore the World hates you. Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. If they kept My word, they will also keep yours. But all these things they will do to you on account of My name, because they do not know Him who sent Me. If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have been guilty of sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. Whoever hates Me hates My Father also. If I had not done among them the works that no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin, but now they have seen and hated both Me and My Father. But the word that is written in their Law must be fulfilled: ‘They hated Me without a cause.’”[14]

No one is to laugh at a King when they trust that He is the King, and no one is to laugh at God when they believe that He is God. “No one laughs at God in a hospital. No one laughs at God in a war. No one’s laughing at God when they’re starving or freezing or so very poor. No one laughs at God when the doctor calls after some routine tests. No one’s laughing at God when it's gotten real late and their kid’s not back from that party yet.” When you come to Jesus your King of kings, when you come to Jesus your God in times of trouble, hardship, even persecution, in times of anxiety, it won’t be with jokes that make light of Him or abuse Him, it will be with prayers of supplication, with hearts weighed down by grief in the face of great need. He is who Scripture says He is when the Psalmist writes, “The LORD is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. The LORD is good to all, and His mercy is over all that He has made.”[15] To those without faith you will look like one who is deceived, a fool praying to the King of fools, but in truth it is they who are deceived just as the leaders within the Jewish religious and political authorities were deceived on that first Good Friday, just as all those who followed their lead that day were likewise deceived.

Now they say that there is always some kernel of truth in every Joke. So when they when they said mockingly to Jesus, “If you are the King of the Jews, save Yourself!” It is true that Jesus could have used His Divine Almighty power to save Himself and come down off of the cross, but had He done that He would have saved only one man, Himself. But because He would not bend to their demands, because He would not let them get His goat with their teasing and mockery and jokes Jesus didn’t only save one man, He became the salvation of the whole world, extended even to those who plotted His death and laughed at His face in death. He could have saved Himself, instead He chose you save you.

Is it possible for one who laughed in Jesus’ face to change their tune? Saint Matthew tells us in his Gospel that it is possible, Matthew writes, “When the centurion and those who were with him, keeping watch over Jesus [and His crucifixion], saw the earthquake and what took place, they were filled with awe and said, “Truly this was the Son of God!”[16] So for you, in your life, if you know people who at present are laughing at Jesus, laughing at God, laughing at you is there hope for them? Most certainly there is. Be the light of Christ to them in the face of whatever jokes and laughter and jeering might come. Amen.    

Let us pray: Lord have mercy on us, Christ have mercy on us, Lord have mercy on us, “take our minds and think through them, take our lips and speak through them, take our hearts and set them on fire; for the sake of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, Amen.

[1] Regina Spektor “Laughing With” Lyrics 2009
[2] Revelation 1:5; Matthew 28:18; Acts 10:36; Revelation 19:16
[3] John 1:49
[4] John 11
[5] John 12:13
[6] Matthew 27:19
[7] John 18:36–38
[8] John 19:14–15
[9] John 19:19
[10] Matthew 27:27–31
[11] Luke 23:32–38
[12] John 14:27
[13] Luke 23:34
[14] John 15:18–25
[15] Psalm 145:8–9  
[16] Matthew 27:54

Photo Credit: Main Photo detail of "What Our Lord Saw from the Cross" (Ce que voyait Notre-Seigneur sur la Croix) by painter James Tissot (1836–1902) from brooklynmuseum.