This has been a violent few days in America and I'm sure the rest of the world looks on in wonder. Road rage - as people sped to the malls by 4:00am Friday. Line rage - as latecomers cut in front of those who had been waiting for hours for the doors to open. Cart rage as the aisles of your favorite store turned into a rush hour on the Long island Expressway gone bad. And the reason for the short tempers and downright anger? People looking for the ideal gift to give a loved one in the name of the Prince of Peace. And if you have ever wondered why the Church Year ends with a scene straight from Good Friday, Black Friday certainly provides a good backdrop.

Christ the King Sunday each year is, in a sense, our liturgical New Year's eve. Next Sunday we begin again where we began one year ago: Advent - and the promise that God will do a new thing in this old world of ours ... to save Israel, to save us all, from our sins and all that ails us. And the greed and the nastiness on display among the shoppers is a microscopic reminder that after 2,000 years we are still beset by sin and all that ails us. And yet, the church remains steadfast in its proclamation, Christ is King. Not the King we might expect, but the King we most certainly need!

Two quick stories to illustrate, both from a sermon by a man named King Duncan. And I ask you - on Christ the King Sunday how appropriate is it to appropriate an illustration by a preacher named King Duncan? The first is a cartoon strip by Charles Schultz in which Linus is looking at his hands. He says, "These are magnificent hands! These are hands that may create incredible works of art. These are hands that may one day shape the course of history. These are hands that may one day hold the future of the world!" Lucy walks over, looks at his hands, and says, "They've got jelly on them." Duncan concludes, "My hands have jelly on them. Don't yours? And yet God loves us. With all our imperfections, all our sins, God loves us. God sees something in us worth saving." On this Christ the King Sunday we are reminded once more of how God went about the saving process!

And the second story concerns a brand new product for Sports Utility Vehicles or SUVs. In spite of the commercials for SUVs, analysts say that only about 5 percent of SUVs are ever taken off-road, which means you're more likely to see a Range Rover at Starbucks, for example, than anywhere near a mountain lake. Now in these days of rising gas prices and fears over global warming, SUV owners sometimes face resentment for their decision to buy a rugged, off-road vehicle for driving through downtown suburbia. The antidote? One word: Sprayonmud. (I thought it was a joke but I went to the website: "Sprayonmud comes in an easy-to-use plastic bottle.... Keep it in your garage, car or anywhere you like. Sprayonmud can be applied to your vehicle in seconds, but just be careful the neighbors don't catch you using it! And remember, you've been visiting friends in the backwoods!") And Duncan observes, "Friends, I don't know about you, but I don't need any sprayonmud. I've got plenty of my own. So do you."

The story of Christ's death on the cross is not out of place on this Sunday following Black Friday ... actually in these days of when bad news from anywhere in the world reaches us almost instantly, it is never out of place for us to be reminded of the depth of God's love for us. A little Christmas poem I recall from years ago catches the sense of this love, which is never out of season: "Tiny hands" the poem begins. "Tiny hands, with curled up baby fingers; soon you shall be stretched out, nail pierced, for me."

To be sure, we've done this crucifixion scene before; we have stood at the base of the place of Christ the King Sunday, and the word "king" is all about Jesus - but only as a punchline for a joke. Remember what they put over his head? "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews!" Don't take that too seriously though; it's merely the King's cartoon caption. And everyone gets a good-natured laugh out of it all. The religious leaders are chuckling, "If he is the Anointed One ... let him save himself!" The troops are elbowing each other as they taunt, "If you are the king - save yourself!" Even one of the victims joins the game, but he has a different agenda ... he wants to be de-crucified. "Are you the Messiah? Save yourself ... and me too while you're at it!" He at least hopes it's all true - for a very simple reason: if it's all the same to you, thank you, he'd rather live. And that brings us to the reason why the Church has selected this text to conclude our Church Year.

The four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John record seven last words of Jesus - sentences really ... but that's not much dialogue in a three hour stretch. Luke records three of those "last words." Twice Jesus addresses God: once at the beginning of his agony, "Father forgive them!" and once at the very end, "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit." And in the middle of it all, at the halfway point between his forgiving and his dying - there is this: a royal proclamation is issued. It is issued to a sinner - a man with blood on his hands, and not jelly ... a man covered with the mud of sinful humanity. In a sense a man who could be any one of us at particular times in our lives. A man worthy of condemnation. He is a man in the midst of getting justice from the government. He is a man who discovers the mercy of God. Again, this brings us close to the reason for this text - on this day. He is the thief on the right. Most people at the end of their lives would like to be remembered for what they have done. Not the man on the cross, to the right of the King. He wants what he has done to be forgotten. He wants Jesus to remember - him. I suppose this is behind our greatest fear of the grave ... the concern that we shall be forgotten. That our footsteps in life will be erased, like wind-smoothed sands in the desert.

The request of the man is a simple one. "Forget about my sins Jesus; yes, even forget about my pain. But don't forget about me. Remember me." He does not plead, "Save me." He merely prays, "Remember me." And Jesus responds with a promise. A promise which has sustained jelly fingered, mud-splattered sinners ever since, "Today, you will be with me. Not only here, at the place of the Skull - but today you will be with me in paradise." With a royal decree, whispered through the parched lips of a dying Savior, the doors of paradise swing open. With a royal decree, pronounced slowly by a tongue thick with thirst, a woebegone sinner is saved. What a way to end the church year! Not with banners and balloons and our Savior in the midst of the clouds ... but with a simple, blessed assurance - from one dying man to another. And because we are all on the same pilgrimage ... because death is at the end of your road and mine ... few promises are more powerful to us - than this one! "Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise."

My friends, cling to the promise. As Baptized children of God, be assured the jelly does not stick, nor does the mud. That is to say, sinners though we are, God's forgiveness is stronger still. At the end of another Church Year, what a privilege for me to echo again, one dying person to another, some day we shall be with him ... in Paradise.