"Forgiving King"

(Jer 23:1-6; Ps 46; Col 1:11-20; Luke 23:33-43) J G White

10:30 am, Sun, Nov 23, 2025, FBC Amherst

Just over a week ago, a man of Sackville named Doug Mantz died. A retired professor of English of what’s now Crandall University, I have his book that is a collection of jokes and stories, called Let There Be Laughter. The story is told of the Baptists and Presbyterians in a town that shared joint services in the summers. Presbyterians, of course, pray the Lord’s Prayer with ‘forgive us our debts,’ while Baptists pray ‘trespasses.’ So, at the Presbyterian Church, you can tell the Baptists when they say, ‘forgive us our trespa-debts,’ and the Presbyterians at the Baptist Church when they say, ‘and forgive us our debt-passes!’ It was wondered if this was a demonstration of sinful prayer with forgiveness built in? (p. 71)

A month ago I preached a sermon on forgiving. At the end, I wondered out loud if I would return to this theme in November. Well, here we are, at last. Lo and behold, forgiveness appears in the scriptures for this Sunday. This Reign of Christ Sunday. (It was actually in 1925 that Pope Pius XI created a Sunday of the Church year called Christ the King Sunday.)

The Bible texts for today - we usually use the list called the Revised Common Lectionary - deal with Jesus as the supreme Ruler of the Universe, including us. This year’s scriptures include Colossians 1 and Luke 23. Both speak of forgiveness. Our text, Jeremiah 23, does not speak of it, but deals with bad leaders who will be replaced by a new shepherd, and undershepherds, who will gather and protect the people of God. It is about divine leadership. 

So today, forgiveness comes under the umbrella of the Good Shepherd, Christ the Right Ruler, Jesus the Lord. This got me wondering: maybe real forgiveness depends upon some authority. Does it require some Power to make and finish the forgiving? To quote a common phrase again, we say, ‘forgive and forget.’ It trips off the tongue and suggests that forgiving is a mere nothing, a simple decision. Getting forgiven can seem, at least on the surface, a simple task. We are individualistic. ‘It is just about me and someone else, after all.’ We forget the cosmic sense of things, and the old idea that God might be offended by what we did to hurt someone down here. 

I have been struggling this week as I pondered some infraction I could confess in my sermon, and testify about how I went wrong, and then found gracious forgiveness. But it is hard. The little things I do wrong are barely worth mentioning. Some of the big errors of my ways this past year are things not for spilling in a public speech, especially one that can be watched by anyone on the internet, or read. 

I do remember, a bunch of years ago, being on a Baptist Association committee to oversee and support a Chaplain at a big nursing home. That work is a great ministry, but can be kind of lonely. The Chaplain, she didn’t have a team with her, no board of Deacons to stand behind her. The committee I was Chairperson of could have been her real supporters, those she could call on to talk things over and problem solve… but we did not really keep in touch. A couple times a year we would meet with her. As Chair, I let her down and did not lead the committee to be her support team. 

So, when the Association had an annual meeting, I gave a report from the Chaplaincy Committee, and confessed our neglect and my failure to be a true helper to the Chaplain. I said I was sorry for that. In God’s grace, we all learned how to do better and be a real team.

We do need to get through some forgiving of ourselves, from time to time. Spiritual writer, Jan Phillips, says this in her book, ‘Finding the On Ramp to Your Spiritual Path.’ To be on a spiritual path, it is necessary to forgive yourself for wrong turns, for failing to yield, for driving under the influence of others. These are minor and forgivable infractions. 

The bigger hurts we have inflicted upon others, by ourselves, do need the healing of forgiveness. So it is so good we have God we can look to, and know, and find mercy. Because, for one thing, many of us are not good at forgiving. With the Spirit involved in our lives already, it is best to rely upon the Expert, our Savour. But then, this Good Shepherd sets us out to be undershepherds, and we join the team to forgive and heal one another. 

Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s book, Life Together, is a beautiful exploration of close community as people of Jesus. The chapter on confession is especially important to me. Bonhoeffer wrote:

“It may be that Christians, notwithstanding corporate worship, common prayer, and all their fellowship in service, may still be left to their loneliness. The final break-through to fellowship does not occur, because, though they have fellowship with one another as believers and as devout people, they do not have fellowship as the undevout, as sinners. The pious fellowship permits no one to be a sinner. So everybody must conceal his sin from himself and from the fellowship. We dare not be sinners. Many Christians are unthinkably horrified when a real sinner is suddenly discovered among the righteous. So we remain alone with our sin, living in lies and hypocrisy. The fact is that we are sinners!”

“A Christian fellowship lives and exists by the intercession of its members for one another, or it collapses. I can no longer condemn or hate a brother for whom I pray, no matter how much trouble he causes me. His face, that hitherto may have been strange and intolerable to me, is transformed in intercession into the countenance of a brother for whom Christ died, the face of a forgiven sinner.”

It takes a community to forgive a sinner. To redeem the lost. To become all one in Christ!

So can you forgive yourself? Know that God is forgiving you? Believe that Christ is in you, forgiving? If forgiveness needs a powerful authority, we have one. We declare that God is the Authority, and does the forgiving work in Jesus. We declare this to one another. This good news is free for us to give out.

As we read some of a crucifixion scene in the Gospels, we came to that poignant moment when Jesus talks with two fellows who are also being executed by crucifixion. One of the guys puts some confidence in Jesus of Nazareth. “Remember me when you come into your kingdom,” he says. And what is Jesus’ answer? 

“Today, you will be with me in paradise.” Today. 

Karoline Lewis is a professor of New Testament I hear in a podcast each week. This week she pointed out an antique gingerbread clock she has in her home. It used to be her father’s, and before that belonged to her grandparents. It keeps great time, though she doesn’t keep it wound up; it is an heirloom. Why point out her clock? Professor Lewis mentions Jesus’s words to that thief on a cross. 'Today you will be with me' I think sums up what Christ the King Sunday means to me, at least this year. That the reign of Christ is not a place, it's not even something we wait for, the reign of Christ means Christ's presence and promise in all times and all places, our today, our past, and our future. It is the promise of Christ's paradise, the promise of Christ's love and forgiveness here and now, always to come. Time doesn't matter at all. (Working Preacher, YouTube)

Paradise is available today in our lives. As Lewis does, I extend this to include forgiveness. ‘Today, you will be forgiven,’ Jesus says. And it does not have to be on the final day of our lives, just before we die. 

The story was told of comedian, W. C. Fields, who was a staunch atheist, but apparently read Christian theology. When he was on his death bed a visitor found him reading the Bible. Asked what he was doing, Fields replied, "Looking for loopholes, my friend. Looking for loopholes."

I dare say that, in a way, Jesus is the loophole. We call this grace. In song it is Amazing Grace. Jesus Messiah, is the forgiving King. All the moments of forgiving others, being forgiven, and forgiving ourselves, are extensions of the forgiveness that comes in Christ crucified. As our texts for today told us, we are enabled to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. We are rescued from the power of darkness and transferred into the light of the Kingdom of Jesus. In Him we have redemption. In Him we have the forgiveness of sins. He made peace for us, by His blood. He forgives those who don’t know what they are doing. And He forgives criminals who do know what they are doing! 

In the name of the Forgiving King, let us keep on finding forgiveness for ourselves, as we forgive others who have hurt us.