One of us must Be the Tzar

Don Friesen
November 25, 2001
Ottawa Mennonite Church

www.ottawamennonite.ca

Leo Tolstoy tells a story of the Russian Tzar, Peter the First--also known as Peter the Great--as the tzar came upon a peasant cutting wood in the forest.

"God's help, peasant!" said the tzar.

"It's God's help that I need," replied the peasant.

"You have a sharp wit, old man," said the tzar. "Now lead me out of the forest to the field, for I have lost my way."

"Find the road yourself," said the peasant. "Go straight, then turn right, then left, then right again."

"I don't understand such directions." said the tzar. "You guide me."

"I have no time, sir, to guide you. For us peasants, time is worth money."

"Well, if time is worth money, I shall pay you."

"Oh, if you are going to pay me, let's go!"

So they climbed into the gig and drove off.

"Peasant, tell me, have you ever gone far from here?"

"Oh, yes, I've been here and there," replied the peasant.

"And have you ever seen the tzar?" "I have not seen the tzar, but I should like to have a look at him."

"Well," replied the tzar, "when we come to the field, you shall see the tzar."

"And how will I know him?" asked the peasant.

"Everyone will be bareheaded except the tzar; he alone will keep on his hat."

They came to the field, and when the people saw the tzar they all took off their hats, whereupon the peasant stared intently, but he was unable to find the tzar.

"Where is the tzar?" he asked.

And Peter the First said to him, "You and I seem to be the only ones who are wearing hats--one of us must be the tzar." (Leo Tolstoy, "Peter the First and the Peasant," Fables and Fairy Tales, 1872)

Tolstoy's gentle poke at a cheeky peasant enjoying repartee with a great Russian emperor belies a system in which serfs knew well their place, and emperors were above such rabble. Tolstoy's fables, artfully simple, sketch a world at odds with the real world, in which serfs were killed for the slightest infractions. Tolstoy himself got involved in at least one such situation in which twenty peasants were hanged for attacking a landowner! Tolstoy, a Christian of strong principles, excoriated the Tzar's government for its abuses, freed his own serfs, and, in fact, wrote stories like the one I told you to educate the children of serfs. On occasion he would ask a peasant to retell one of the stories in his own words, and, delighted by the changes, would copy them down and revise the story accordingly. "It is the only way," he said, "to write stories for the people."

What a contrast! An aristocrat writing for peasants! The same man who wrote the monumental "War and Peace," massive in all directions, with its five hundred characters, its sweeping vision of history, its intimate portrayals of passionate people embodying all stages and conditions of the human experience--from Napoleon himself down to a simple Russian peasant--the same man wrote stories for children to help them learn to read!

It's Hard to Recognize Royalty that Suffers

A similar contrast can be seen in today's Scripture readings. The readings from the Gospels and the Epistles both portray the kingship of Jesus, but how very different they are. Leo Tolstoy's peasant found it hard to find royalty among his fellow serfs, just as his readers would have had trouble recognizing a tzar with a common touch. So we too may have trouble recognizing the royalty of Jesus in our two New Testament passages.

It's hard to recognize the royalty of Jesus in the Luke reading, because Luke's royal Jesus is a suffering Jesus, a crucified Jesus. Luke tells us, "When they came to the place that is called The Skull, they crucified Jesus there with...criminals, one on his right and one on his left." (Luke 23:33) It's interesting that the Gospel writers spare us the details of his crucifixion. Perhaps it was impolite to talk about the particulars. In the century before Jesus came on the scene Cicero (106-43 BC), the great Roman statesman and author, wrote, "How grievous a thing it is to be disgraced by a public court; how grievous to suffer a fine, how grievous to suffer banishment, and yet in the midst of any such disaster we retain some degree of liberty. Even if we are threatened with death, we may die free men. But the executioner, the veiling of the head and the very word 'cross' should be far removed not only from the person of a Roman citizen but his thoughts, his eyes and his ears. For it is not only the actual occurrence of these things but the very mention of them, that is unworthy of a Roman citizen...." (Rabirius Perd.16)

Jesus, however, suffered this most ignoble punishment, a most degrading punishment generally reserved for slaves and criminals! And Luke underscores the humiliation of this punishment by describing how he was mocked, and repeating the mockery three times (Luke 23:35-39): the rulers of the people mock the idea of a saviour who cannot save himself; the soldiers mock him as a powerless king on the point of death; and one of the criminals crucified with Jesus mocks his inability to save either himself or those dying with him.

The mockery of Jesus was not empty invective. When Jeremiah promises a divinely installed shepherd and king from the Davidic line, he's not talking about some other world. He promises that the Jewish exile will end, and the people will dwell securely in their land under the leadership of a king whose symbolic name will be "the Lord is our righteousness" (Jeremiah 23:6). The mockery expresses the incredulity of many people, for they expected that their king would redeem them, as God had once redeemed them from slavery in Egypt. Instead, Jesus provides the occasion for the Romans, once again, to ride roughshod over a weak, conquered people. Jesus' execution only confirmed the sovereignty of Rome!

