Publicly humiliate him and kill him. Because this is what the worldly wise would do with an unkingly king. I am grateful for the Gospel reading that the Lectionary offers us today. It redefines kingship. Christ s kingliness is defined by that lonely, suffering figure dying on a cross, naked and forsaken, mocked by his enemies, yet even in his last hours comfortingly a criminal who is dying at his side.
Mercy is crucified, dead and buried.
I want look at the story of non-violence in Christianity. For the first few centuries in Christianity, a non-violent Christ was worshipped and followed by believers. Jesus was king, but a king utterly other than the kind of authority exhibited by the Roman Emperor, or regional kings and governors. During this springtime of Christianity, the most popular artistic representations of Christ were as the crucified One, the Good Shepherd, and sometimes the plain man on the mount of Transfiguration, glowing with the radiance of God. It was a period when Christians were given a hard time under successive waves of persecution.