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“Today You Will Be With Me in Paradise”: Christ the King

“Today You Will Be With Me in Paradise”: Christ the King

Last updated on: November 22, 2025 at 10:27 pm by Jeff Hood

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“Today You Will Be With Me in Paradise”: Christ the King 2025-11-22T22:27:57-06:00 Jeff Hood

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Christ the King

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Christ the King = Above Injustice and the Work of Liberation

Christ the King? The crucifixion scene in Luke 23:35-43 is one of the most profound confrontations between divine love and human injustice in all of Scripture. In these few verses, the world reveals its cruelty, its derision, its willingness to mock suffering and weaponize despair. Yet in the very same moment, Christ reveals a kingdom built not on domination but on mercy, justice and solidarity with the oppressed. The passage becomes not only a theological proclamation of salvation but a political and social indictment of the systems that crucify the innocent…then and now.

The Rulers’ Derision and the Exposure of False Power

The rulers who sneer at Jesus stand in for every authority that protects its own power by humiliating and discarding the vulnerable. Their taunt…“He saved others; let him save himself”…is not merely mockery but an attempt to justify their violence. If he truly were God’s chosen, they imply, he would conform to their expectations of power. The tragedy is that this impulse persists across history. Societies still assume that strength is measured in dominance, that the powerful are the blessed, that the vulnerable deserve what happens to them. The cross unmasks this lie. In Christ, God chooses not the throne of coercion but the gallows of the condemned. The rulers may sneer, but it is their values…not Christ…that are exposed as false.

The Soldiers and the Machinery of Injustice

Even the soldiers jeer, participating in the cruelty as though the suffering before them were entertainment. They represent the machinery of the state…agents who carry out violence while convinced it is simply their duty. Theirs is the cold complicity that allows injustice to operate. Their offering of wine is not compassion…it is ritualized mockery. They echo the rulers…“If you are King of the Jews, save yourself.” In their derision we hear every modern voice that tells the oppressed to stop demanding justice, to stop complaining, to “save themselves” from the conditions others created. The cross reveals how deeply injustice becomes woven into the habits of an entire society.

The Inscription and the Revelation of True Kingship : Christ the King

And yet, above Christ’s head hangs the inscription, “This is the King of the Jews.” Rome thinks it is a joke…a political insult, a warning to any who might resist imperial authority. But the gospel transforms the insult into truth. Christ’s kingship is not invalidated by his suffering…it is revealed by it. His power is not the power to avoid pain but the power to absorb the world’s evil and still bless all the people in it. Jesus reigns not by crushing enemies but by refusing to become one. His authority is not revoked on Golgotha…it is enthroned…forever.

Two Criminals and the Cry for a New World

Into this scene step the two criminals crucified alongside him. One joins the chorus of derision…“Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us.” This man speaks the language of survival under oppression…distrust, bitterness, the instinct to claw one’s way out of suffering alone. He sees power only in terms of escape. But the other criminal perceives something deeper: “We have been condemned justly… but this man has done nothing criminal.” With these words he articulates a central theme of social justice…the recognition that innocence and guilt are often distributed by systems that are themselves unjust. He acknowledges his own wrongdoing, but he also exposes the truth…Jesus is being executed by a system that has no interest in truth.

His next words…“Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom”…are a cry for more than personal salvation. They are a plea for a new world. He recognizes that Christ’s kingdom stands in judgment over all kingdoms built on violence, exclusion and fear. He senses that Jesus’ reign begins not after escaping injustice but in the midst of it. His request is a prayer spoken throughout generations of oppressed people…Remember us when the world is transformed…Remember us when you come into your kingdom…Remember us.

Christ the King : Paradise is Restoration and Resistance

Jesus’ response…“Amen, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise”…is the moment the entire passage turns. The promise of Paradise is not escapism…it is the unveiling of a vision in which human dignity is restored…and the beloved community is found. Paradise is the world as God intends it, where no one is mocked, crucified or left alone in suffering. It is the fullest repudiation of the violence unfolding around them. Christ promises the fullness of restoration…the fullness of hope…mercy…justice.

A Kingdom That Breaks Into the Present : Christ the King

This promise is not merely for a man on a cross. It is Jesus’ final declaration that the last word over humanity is not condemnation but restoration. It is a pledge that the kingdom of God is breaking in even where society sees only despair. And it is a challenge to every generation of Christians…if Christ is above all injustice, then Christ’s people must refuse to make peace with injustice. The followers of a crucified King cannot align themselves with systems that crucify the innocent, mock the vulnerable or use power to preserve privilege.

Instead, we are called to stand where Christ stands…beside those the world dismisses, among those society cages, at the edges where pain is ignored. We are called to echo his promise of Paradise by building communities marked by justice, mercy and liberation. The cross reveals not only what the world is but what the world must become. Paradise is not only a future hope…it is a present calling.

Christ the King Sunday: The Reign of the Crucified One

In the end, the passage is not simply a story of two criminals and one dying Messiah. It is a portrait of a kingdom whose power is love, whose justice is mercy and whose King…crucified yet triumphant…leads us toward a world redeemed. Christ is above every injustice, not by avoiding it, but by entering it fully and transforming it forever. And he invites us, even now, to follow him into a Paradise that begins in solidarity with the crucified and ends in the liberation of all creation.

On this Christ the King Sunday, this passage proclaims that Jesus’ kingship is unlike any earthly power. The rulers and soldiers mocked him, yet the cross itself becomes his throne…a place where he reveals a kingdom built on mercy, justice and sacrificial love. The inscription meant as ridicule becomes truth…this crucified one truly is King. To honor Christ the King is to reject every system that mirrors the cruelty of Golgotha and to follow the one who reigns by lifting the lowly, remembering the forgotten and transforming every injustice into the first glimpse of Paradise.
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*If you would like to support the Execution Intervention Project (the organization that financially supports Dr. Hood’s work), click here.

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About The Rev. Dr. Jeff Hood

The Rev. Dr. Jeff Hood is a theologian, writer and activist who has spent years ministering to people on death row. As a spiritual advisor and witness to executions, he speaks out against state violence and calls for a society rooted in justice, mercy and the sacredness of life. You can read more about the author here.

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