Luke portrays a king, but it's a vulnerable king, a feeble king, a king whose subjects recognize neither his kingship nor their subjection. Yet Luke mentions Jesus' kingship/chosenness/messiahship six times in this text (Luke 23:35, 37, 38, 39, 42), and while the inscription, "King of the Jews," is mentioned twice (Luke 23:37, 38) and is meant as mockery by those saying it, Luke intends it as truth!

It's also Hard to Recognize a Cosmic Christ

In contrast, the royal strain in our Colossians text sounds a little more familiar. The mood of this text is quite different. Colossians, chapter 1, is an exceptional hymn of praise to Jesus, in which Paul refers to Jesus as "the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation!" (Colossians 1:16) In Jesus, says Paul, "all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers all things have been created through him and for him." (1:16)

In a wonderful phrase, Paul says: In Jesus "all things hold together." (1:17) In Jesus, in other words, all things find coherence. "He is the head of the body, the church," writes Paul, "he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead...." He has "first place in everything." (1:18) And then, again, in one of those beautiful and sweeping phrases that take your breath away, "in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell...." (1:19)

Not content to let his portrayal of Jesus be an aesthetic experience alone, Paul adds, "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." (1:20) As the "first-born of all creation" Paul portrays Christ as the perfect example of what human beings were created to be.

There are in this passage shades of Genesis 1 and John's Gospel, chapter 1--both pithy and foundational statements--but the Colossian hymn far surpasses these passages in the sheer breathtaking sweep of Paul's tribute to the cosmic lordship of Christ. Paul claims for Christ supreme power over the universe and over any supernatural forces which affect human destiny.

Paul adapted the fragment of an Early Church hymn to lay out the most striking New Testament statement we have regarding the significance of Jesus. In this remarkable passage, in a sequence of short clauses--all grammatically and rhythmically bound together in a single movement of thanksgiving and praise--Paul declares the paramountcy of Christ in the universe. In the Risen Christ we have nothing less than the creative purpose that shaped the universe and the meaning of its existence, one who is supreme over all orders of being; indeed, says Paul, he is the unifying principle that underlies the entire cosmos.

Paul's portrayal of Jesus is such a lofty and grand description that it's almost too much! This is something much, much higher than earthly kingship, something that makes all earthly kings appear to be but minor tin despots. It's such a lofty and grand description of Jesus that it's hard to harmonize with Luke's description. And what about the Jesus who welcomed children to his side? The Jesus who touched lepers? Indeed, the Jesus who, in the New Testament's own words, "emptied himself, taking the form of a slave...?" (Philippians 2:7) I know that the New Testament hails Jesus as the King of kings, but it's a little difficult putting these two pictures together, the picture of Jesus as the image of God in whom the cosmos was created, with the picture of Jesus suffering the most humiliating punishment and pain earth could offer! It's hard to imagine the One in whom "all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell...." (1:19) entering into his rule by dying like a criminal!

It's Hard to Recognize Royalty in One Who Stoops and Reconciles

It's as hard to recognize the royalty in a suffering Jesus as it is to recognize Jesus' humanity in Colossians' cosmic Christ, and if Tolstoy's readers found it difficult to recognize a tzar with a common touch, we may share that difficulty as well. Modern sensibilities often have difficulty with the kingship idea, for it lacks the democratic feel of our own systems of rule. We also have in our memory monarchs, kings, and tzars who were ruthless tyrants! We associate monarchy with power, often absolute and abusive power, as expressed, for example, in the repulsive cruelties of King Henry VIII. So why would we want to hail Jesus as king?

Consider, however, that the tyrants with whom the early Christians contended were much worse. They had the most famous tyrant of all! Nero! Of course, Nero's mother, Agrippina, was a piece of work herself. Agrippina married Emperor Claudius and persuaded him to adopt Nero and to name the boy as his successor, and as the emperor grew older, Agrippina herself began a reign of terror, killing those she thought might oppose Nero's succession. Her husband caught on to her scheme, but on the day he planned to disinherit Nero, the young man and his mother fed Claudius poisonous mushrooms. After twelve hours of terrible suffering, Claudius died and the seventeen year old Nero became emperor.

Agrippina may have thought she had a firm grip on power, but later, when she opposed Nero's divorce, he attempted to have her drowned in a shipwreck. She swam to safety, but he then sent assassins to her home and killed her there, while his spin doctors went to work convincing the Roman Senate that Nero's mother had been plotting to kill him! Such was the character of Nero, and such, unfortunately, has been the character and pathology of much royalty throughout history.

One expects emperors and kings and tzars to wield power, but that's where Jesus' royalty takes a strange turn. When, at the time of Jesus' arrest, Peter got a little agitated and took a sword to the ear of one of the high priests's servants, Jesus said to him, "Put your sword back..., for all who take the sword will perish by the sword. Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels?" (Matthew 26:52-53)

"He could have called ten thousand angels," says the old gospel chorus, and had Jesus been better schooled in the pathology of royalty he would have called ten thousand angels! And some of us may think, he should have called ten thousand angels! Enough already with the gentle-Jesus-meek-and-mild bit! Let's smoke the rascals out! Rambo Jesus!

