Homily, The Descent of Christ the King
Christ the King Sunday, Proper 29C, 2025
St. Peter’s Episcopal Church
Plant City, FL
The Rev. Derek M Larson, TSSF
Today’s Lectionary Readings:
Jeremiah 23:1-6
Canticle 16
Colossians 1:11-20
Luke 23:33-43
In the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
Early in the 1975 cult classic comedy Monty Python and the Holy Grail, King Arthur rides through the countryside in search of brave knights, but wherever he goes, his would-be subjects stare back at him with confusion and indifference. “Who are you?” a peasant asks from the mud. “I am Arthur, King of the Britons,” he replies. “I didn’t know we had a king,” the man answers flatly. “I thought we were an autonomous collective.” And moments earlier, as Arthur passes through a village of muddy, sick, and suffering people, two peasants watch him go. “Who was that?” one asks. “I don’t know… I think he was a king.” “How can you tell?” “He wasn’t covered in mud.”
The film’s humor relentlessly mocks authority—political, social, and even religious—but beneath the absurdity lies a deeply human question that echoes across the centuries: What good is a king on a throne when I am down in the mud? Or to put it another way, “What good is a president, congress, and senate at the capitol when I am on main street? Or “What good is a God in heaven when I am on earth?”
What good is a king on a throne when I am in the mud?
I imagine that question was on the hearts the two criminals crucified on Jesus’ left and right in today’s gospel. We don’t know much about them. The passage mentions no names, though tradition calls them Dismas and Gestas, and we don’t know what their crimes were. Luke calls them criminals; Matthew and Mark use a word that could mean thief or revolutionary.
Maybe they were thieves, shaped by poverty and desperation, taking for themselves what life had never offered them. Maybe they were revolutionaries, men who believed they were fighting for justice and freedom from tyranny. Either way, the king had not helped them in life, and now, hanging on the cross, the king would not help them in death. Indeed, it was in the name of the king and his empire that they hung there suffering. Whether their fate was deserved or tragic, no throne had ever bent toward their pain.
And so when this man crucified between them was given a crown of thorns and a sign over his head calling him “King of the Jews” it was easy to join in the mocking. This is not a king. He’s covered in mud! He bleeds like the rest of us.
But it was in that moment that suddenly the eyes of one of these men—Dismas—were opened. We don’t know what shifted in his heart or what changed in his mind, but suddenly he looked over at the gentle eyes of the one beside him and saw a king. This man really is a king. A king who has come down from his throne to join us in this moment of suffering so that we will not be alone. This man, covered in mud and blood, a king. And in this realization, the thief stumbled upon the most important theological affirmation of our faith: the descent of Christ—that Christ does not rule by rising above human pain, but by descending into it.
Today is Christ the King Sunday, the last Sunday of the liturgical year, a day when we recognize the kingship of Christ, but lest we get too caught up with talk of crowns and thrones and royal glory we have to understand that Christ’s kingship is unlike any other. Because while most kings ascend to their thrones high above their subjects, Christ descends from his throne to walk beside them. While rulers ascend to power, Christ descends into human pain.
St. Paul puts it this way in Philippians 2: “Though Christ’s very nature was God, he did not consider equality with God as something to be exploited; but instead made himself nothing by becoming a servant, in human likeness, and as a human, he humbled himself to death—even death on a cross.”
This is not a king who avoids suffering, but one who enters it. Not a ruler who reigns from a safe height, but one who steps into our woundedness—not to condemn, but to lead us through it into new life.
Jurgen Moltmann, a favorite theologian of mine, calls Jesus the Crucified God. He says, “When the crucified Jesus is called ‘the image of the invisible God’ [which is what we hear in our second reading today] the meaning is that this is God, and God is like this. God is not greater than he is in his humiliation. God is not more glorious than he is in this self-surrender…God is not more divine than he is in this humanity.” In other words, it is precisely here—on the cross, in weakness, in surrender—that we see God most clearly. The true power of God is not displayed in distance or domination, but in radical nearness. In love that refuses to pull away from suffering.
Each week, tucked right into the heart of our creed, we confess these strange and holy words: “He descended to the dead.” And while this speaks of Christ harrowing hell and breaking the chains of death, it also speaks to something more universal. It tells us that there is no depth of pain, no shadow of despair, no human brokenness so dark that Christ refuses to enter it. “He descended to the dead” means “he descends to us—we who feel the weight of death.”
And he descends to us even when the suffering is caused by our own hand, as he did for those who nailed him to the cross, “Father forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”
What makes the kingship of Christ different than any other, is not his ascent to the throne but his descent to the cross.
The story of Dismas and Gestas, then, is our own story. It is a story about our own suffering. You may not be hanging on a wooden cross. But you know pain. You know what it is to suffer. You know what it is to feel rejected and forgotten. You know what it is to feel the weight of regret and the ache of shame. You know what it is to experience loss. What it is to feel not good enough. What it is to be broken. And like those two thieves, a distant king on a shining throne means very little when you are drowning in your own pain.
But if, like Dismas, you can open the eyes of your heart—even just a little—you will see that right beside you is a king. A king not far away on a throne, but one covered in mud, who has descended to exactly the place where you are to be with you. To strengthen you. To lead you to new life. And like Dismas, all you must do is turn your head and speak his name: “Jesus, remember me.”
Today we celebrate Christ the King—not only the king who reigns in heaven, but the king who dwells in our suffering. The king who descends into our darkness. The king who refuses to abandon us in the mud.
Today we proclaim not just the reign of God, but the descent of Christ the King.
Amen.
Questions for Reflection
- In what areas of my life do I feel overwhelmed by pain or suffering, and how can I invite Christ into those moments?
- When I experience feelings of shame or regret, how can I remember that Christ descends into my brokenness to offer love and healing?
- Like Dismas, how can I open my heart to recognize Christ’s presence in my struggles and invite Him to lead me through them?
- How can I embody the kingship of Christ in my own life by serving those who are suffering or in need, as He has modeled for us?
Thoughts on Faith 