John 18:33-37

Then Pilate entered the headquarters, summoned Jesus and said to him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” Jesus answered him, “Do you ask me this on your own, or have others told you about me?” Pilate said to him, “I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done?” Jesus said to him, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.” Pilate said, “So, you are a king, then?” Jesus said to him, “You say that I am a king. For this I was born and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”

Whenever I hear this account of Jesus standing before Pontius Pilate, this painting comes to mind. It’s called, in English, “Behold the Man,” by Antonio Ciseri, who painted it in 1871, according to Wikipedia. And I don’t recall this painting because I’m any kind of connoisseur of religious fine art – or a connoisseur of fine art, generally, to be honest. The painting was just used as the cover of a book I have about the life of Pontius Pilate.

And when I wondered about Jesus, standing with Pilate, before the crowds, in this morning’s Christ the King Gospel story, something about it all – and this painting, too – had me thinking about that old Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale, The Emperor’s New Clothes.

And just to be clear about where your Pastor’s head is, when I think about that classic story, this is the book cover that comes to mind, this one from some “early reader” Disney-flavored version of the story from my childhood.

And maybe it’s because I had baptisms and babies on the brain, BUT just when I wondered if I was off on a weird, strange, Pastor Mark kind of rabbit-hole, I came across THIS picture.

It was painted by some guy named Rob Embleton, sometime in the 1980’s, for a different picture book about the Emperor’s new clothes. Anyway, if nothing else, the similarities between the two paintings made me think maybe I was onto something – whether Rob Embleton or Antonio Ciseri would have connected these theological dots in a million years.

But back to what matters, here. Some here may not remember the story of The Emperor’s New Clothes, which goes something like this:

There was an Emperor, obsessed with his appreciation for clothes – fine linens, fancy robes and whatnot, so he summons and commissions some of the master weavers under his rule to make for him a suit of the most expensive linen and the finest cloth.

These weavers, not wild about their self-centered Emperor, decide to make a fool of him and trick him into believing they have crafted the most beautiful of robes, made from a fine, but mysterious, magical cloth. They convince their fool of a King that the cloth they’ve used can only be seen by wise people, worthy of whatever position, title, or status they hold. Which meant, of course, that fools, unworthy of their lot in life wouldn’t be able to see the outfit they had made.

After pretending to dress their emperor in clothes that don’t exist, the emperor is secretly/privately discouraged that he, himself, can’t see the new outfit he’s supposed to be wearing, which would imply that he, himself, was unfit for the role of Emperor at all. Instead of calling the tailors to task for their prank, though, he plays along with it all – hook, line and sinker – and pretends to be donned in the finest, most beautiful duds in town.

And he goes out into the world, parading throughout the kingdom in his birthday suit, extolling the virtues and the beauty of his new wardrobe. When the rest of the kingdom’s people hear about it they, too – afraid to be the only ones not worthy of seeing what everyone else could apparently see – “oooohh” and “aaaahh,” pretending to admire and to adore their Emperor’s new clothes.

And on it goes until a small child, out in the public square, without wisdom or regard for the charade of it all, declares what everyone was pretending or denying or playing along with – for their own selfish sakes: “The Emperor’s not wearing any clothes!”

The story, of course, is a simple comment on the hypocrisy of leaders, it’s about self-importance and conceit, it’s about wanting to belong and to be in charge at the expense of your own integrity. It’s about pretending to be something you’re not and of “going along to get along.”

And when I think about Jesus and his title as Christ the King, alongside the story of the Emperor’s new clothes, I see the fairy tale in a different kind of light. [PIC 1]

Certainly, I could cite examples – so many examples – in the world, in our body politic these days, in the Church – where people go along to get along, where hypocrisy wins too much of the time, where leaders don’t always measure up to what’s expected of them, where we pretend and deny and play along with the rest of the world for the sake of pride, popularity, power, and any number of self-serving desires.

But when I think about Jesus, none of that is true. When I think about Jesus and the Emperor’s new clothes, I think of the tables being turned in a different sort of way. In the fairy tale, the Emperor is the fool and the hypocrite and the one whose own incompetence is on display by his attempt to hide all of that – his incompetence, his unworthiness, his insecurity, his lack of integrity.

In Jesus though, this King we call the Christ, I think we – along with Pilate and Herod and all those who condemned Jesus way back when – we’re the ones who play the fool too much of the time. As much as we’re taught to the contrary, we still look for a King who dresses in the stuff of this world. But the kingdom of God is not made up of the stuff of this world.

