Of course, we Americans don't have kings, do we? So the image of Christ the King isn't one that has much oomph to it to begin with. No, we prefer other images. As a case in point, the other day, I came across a quote from a book entitled Hunting the Divine Fox (a wonderful image for this time of year, isn't it?). Hunting the Divine Fox is by an Episcopal priest, Robert Farrar Capon, who uses pop culture to evoke the image of a truly American Jesus-which hardly resembles Jesus crucified and dying, let alone Christ the King. He writes:

[A]lmost nobody resists the temptation to jazz up the humanity of Christ. The true paradigm of the ordinary American view of Jesus is Superman: "Faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. It's Superman! Strange visitor from another planet, who came to earth with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men, and who, disguised as Clark Kent, mild-mannered reporter for a great metropolitan newspaper, fights a never-ending battle for truth, justice and the American Way." If that isn't popular christology, I'll eat my hat. Jesus-gentle, meek and mild, but with secret, souped-up, more-than-human insides-bumbles around for thirty-three years, nearly gets himself done in for good by the Kryptonite Kross, but at the last minute, struggles into the phone booth of the Empty Tomb, changes into his Easter suit and, with a single bound, leaps back up to the planet Heaven. It's got it all--including, just so you shouldn't miss the lesson, kiddies: He never once touches Lois Lane.

You think that's funny? Don't laugh. The human race is, was and probably always will be deeply unwilling to accept a human messiah. We don't want to be saved in our humanity; we want to be fished out of it. We crucified Jesus, not because he was God, but because he blasphemed: He claimed to be God and then failed to come up to our standards for assessing the claim. It's not that we weren't looking for the Messiah; it's just that he wasn't what we were looking for. Our kind of Messiah would come down from a cross. He would carry a folding phone booth in his back pocket. He wouldn't do a stupid thing like rising from the dead. He would do a smart thing like never dying."

And yet, paradoxically, it is in his dying that we see Jesus at his most kingly. Jesus is at his most kingly in the way he responds to the criminal who asks, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." This is what Paul was referring to when he wrote that the Father "has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins." For when Jesus says to the criminal, "Truly, I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise," he's not just uttering a pious consolation. He is granting the pardon and reprieve that only a sovereign king can give.

So much piety surrounds the cross in our hymns and prayers that we forget that it's impossible to be pious from a cross. The words Jesus speaks have meaning precisely because of the context in which they are spoken. Jesus isn't pretending to be forgiving and reconciling-he's really living out God's reconciling love to everybody, even in the very act of dying. In the last moments of life, he is giving life, and not only to the repentant criminal, but to those who are actively rejecting him, for just a few verses earlier he prays, "Father forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." If that's not kingly, I don't know what is.

I don't know about you, but "forgive them" is not the first thing that would leap to mind if I were being nailed to a cross. Another "f" word, perhaps, but certainly not "forgive them." And yet, Jesus prays to his Father on behalf of those who are crucifying him, saying, "forgive them," and says to the criminal who is crucified with him, "today you will be with me in Paradise." What extraordinary power and strength Jesus shows us in these moments: to love all when all around you is hatred, to forgive all even when all others mock you.

Paul writes, "through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross." It is the prerogative of kings to make war. It is also the prerogative of kings to make peace. All too often, only the former prerogative is exercised with any gusto. And yet Christ the King offers peace to crucified criminal and crucifying centurion alike.

Christ the King offers peace to us as well. In the midst of the wars of this world, Christ the King is still the Prince of Peace. What would it mean, then, for Jesus to be King of your life?

Paul gives some indication when he prays for those to whom he is writing: "May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power, and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light."

We are surrounded in this world by images of power, yet none of them measures up to the power of the cross. The cross is powerful because the one who was crucified thereon showed the power of God's reconciling love, a love that reaches across all boundaries of wealth and poverty, righteousness and sinfulness, strength and weakness-across all boundaries of time and space, to us, as well.

In response, we are called to take Christ's reconciling love to a broken and hurting world, to show that true strength is demonstrated not in the destructive power of violence, but in the redemptive power of forgiveness. As we prepare this Advent for the coming of Christ at Christmas, let us look to our Crucified King, remembering that in his greatest moment of weakness he was indeed at his most kingly. Perhaps then, when we are at our own moments of greatest weakness, we will be able to say with that criminal, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom," sure in the knowledge that our King will reply, "Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise."