Close readers of Scripture have long been intrigued by the plurals in Genesis 1:26.  “Let us make humans in our image, according to our likeness” (NRSVue)?  Just who is God addressing?  In Midrash Bereshit Rabbah 8:3, Rabbi Ammi says, intriguingly, that God is talking to Godself (‘el libbo, “to his heart”)!  Similarly, many Christian readers over the years have found in this verse a reflection of the Trinity, with the Father addressing the Son and the Holy Spirit (for example, Augustine, On the Trinity, 7.6.12; 12.6.6; and Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics 3/1. 41.2).  The early Christian poet Prudentius found in the plural the presence of Christ specifically at the creation of the world:

            What but to say that he

            Was not alone, that God stood by God’s side

            When the Lord made man in the image of the Lord?  

(Cited by Andrew Louth and Marco Conti, Genesis 1—11, Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture [Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2001], 29).

Certainly the New Testament speaks of Christ as the agent of God’s creation.  The Epistle for this Sunday is Colossians 1:11-20, which says of Jesus,

Elsewhere in the New Testament, other “Cosmic Christ” passages further underline and emphasize Christ’s role in the creation, maintenance, and destiny of the cosmos. In Hebrews 1:2, “God made his Son the heir of everything and created the world through him.”  Ephesians 1:9-10 identifies Jesus as the end—that is, the telos, the purpose and goal—of the cosmos:

God revealed his hidden design to us, which is according to his goodwill and the plan that he intended to accomplish through his Son.This is what God planned for the climax of all times: to bring all things together in Christ, the things in heaven along with the things on earth.

This Sunday will be the last Sunday after Pentecost, marking the end of the Christian year; next Sunday, with Advent, a new year begins. The last Sunday of the Christian year is called the Reign of Christ, or the feast of Christ the King.  The icon at the head of this blog is a manuscript illumination from the Catedral de Toledo in Spain, depicting Jesus as Pantocrator: the Ruler of all.  In the icon, Christ Pantocrator is drawing a circle demarcating the bounds of reality, above and beyond which he stands as its creator (see Isa 40:22, NRSVue).  As our Colossians passage confesses, 

The appropriateness of such exalted language to the celebration of Jesus’ reign is obvious.  But the Gospel for Sunday, Luke 23:33-43, oddly pairs the Colossians text with Luke’s account of Jesus’ crucifixion: scarcely a regal scene!  

Yet, Luke tells us, the placard on Jesus’ cross describing the crimes for which he was being executed read, “This is the king of the Jews” (Luke 23:38//Matt 27:37; compare John 19:19). When Christians reflect on the cross, we tend to forget, or perhaps even to ignore, this obvious truth.  Rome didn’t crucify thieves, or bandits, or rapists, or even murderers.  It crucified slaves, and those who rebelled against Roman authority. Although in the King James, the criminals crucified with Jesus are called “thieves” (Matt 27:38; Mark 15:27; in Luke 3:33, the KJV calls them “malefactors”), the NRSVue more properly calls them “rebels.” Jesus, like them, was a political prisoner, executed by the Roman state on the charge of insurrection.

Surely, we can imagine nothing further from the image of Christ Pantocrator than a crucified, naked, dying man! Yet in Luke, Jesus is recognized as king on the cross, by his fellow victims:  

One of the criminals hanging next to Jesus insulted him: “Aren’t you the Christ? Save yourself and us!”  Responding, the other criminal spoke harshly to him, “Don’t you fear God, seeing that you’ve also been sentenced to die? We are rightly condemned, for we are receiving the appropriate sentence for what we did. But this man has done nothing wrong.” Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom” (Luke 23:39-42).

So it is precisely from his cross, as the paradoxically crucified Lord, that Jesus extends his kingly offer of inclusion to that rebel: ““I assure you that today you will be with me in paradise.” (Luke 23:43).

The connection between Christ’s kingship and his cross is also upheld in Colossians 1:19-20:

Because all the fullness of God was pleased to live in him,
and he reconciled all things to himself through him—
whether things on earth or in the heavens.
He brought peace through the blood of his cross.

Particularly in the face of the current heresy of Christian nationalism, this is a vital link.  Amanda Tyler, the executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty (BJC), identifies the tenets of this American heresy:

The way I understand Christian Nationalism is it’s a political ideology and a cultural framework that tries to merge American and Christian identities, suggesting that to be a real American, one has to be a Christian – and not just any kind of Christian, but a Christian who holds certain fundamentalist religious beliefs that are in line with conservative political priorities. Christian Nationalism overlaps significantly with White supremacy, with a narrative that the only people who truly belong in this country are the people who held power at the beginning of the country – and that is White Protestant Christian men who own property. Everyone else is effectively a second-class citizen in the eyes of White Christian Nationalism.