(Luke 23:33-43)

33When they came to the place called the Skull, there they crucified him, along with the criminals—one on his right, the other on his left. 34Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." And they divided up his clothes by casting lots. 35The people stood watching, and the rulers even sneered at him. They said, "He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Christ of God, the Chosen One." 36The soldiers also came up and mocked him. They offered him wine vinegar 37and said, "If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself." 38There was a written notice above him, which read: sc THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS. 39One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: "Aren't you the Christ? Save yourself and us!" 40But the other criminal rebuked him. "Don't you fear God," he said, "since you are under the same sentence? 41We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong." 42Then he said, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." 43Jesus answered him, "I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise."

The reason that we are looking at the crucifixion today is because it is the festival of Christ the King and this comes at the end of the Church’s liturgical year. Next week we begin again with Advent. This passage looks at the peculiar character of Christ’s ministry. Why did he let himself be crucified and when he was on the cross why didn’t he do what the crowd said and come down to prove that he was the Son of God? The genius of Jesus’ power is that he had it, but didn’t use it; the great among you shall as the one who serves?

One of the ways to read the Bible and to answer a conundrum such as this is to look for clues. It is often the little details that can open up what actually happened in a passage. The Gospels are written in a tight journalism style of writing, often with minimal detail about what the characters are feeling: the Gospels talk of Jesus going here, doing that or saying the other. He is described on one occasion as weeping (Jn 11:35). We assume that he was angry when he cleared the Temple but otherwise there is no description of what he was feeling when all of these events were taking place. The glimpse in this passage, of what Jesus is feeling is the fact that he says ‘Father forgive them’ when he could easily have said ‘I forgive you myself.

It is what does not appear in this story that may be the most significant. There is no explanation as to why Jesus stays on the cross and dies. Why didn’t God intervene and come down to save his Son and get him out of this predicament? It would have made an impression and maybe even convinced some people that he was the Son of God. There is no move from Jesus to lay down some divine guidelines as to what people can or can’t do.

This is the Real Last Temptation of Christ and it reoccurs throughout his ministry. Why should he not be definite, clear and unambiguous so that people know exactly what they are looking for? In the Garden of Gethsemane there was no need for Jesus to let himself be captured so easily. He could have called down 12 legions of angels (Mt 26:53) and so why didn’t he do this. One of the reasons given for why Judas betrayed Jesus was that Judas wanted to Jesus to fight against the Romans. Judas was convinced that if they came to arrest Jesus he had fight back and not let himself be taken. In Judas’ mind Jesus was so close to doing something dramatic and decisive but he always seemed to back off at the last moment. When he cleared the Temple he did not stay in Jerusalem to press home his advantage. Instead he withdrew to the hills to pray.

This temptation for Jesus was always to do something dramatic and try to convince people who he is. After Jesus’ baptism Jesus is thrown into a time of temptation. The devil tests his mettle wanting to prove that he is not up to the task that lies ahead of him. He tempts Jesus to throw himself off the top of a cliff – God will save you. He is not going to let you hit the rocks. It will be an amazing spectacle and people will be convinced. He tempts Jesus to turn the stones into bread. If he was hungry why shouldn’t do this?

The Bible recognises that some situations are ambiguous and are best off being left that way for a period. This is illustrated in the parable of the weeds the owner is happy for the weeds and the wheat to grow together (Mt 13:30). Even within a marriage, where one of the partners is having an affair, compromise and forgiveness might be more appropriate than judgement and condemnation. Hosea, the prophet, is asked by God to live with the fact that his wife has committed adultery (Hosea 3:1).

In our consumer driven society our collective energy is driven towards the need for security and stability. We all want to be clear, definite and unambiguous about how we live our lives. We all want our powerful kingly lives. We would all like to know that if we were in a crisis situation such as Jesus on the cross then we would be able to get out of it. A yearning for security is a thinly disguised form of idolatry. Jesus called into question these dominant models of power?

A different approach would be a dialogical rather than a propositional view of truth. Dialogue begins with a middle point (via media) between two opposite propositions – in effect you compromise. Why is it that the word compromise has negative connotations to it? There is no word in the English language that means ‘compromise’ but has entirely positive connotations. If someone is seen to have compromised they are seen to have given something away and it is understood as a negative transaction. However the essence of a compromise is when two people come together and each of them takes on board some of what the other person has said; this is a good and honourable thing.  However there is no word in the English language that adequately describes this process.

Nelson Mandela undercut this understanding of compromise when on being released from prison after 26 years he (famously) talked about the need to be prepared to compromise his most basic principles. I remember being amazed by his comment because I thought of principals as things that one upheld or defended but not things that one compromised.

The late Bishop Leslie Newbiggin’s reflection on the story of Jesus entering into Jerusalem (Mk 11:11) makes the same point. The Romans are an occupying power in a foreign country. One logical response to the situation is to oppose it (as did the Zealots). The second logical response is to live with the situation (as did the Essenes). Jesus did neither but rode into Jerusalem riding on a donkey and the crowds proclaimed him as the King of the Jews. This approach contains both the challenge within the Zealot perspective and the acceptance within the Essene perspective.

The plea from the cross is not to live your life in boxes; don’t tie dreams and creativity tied to the cross of institutionalism and organisation. What does this mean? Your house might be a little less clean and tidy than you might ideally like; you could spend longer in a conversation than you might have planned. You will be less thrown by interruptions than you might have expected (easy enough for me as a man without children to say something like this). The message from the cross is that true power comes when we realise that we don’t need to control events. The powerful powerlessness of the cross is that Jesus, the loser, becomes Jesus, the winner.

• Nelson Mandela's theory that the most complete and lasting revenge is forgiveness.
• Powerful, serious, rich
• It is always the oppressed person who has to make the first move