In The Last Temptation of Christ, Nikos
Kazantzakis writes: "When the kings had died, a pauper, barefooted and hungry, came
and sat on the throne. "God," he whispered, "the eyes of man cannot bear to
look directly at the sun, for they are blinded. How then, Omnipotent, can they look
directly at you? Have pity, Lord; temper your strength, turn down your splendor so that I,
who am poor and afflicted, may see you!"
"Then listen, old man! God became a piece of bread, a cup of cool water, a warm
tunic, a hut, and in front of the hut, a woman giving suck to an infant." "Thank
you, Lord," he whispered. "You humbled yourself for my sake. You became bread,
water, a warm tunic and my wife and son in order that I may see you. And I did see you. I
bow down and worship your beloved many-faced face!"
When I was a child, we played King of the Mountain whenever we came across a tree stump
or a mound of dirt onto which one of could spring, proclaiming with arms outstretched and
always in the same sing-song type of voice, "I’m King of the Mountain!" As
soon as we proclaimed ourselves King of the Mountain, everyone else tried to unseat us.
Over time we learned how to preserve our power: you plant your feet a little bit apart,
consider everyone a threat, knock them over with your shoulder, and use your elbows to
inflict pain. Eventually, however, the King always fell from his or her pinnacle, even if
the rest of us had to join forces to make it happen. As soon as the King was pushed aside,
we struggled against each other again to fill the power vacuum and make ourselves the next
momentary monarch. Of course, we never gave thought to what we would do if we really were
King of the Mountain and ruled a kingdom. The whole point was to achieve power and defend
our position.
We’re grown-ups now, mostly, but we still play King of the Mountain: Co-workers
struggle for power and position. Husbands and wives, partners and even friends, seek to
win at all costs jabbing with verbal elbows and sometimes real ones. Being King feels
good, at least for a moment. If we can’t achieve it with our cars and clothes and job
status, at least we can achieve it in our own heads by winning an argument or putting
someone down, defend our sense of superiority with sarcasm, cynicism and
self-righteousness, cover our vulnerability with a sense of virtue and victory. We
sacrifice one another to achieve power and defend our position, even when there is no tree
trunk to stand on.
Turn on the television or pick up the newspaper and see King of Mountain writ large on
the global stage: Terrorists wreak tragedy on American soil in their attempt to move the
United States off the mountaintop. Afghan warlords seem unable to feel anything but their
own hunger for power. Israel sends tanks while Palestinian children struggle for a
foothold on the hill their parents used to own. Our government vacillates between
legitimately bringing terrorists to justice and illegitimately wrapping itself in the
cloak of the Almighty God. Meanwhile, we mere citizens dump our waste in the ocean and
drive Sport Utility Vehicles to the grocery or the office with little concern for the
environment we’re destroying. We believe we can do whatever we please to whomever we
please, and the consequences be darned. King of the Mountain has become our way of life.
Jesus, too, was tempted to be King of the Mountain, in the desert at the beginning of
his ministry and on the cross at the end. "Throw yourself down from on high and let
God lift you up," said the tempter in the desert. "Save yourself and us,"
says one of the criminals.
Surely the God who broke the earth apart and raised up mountains, who formed the whales
that course through ocean depth, could save Jesus from such a death. Surely the God who
creates human life and who changes sunshine to rain and back again, could make a lightning
bolt strike, take Jesus off the cross and heal the wounds in his hands. If anyone is King
of the Mountain or Queen of the Universe, surely it is the God who made them.
Yet never in his life among us, no matter how tempting, does Jesus use
King-of-the-Mountain power to achieve God’s goals. His anger flares at injustice and
at those who manipulate religion to cause shame in others. But even then, he does not call
down lightning bolts from the sky or cause earthquakes to swallow the evildoers.
Jesus shows God’s power by eating with sinners, healing the sick, listening to the
cries of those long silenced and giving them voice, including the outcasts in his circle,
refusing to be seduced by the trappings of success, and dying with criminals on a cross.
This is a different kind of King.
I wonder...if Jesus had come down from the cross, would we even be here today, telling
his story? Maybe. We do still tell the miraculous story of Moses leading the slaves across
a path in the middle of the Red Sea. But how would the story of Jesus’ coming down
from the cross have made a difference in your life or mine?
Would it have stopped all evil in the world? No, not unless God took away human free
will at the same time, and then, without free will, what would be point, the challenge,
the joy of human life?
Would it have made it easier for us to face suffering, anguish and death, injustice,
oppression and evil in our own day? Or would we be waiting for God to send a lightning
bolt on our behalf to make it all go away, and then be angry when it doesn’t happen?
Maybe it would have encouraged us even more to become King of the Mountain so we could
make our own lightning bolts when we are wronged by someone else.
But that is not what happened. Jesus didn’t come down off that cross until he was
dead. Because Christ died on that cross, in the middle of the suffering and evil that is
part of human life, we know that Christ lives with us when we encounter suffering and evil
in our life and in our world. Because Christ was willing to die, we know Christ is not
afraid to be with us when the end of our life comes.
Because Christ cared enough to give his life for the world, we draw upon that same holy
courage to fight hatred and violence, oppression and evil in our personal struggles, our
communities, our world. Because Christ set aside being King of the Mountain to eat and
drink, live and die with us, we too stop trying to be King of the Mountain, become
vulnerable, and love one another as God loves us.
Because Christ died and was raised, we live in hope that life and good and God will win
the battle over death and evil in this world and the next. We are here today because
Christ did not come down off that cross. He died. And God raised him on Easter.
To all who, like the second criminal on the cross, have eyes to see the Almighty King
in the one who stays with us in the joy and the agony of human life, even to death on a
cross, to such as these does Christ say, "Today you shall be with me in
Paradise." That is the powerful story wherein lies our hope. That is the story that
changes the world. Thanks be to God. Amen.