We know, however, that it was Jesus' conscious choice to avoid violence, so with tyrants like Nero in the background, why would the early Christians want to hail Jesus as a king?!? I think there are at least two reasons. For one thing, the idea of kingship is as old as the Old and New Testaments. One of Jesus' titles is the three-fold titles of Prophet, Priest and King. The idea of Christ's kingship dates as far back as his birth--when rulers of other countries were looking for the "...child...born king of the Jews" (Matthew 2:2)--and even further back, to the prophets, who foretold of a king who would rule "wisely," a king who, in the words of our reading from Jeremiah (23:5), "shall execute justice and righteousness in the land" (23:5), during whose reign people "will live in safety." (23:6) So the biblical concept of kingship was an enduring and noble idea, not to be easily displaced, even by the behaviour of sociopaths like Nero.

I think the early Christians also held onto the idea of kingship because they had a keen sense of irony. Just as Luke deftly manipulates his kingship language, putting it in the voice of mockers--and therefore posing no threat to the rulers-that-be in the minds of his Roman readers--Luke could not have been unaware of the potentially subversive nature of the gospel. Hailing Jesus as king is a counter image, and next to the long line of despots whose cruelty and corruption keep the poor poor, and the high and mighty higher and mightier, it is a subversive declaration. It's like one of those clever Escher drawings, which, depending on the way you look at it, produces either white birds or black birds.

King Jesus is an upside-down king, inviting us to live upside-down lives in an upside-down kingdom. This is a king who at his most vulnerable reaches out to a criminal on the cross alongside his and extends forgiveness. It is yet another sign of Jesus' kingship, for only a king can forgive a capital offense.

The portrait of Jesus in our Colossians text, lofty as it is, does not remain ensconced in courtly splendour. This cosmic Christ came to reconcile us, to God, and to one another. This is where Jesus' royalty takes another strange turn, for this is a king who stoops. It's not something we're accustomed to see in royalty, but it's powerful when it happens. Not long before the onset of the cancer that finally killed him, King Hussein of Jordan (1935-99) undertook a small mission. He paid a personal visit to the families of some Israelis who had been killed in an Arab terrorist bombing. There was no talk of money or reparations; instead, the king Saturday quietly with the mourners, and by his calm demeanor, unhurried manner and undivided attention conveyed a sense of solidarity with them across the Arab-Israeli divide. The reaction of the relatives was out of proportion to the simplicity of the gesture. By all accounts, they were deeply moved by Hussein's expressions of personal involvement in their loss. Their grief had been acknowledged, and even more memorabe, it had been acknowledged and shared by a king! (Fleming Rutledge, "Royalty Stoops (Matthew 25:31-46)," Christian Century, November 10, l999)

We don't generally recognize royalty in one who stoops, but that is the royal posture portrayed in Philippians as well, where Paul writes, "(Jesus) humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death--even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue...confess that Jesus Christ is Lord...." (Philippians 2:8-11)

If history did not tell the story, who would believe that, nearly 2,000 years after an obscure Galilean peasant gained some local notoriety as a wandering preacher and healer, and was executed by the Romans, there would be not a single nation in the world where this obscure peasant was not worshipped and acclaimed as Lord and King, a king whose kingdom shall never end!

It's also Hard to Spot the Incognito Christ

Tolstoy's peasant found it difficult to spot the tzar among the crowd of bareheaded subjects, and if we too have difficulty recognizing royal elements in a cosmic Christ suffering a humiliating death, we may also have difficulty recognizing Jesus because it is in his very nature to travel among us in a humble manner.

Some years ago, an American soldier on a bus in Sweden was telling the man sitting next to him about the glories of his country's political tradition. "It's the most democratic country in the world. Ordinary citizens are able to go to the White House to see the president and to discuss things with him." In reply the man said, "That's nothing. In Sweden, the King and the people travel on the same bus." When the man got off the bus, the American was told by other passengers that he had been sitting next to King Gustav Adolf VI!

One of the television shows I enjoyed watching as a youngster, when our family first got a television set, was the show, "Robin Hood," and I especially enjoyed the episodes in which the King of England would appear among his subjects, incognito, and reward them according to their reception of him.

Similarly, King Jesus may not approach us with pomp and circumstance. He too is fond of humble appearances. Remember, for example, the incognito Christ travelling to Emmaus, invited by his two fellow travellers to spend the night with them, and only as he broke bread with them did they realize the identity of their guest (Luke 24:13-35). Remember the saints described in Matthew's Gospel who are surprised to discover that the person with whom they shared a cup of water, or clothed, or fed, or visited in prison, was none other than our Lord himself! (Matthew 25:31-46)

Our Lord often walks among us as a mysterious and enigmatic presence. As one of our hymns states,

"Lord, you sometimes speak in whispers,
still and small and scarcely heard....

Lord, you sometimes speak in silence...."
(Hymnal: A Worship Book, #594)