Even though we gather around mangers and crosses – the ultimate symbols of humility, poverty and pain; even though we confess a suffering servant as God; even though we hear about the last being first and the first being last; about the meek inheriting the earth; about the Kingdom belonging to the poor in Spirit; about turning the other cheek; about forgiveness and mercy and grace upon grace...

In spite of all of that, we try to make Jesus, Christ the King, like a ruler in this world. We create him in our own image and we make him over in ways that match up with our intentions, which are not God’s intentions a lot of the time. Even though we celebrate the resurrection and the life, too many people fear a God who rules by death and damnation. Even though we sing about a God of amazing grace, a beautiful savior, a Prince of Peace, a blessed assurance – we make up rules, we put up stumbling blocks and we close doors to just how mighty, how gracious, how generous and how forgiving our God can be.

In other words, we dress Jesus up in clothes that God never intended to wear. We dress up Christ, our King, in attitudes and opinions that fit us, but that are just too small for him. We cover up the simple grace and peace and love of this Jesus with judgment and fear, with limits and restrictions, with a closed mind and with clenched fists that were never made for him. As Anne Lamott said once, “You know you’ve created God in your own image when your God hates all the same people that you do.”

But all along Jesus – a little bit like the Emperor in the fairy tale – isn’t wearing any of it. And Jesus – unlike the Emperor in the fairy tale – never pretends otherwise. Jesus Christ, our King and the Emperor of Eternity, hits the streets and marches to the Cross. And all along the way, he wears nothing more than swaddling clothes and belts of righteousness; he wears a crown of thorns and straps a cross to his back; he is stripped bare, he lets them gamble for his robes and he is covered up with nothing but blood, sweat, spit, tears – and the full weight of our sins.

And he does it all so we might finally see what God has been trying to show us all along:

That our King, in Jesus Christ, wears humility and gentleness; generosity and peace; forgiveness and mercy; love and good news. And because of Jesus, we’re invited to do the same. God wants us to stop pretending. God wants us to stop “ooohing” and “aaahing” over all the costumes and confusion the world adds to the simple, profound, unfettered grace and mercy of our Messiah.

We don’t have to pretend to be without sin. We don’t have to pretend that any one of us is any more worthy than the next person. We don’t have to be afraid. We don’t have to be right. We don’t have to judge or be judged. We don’t have to do anything.

We only get to look to the cross and see our salvation. We only get to feel the waters of baptism – and share them like we will this morning (with EllaSophia and Juliette) – this water that promises to turn sin into forgiveness and death into new life. And we get to lead our own parade of good news, then, fully clothed in grace and mercy and peace – and more – and we get to share the same, and tell this Truth, for a world so desperate to hear it.

Amen

John 11:32-44

When Mary came to Jesus and saw him she said to him, “Lord, if you had been here my brother would not have died.” When Jesus saw her weeping and the other Jews with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. He said to them, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Come and see.” Jesus began to weep. So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” But some of them said, “Could not the one who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”

Then Jesus came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone lying against it. Jesus said to them, “Take away the stone.” But Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.” Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” So they took away the stone.

And Jesus looked upward and said, “Father, I thank you for having heard me. I know that you always hear me, but I’ve said this for the sake of those standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.” When he had said this, he cried out with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”

A few years ago, I preached one of my favorite sermons on All Saints Sunday. It was for my friend, Peggy. Peggy had died over the summer, some of you might remember, and though she was a dear friend of our family’s, we didn’t find out about her death until a few weeks after the fact, when one of the sermons I mailed her every Monday, was “Returned to Sender.” Peggy lived alone. Her mother and sister had both died already. She had given a child up for adoption years before. And so on and so on. The short of the long is she didn’t want a funeral for lots of reasons. So on that All Saints Sunday after learning of Peggy’s death, I preached a funeral sermon for a funeral that never was.

Many of you know Cross of Grace added a new saint to our list just two weeks ago. Don Campbell died alone in his home on October 20th. Like Peggy, Don was without parents or children to celebrate his life on this side of heaven. His lovely wife of 58 years, Charlotte, died about 5 years ago. Like Peggy, Don was very clear about not wanting a funeral service of any kind. I’m not sure about all of his reasons, but I wasn’t surprised by that news. Don was as frugal as he was humble and unassuming. So I’m guessing he just didn’t want to spend the money or receive the attention a typical funeral service requires or assumes.

