Image: Crucifixion by Agnolo Gaddi, between 1390 and 1396.
It was just another Friday in the Roman Empire. Just another day to deal with a few troublemakers. Just another day to make an example out of a few Jewish revolutionaries and bandits, so Judea would tremble before Rome’s wrath.
As far as Rome and the Temple institution were concerned, Jesus had been convicted and sentenced justly. It was legal. His crimes struck at the heart of established authority. First, he had entered Jerusalem on Sunday as a king as his disciples cheered. Granted, he had come on a donkey, a symbol of peace, but Rome would not tolerate any perceived threat to its authority. Then, he went into the Temple and dismantled its marketplace, challenging the Temple institution. Whether civic or religious authority, Jesus’s actions established him as a threat to the status quo.
And so, the charge Jesus is crucified under is a political one: “This is the King of the Jews”. Crucifixion was humiliating enough; the sign increased it. It reminded the whole Judean nation of their hopeless situation. You want a king? Here’s your king—crucified by the power of Rome. Here’s your king—helpless, failing, and dying on a cross. As far as Rome and the Temple establishment was concerned, Jesus was just the latest in a long line of Jewish revolutionaries, apocalyptic lunatics, and pretenders who had to be dealt with.
And that’s why the word “king” doesn’t really fit Jesus. He fits almost none of the traditional criteria! Kings usually have a visible, tangible kingdom, with land borders and an army to protect it. Jesus didn’t. Kings usually have great wealth. Jesus didn’t. Kings usually descended from another king. While Jesus is descended from David, that wasn’t obvious at the time, as he was born of an unwed Galilean Jewish mother and came from a no-account village. And last of all, kings administered a system of law. They gave rewards and dealt out punishments. While Jesus is steeped in the Torah, the law God gave to Moses on Sinai, he didn’t reward or punish anybody (except maybe for the Temple’s moneychangers, but that was a demonstration against the whole exploitative system). Jesus wasn’t going to restore David’s monarchy to what it had been. He wasn’t going to sit on a visible throne with a visible dominion. And he definitely wasn’t going to establish a utopian kingdom administered by a perfected law code.
But truth be told, wouldn’t we like Jesus to come back and do exactly those things? Shouldn’t Jesus come back and set everything right? If you’ll pardon me for borrowing from Matthew’s Gospel, shouldn’t he return and separate the sheep from the goats? Shouldn’t he reward or punish each person according to what they deserve? Like say, the leaders mocking Jesus at the foot of the cross. Shouldn’t they get swept in with the goats? Or the criminal at his side who joined in the mockery? Or maybe we think of people closer to home. Like certain politicians, leaders, ex-spouses, bosses, or co-workers. If we’re honest, we’ll have some people in mind who really deserve to “get theirs”.
But that’s to misunderstand what’s happening here. No utopian kingdom is being established. No perfected law is given, not even a more enlightened one that the second criminal gives voice to: “This man has done nothing wrong.” Rather, God’s judgment is passed on the cross. Such judgment is on our revenge-minded society, which longs to see people suffer. It is passed on our desire to go our own way, to make idols out of the things we value and to misuse God’s name to legitimize them. It is passed on the best kind of society with the best kind of law. It is even passed on Jesus, whom the apostle Paul says was made to be sin who knew no sin. No one is innocent. No one passes the test. Not even the tender-hearted women who follow Jesus on the way to his death, mourning and crying! No one and nothing in this world is worthy of God. That is why the cross is the end of the world. It’s the end of all human ambition and pride. It’s the end of our attempts to justify ourselves, to acquit ourselves in God’s sight. It’s the end of any kind of realm we would recognize.
And that’s where the big surprise is also revealed. In the end of our world comes the birth of the new, with Jesus the Christ as its true Sovereign. But this new world isn’t governed by an enlightened set of laws. It isn’t guarded by an army or protected by police. It isn’t a utopian fever-dream that we can achieve only if we try a little harder! It isn’t accomplished through the right social programs, institutions, or leaders. And it certainly isn’t dependent on the so-called “better angels” of human nature. The only governing principle is the love and mercy of God, which forgives our sins and reconciles us to God, our neighbors, and the whole creation. Only God in Christ can bring this about. Only God in Christ can say to the criminal beside him, “Truly, today you will be with me in Paradise.”
Only God in Christ can give the same to us through our baptism. There’s a reason we baptize babies. In a baby, you see true helplessness. She can’t feed, bathe, or change herself. She can only cry out and hope a caregiver notices. Such a helpless baby is brought to baptism and adopted as God’s child before she can speak, before she can reason, before she can be said to have faith in any real sense. The same is true of our ultimate state before God. Before Him, we can do nothing for ourselves. Even our good actions, as right and salutary as they may be, can’t earn us anything. They don’t get us more stars in our crown! All of us are like that little baby. All of us are also like that criminal crucified at Jesus’s side. All we can do is cry out to God, whose reply is always mercy: “Today you will be with me in Paradise.”
And even though we live in this fallen world, we know that the world’s end has already come. That changes the stakes. Because we don’t have to be so anxious about the state of the world! We don’t have play the judge. That has already been done. Our sin has been crucified with Jesus Christ. And we have been given a place with him forever. This world’s days are numbered. But our time in God’s realm is not. Our true Sovereign, Jesus Christ, has seen to it. Amen.
© 2025, David M. Fleener. Permission granted to copy and adapt original material herein for non-commercial purposes with appropriate credit given.