We have traveled with this human God, our own flesh and blood, into new and wonderful places:

Into the land of paralysis we have gone, only to discover that healing is within our own power and that we can walk and run again.

Into the homes and hearts of sinners we have gone, only to discover that at God's table, no one is a stranger and that we are welcomed home as fully as any lost and bleating sheep or any wandering prodigal.

Into new and wonderful places we have gone: into the land where justice rolls down like waters; where demons of hatred, bigotry and abuse are cast out; where fear is replaced by perfect love.

Down new paths we have trod on this journey of faith. To equip us for the journey we have been given a new travel guide, a road map to show us the way: that we love one another, for love is of God.

We have traveled on this journey with this God made flesh - our own flesh and blood -into new and wonderful places to crown him King of kings and Lord of lords, only to discover that the destination is not Shangri-la, but Jerusalem. The endpoint is not paradise, but persecution. His crown is not made of gold, but thorns. The journey culminates not in triumph, but the cross.

The journey brings Jesus and us to Jerusalem. There we see him arrested, placed on trial, and convicted - our King of kings and Lord of lords. We find ourselves gathered at the King's feet on a lonely hill called Golgotha. We look at the wreckage of the cross and stand transfixed like we are staring at some tragic accident on the freeway. "What happened?" "Did somebody die?" "Is he dead yet?" "Mommy, Daddy, what happened?" "Be quiet. I can't tell. I can't see. There's so much blood."

Only we can see. We can see all too clearly. We know this man, the man of our journeys. He is our own flesh and blood. He is the promised One, the one we pray to, the one with the power to heal, the one who welcomed us home, the one who taught us what love is. There he is dying now, helpless as a kitten, no one to wipe his brow or hold his hand. Behold the Messiah, the son of the most High, the holy one of Israel, Christ the King!

This is where the journey ends and the silence is broken, only grasshoppers and their click, click, click, fading away across the barren hill. Three men hang on three rough-hewn crosses: two common thieves, and one uncommon revolutionary with a sign above his head, "King of the Jews." For this he was sentenced to die. A pretender to the throne. It was a joke. It was the truth.

Besides the three men and the grasshoppers and the thick, dry wind there were others. The families of the thieves, especially the women and their soft, sobbing love. There were the chief priests and the Roman lackeys, present to see that justice was done and the world, their world, would remain ordered. There were voyeurs who had nothing better to do than to gawk.

There were the soldiers, Caesar's faceless minions just doing their job like any death row prison guard in Siberia, Dachau or Texas. They were just doing their job. Like an undertaker at the morgue, they were just doing their job. The squeamish feelings from their first time had long since passed. All they had to do was nail his hands and feet and put that heavy cross in the hole in the ground. Watch out for splinters and then wait. Pass the time. Tell a few stories. An obscene joke or two. Play some cards.

It was mostly quiet. The clicking of insects. The labored breathing of criminals. The soft sobs of women. The dry wind and the dry grass. The occasional screech of a bird of prey. It was a death watch. This journey of his, this journey of ours' has led to here the cross. Behold! Our own flesh and blood, the Holy One, the One in whom we had placed our hope, The King of the Jews, Jesus, Mary's child.

There is no way to understand. There is no way to figure it out. After all the places we have gone, after all the places where we have been with him, this is where it leads. This is the place where God turns silent. This is the place where we get down on our knees and fall over in a fetal position and beg for God to answer.

"Where were you? Where were you at the cross? Where were you when acrid smoke, a death cloud, hung over the frozen plains of Birkenau and Auschwitz and we called out to you? Where were you in the mountains of the Balkans these past ten years? What about Gaza? Wounded Knee? My Lai? Rwanda? Where were you at the cross? Where are you at the thousand crucifixions that occur every day? God Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, God of love, God of love, answer me!"

There is no greater theological question than the silence of God in the face of systemic evil and immense suffering. What are we to make of God's own flesh and blood, our own flesh and blood, dying? In the end, the healer is not healed. The rescuer is not rescued. The Savior is not saved, and not only on Golgotha but everywhere a child is neglected or abused, and nothing is done; everywhere war stains the soil red, and nothing is done; everywhere hatred, or bigotry or hopelessness seems to hold the upper hand, and nothing is done. God Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, God of love, God of love, answer me! Where were you? Where are you?

Stunningly, unlike any other faith tradition, Christianity embraces yet is somehow embarrassed by this horrible, demanding, threatening question. Even the Gospel writers struggle with this endpoint to the ministry of Jesus. They come up with three different versions of their own struggle to understand suffering in the face of the silence of God. Luke has Jesus end with a loud cry, "Father, into your hands I commend my Spirit." John's Jesus, courageous to the end simply says, "It is finished." Mark and Matthew have Jesus cry out the Psalmist's plea, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

Of course, we know that the story does not end here. We know all about Easter. The tomb is emptied. But this cannot and should take away the screams and the utter desperation when Jesus, our own flesh and blood, cries out in agony to the heavens and sees only sky.

Every believer must cope with God's silence. The kind of silence that comes when we wish, pray and hope that God would do something to rescue us, to ward off evil, to ease the darkness of the night, to relieve our grief, to take away from us the pain of this life's journey and give us a way out. We want a king of this world, a knight in shining armor, a superman stronger than a speeding locomotive. What do we get? We get a dying man, crucified between two thieves on a lonely hill. We get Christ the King and the silence of God.

A tale is told of a handful of rabbis who survived Auschwitz. They put God on trial for his complicity and silence in the face of evil that permeated everything they thought about. They accused him of not intervening in all the horrors they had seen: children ripped from parents and wives they would never see again. The prosecutors read off list after list of their beloved whose lives were erased in gas chambers and ovens. For days the trial went on, the evidence presented, until the verdict was issued. The chief rabbi announced the verdict. "Guilty as charged!" Then he said, "Let us now pray." The survivors bowed their heads and prayed to the God of their ancestors. When their prayers were finished they went out buried the dead, gathered food for the hungry and comforted the living. They re-built homes. Step-by-step they lived their way back into hope. They believed even when they could not understand until the silence of God was broken by the loud and courageous deeds of their own compassion, persistence and courage.

The kingship we celebrate this day is not of this world. It is a kingship of a Lord who entered into physical pain, yes. But far more terrible was that this Jesus, our own flesh and blood, entered into the silence of God. Nothing could be more terrifying on this journey of ours. Nothing could be more daunting to the human spirit. The kingship we celebrate this day and every day is honored when we ourselves walk hand in hand with Jesus into every Golgotha that the world offers up. We crown him every time one of us brings hope to the despairing, healing to the injured, love to the unlovely and justice to the oppressed. It is a kingship that courageously faces Jerusalem, walks with Jesus to the cross, walks with Jesus into our own complicity with darkness, evil and sin, gathers with Jesus at his feet, and cries out with him in face of the silence of God. It is a kingship that acts with compassion and faith to redeem all the broken places even when understanding is beyond our grasp.