And I don’t mean to make a habit of this – preaching funeral sermons for or about those who don’t want funeral services, I mean – but since we were all going to gather anyway, and since I would have had to preach something this morning, I don’t think Don would mind. And, more importantly, I think there’s something to learn about “all the saints” thanks to the life and likes of Don Campbell, on this All Saints Sunday.

You might not know it – and I wouldn’t have guessed it – but Don served in the US Army during the Korean War as a staff sergeant in Psychological Warfare. How cool is that?

One of his greatest joys in recent years was the trip he took as part of one of those Honor Flights, to Washington D.C., to visit the memorials there for military veterans.

Don was a CPA who served the state of Indiana, private clients, larger firms and hospitals. And he used all of that wisdom, experience, and expertise, to volunteer for a variety of the Lutheran churches he and Charlotte were a part of over the years, too.

Don worshiped with us every week at Cross of Grace. He sat in the back – right about “there,” most of the time. And, even though he was 90 years old, he gladly learned to join us for worship, online, via Zoom and YouTube, without complaint when the COVID-19 pandemic demanded we keep our distance.

In addition to learning that new technology, Don wasn’t afraid to make new friends, either. Not only did he follow many of his pals from Greenfield to this new congregation at Cross of Grace several years ago, but he was charmed by the Blachly family and he became buddies with Linda Duff, too, after joining our ranks. Joining new churches and making new friends isn’t nothing when you’re 90 years old, I’m guessing.

And, of course, there was Charlotte. I visited her often in the nursing home over in Greenfield before she died. She was in the Alzheimer’s unit there. And I can’t think of a time when I showed up, unannounced, that I didn’t see Don already there, too. Sitting with her. Reading the paper. Helping her eat. Or just asleep in a chair. He was a steadfast, patient, loving presence for her, even though she didn’t remember who he was or why he was there a lot of the time.

So, cheers to Don Campbell, our most recently minted “saint” on this All Saints Sunday.

We talked about “saints” and “sinners” last Sunday in our Faith Formation class, with the Junior High kids… about that very Lutheran/Reformation notion that we are – each of us – at the same time on any given day, both “saint” and “sinner.” (“Simul Justus et Peccator,” for those who remember the Latin or who had stricter Lutheran Confirmation teachers than me.) It means we’re both broken and redeemed. Both sinful and forgiven. Both lost and found. Both dead to our sin and promised new life again, in spite of it.

And as part of that discussion with the kids, I rattled off the names of some saints – the ones who’ve garnered some notoriety over the years, who have festival days named and claimed for them in the life of the Church, and whatnot – people like St. Francis of Assisi, Mother Teresa – or St. Joseph who some believe is great for real estate sales.

But the thing about Luther’s understanding about “saints” and “sinners” is the holy reminder that we all are … each of us is … a saint in the eyes and by the grace of God. And we are “saints” in the eyes of God, precisely because we were created in love and created for love and created by the love of our Creator.

Don Campbell was and is a saint, not because he served our country, or because he volunteered in the Church, or because he loved his wife well. Don was – and is – a saint because the love and grace and mercy of God created him as such and declared him to be so, in baptism. And Don lived a saintly life in response to the truth and promise of that Good News.

Likewise, we are, each of us, “saints,” not because we gathered for worship this morning, or because we did a good deed yesterday, or because we voted this way or that, gave this much money to so many churches or charities, or whatever. We are – and will be – saints, you and I, in the eyes of God because God wants it to be so. And we are called to live our lives in righteous, faithful, saintly ways on this side of the grave, until we realize the fullness of God’s promised grace on the other side of heaven – whatever and wherever and however that comes to pass, I don’t pretend to know the details of that.

When I think about Don Campbell, and my friend Peggy, and every one of those “saints” whose names we spoke just moments ago… (take a minute to be mindful, again, of the saints who have blessed your own life and times) …those faces as you remember them… those lives for which we are grateful.

And give thanks for their memory, for the blessings they shared with this world, for the source of the love they were and are, and for the way that love surrounds us, still, and calls us to live with joy and hope, with purpose and peace, in their honor, for their sake, and in the name of Jesus, who does for us what he did for Martha and the crowd outside of Lazarus’ tomb: he calls us to believe in this kind of surprising, unmitigated, amazing grace. And he promises that we will see the glory of God – on this side of heaven and the next – when we do.

Amen

Christ the King and The Emperor's New Clothes

For All the Saints and Don Campbell