Have you ever had an experience of déjà vu? Déjà vu is French for the words, “already seen,” and it’s this strange feeling that you have seen or experienced this moment before. It’s especially common among those who only come to church on Christmas and Easter. They’re like, “Doesn’t the church talk about anything else—Jesus in the cradle or Jesus on the cross? I think I’ve heard this before.” I’m just kidding, of course. We appreciate worshipers anytime you come.
Comedian Steven Wright said in one of his routines: “Right now I’m having amnesia and déjà vu at the same time—I think I’ve forgotten this before.” Canadian stand-up comedian Stewart Francis in a routine asked, “Did I already do my déjà vu joke?” Well, I guess it just seemed to him that he had told that joke before. (1)
What is déjà vu, and why is it such a common experience? Alan Brown, a psychology professor from Southern Methodist University, wrote an article in Scientific American magazine detailing a few of his theories for why up to 70% of people experience déjà vu at some time in their life. That’s a statistic from Psychology Today magazine, by the way.
Déjà vu could be caused, Dr. Brown says, by really small, harmless seizures in the brain. Put the emphasis on “harmless.” I don’t want to cause anyone any distress the next time you experience déjà vu. You’re probably not having a stroke.
Or it could be because you were distracted and not paying full attention to your surroundings. When you finally did look up from your cell phone and paid attention, you got a weird feeling that you’ve experienced this place or this moment before. And you did experience it subconsciously a few seconds earlier while you were distracted.
Two noted medical doctors wrote an article suggesting that déjà vu might be due to having a dominant and a non-dominant eye. They wrote, “If that stronger eye sends information to the subconscious before both eyes focus and register the input as a conscious experience, your brain will tell you, ‘I’ve seen that before.’ And you have—but it was just a nanosecond ago.” (2)
Do you think Jesus could have experienced déjà vu? I think these moments recorded in Luke 23 of Jesus’ trial, torture and crucifixion must have seemed like déjà vu to him. “Hey, I’ve been here before!”
For example, in verse 35, we read, “. . . the rulers even sneered at him. They said, ‘He saved others; let him save himself if he is God’s Messiah, the Chosen One.’
“The soldiers also came up and mocked him. They offered him wine vinegar and said, ‘If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself.’
“There was a written notice above him, which read: THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS.
“One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: ‘Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!’”
Did you feel it? That goose bump feeling you get when you experience déjà vu? Because Jesus has heard these words before. Before he started his public ministry, Jesus spent forty days in the wilderness, testing his mettle while Satan tried to tempt him away from his mission. Do you remember Satan’s challenge to Jesus? “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.” “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down (from the temple).” (Matt. 4)
And isn’t that the same charge that many people throw at Jesus today? “If you are the Messiah, do this for me. If you are the Son of God, do that for me.”
Have you ever tried to share your faith in Jesus with an unbelieving friend or a skeptical colleague and had them say, “I’m not comfortable with this whole cross and dying thing. If Jesus was really God, He could have come down off that cross in a blaze of glory and zapped every soldier who hurt him and every official who accused him and every bystander who laughed at him, and then everybody would know the truth and we would all believe in Him.” Two thousand years later, and the question is the same. As Yogi Berra once said, “Déjà vu all over again.” “If you are the Son of God . . .”
So maybe it’s the question that needs answering this morning on Christ the King Sunday. If Jesus is the Son of God, why didn’t he save himself? And if Jesus is the Son of God, why did only a very few people in this passage recognize him? And finally, if Jesus is the Son of God, why do so few people recognize him as their King today? So let’s answer these questions through the eyes of two witnesses in this Bible passage, the two thieves crucified on either side of Jesus. One of them did not recognize Jesus as King. The other did. What did the second thief see in Jesus that made him recognize the King of Glory on that cross?
In the first place, the second thief saw a King who was sent by God for a special mission. “One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: ‘Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!’
“But the other criminal rebuked him. ‘Don’t you fear God,’ he said, ‘since you are under the same sentence? We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.’
“Then he said, ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.’”
Have you noticed that some people occupy unique positions in society? For example, did you know that the Queen of England is not required to have any form of identification, even a driver’s license? Police officers aren’t allowed to ask her for one because she’s not required to have one. Everywhere she goes, everyone is expected to know who the Queen of England is without her needing to show any proof of her identity. (3)
It must be a blessing and a curse to be so famous that everyone in the world recognizes you the moment they see you. However, here is what is interesting about Jesus. Jesus was a King who was recognized only by those who had faith in him. God deliberately hid His identity in Jesus Christ so that only those who live by faith rather than by sight would recognize him as King.
Jesus’ identity was revealed in his mission. He was to lay down his life for the world. You see, the religious and political rulers almost got it right. The soldiers almost got it right. The mocking thief almost got it right. If Jesus were the Son of God, the Messiah, he could save himself. In a heartbeat. In the blink of an eye. Why didn’t he?
In the book of John, chapter 10, Jesus is teaching the Pharisees that he is the Messiah, the one sent from God to save his people. Naturally, they expect the Messiah to appear as a powerful warrior-king who will conquer the forces of Roman rule. Instead, he reveals himself to be a shepherd who will die to save his sheep. In verses 17 and 18, Jesus says, “The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life—only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.” Jesus’ identity was revealed in his mission. He was to lay down his life for the world.
In November 2017 in Kabul, Afghanistan, a young police lieutenant named Sayed Basam Pacha made a split-second decision that saved the lives of dozens of people. Sayed and other police officers were guarding a political event at a local meeting hall. Lt. Sayed noticed a suspicious-looking man approaching the meeting hall. He shouted for the man to stop, and the man began running toward the hall.
Rather than running away, Sayed ran toward the man and grabbed him in a bear hug. The man was a suicide bomber. He detonated his explosive device, killing Lt. Sayed and thirteen other people. Eighteen people were wounded in the blast. But police investigators say the death toll would have been far higher if Lt. Sayed had not caught the bomber in a bear hug and absorbed most of the blast with his own body.
Lt. Sayed’s friends and family were not surprised by his sacrifice. They described him as cheerful, brave, always putting others before himself. They knew his courage came from his commitment to his job and to his country. Lt. Sayed’s father, a police commander, said proudly through his tears, “My son sacrificed himself to save other people.” (4)
Read about the last days of Jesus’ life and you’ll see that he knowingly, willingly sacrificed himself to save others. He absorbed the penalty of death in his own body so that we could live. What kind of king would give up his own life for his subjects? A King who was sent by God for a special mission. A King who was to lay down his life for the world.
In other words, the second thief saw a King whose agenda was motivated by mercy and love. That is not the way the rulers of this world normally behave.
Lord Acton is famous for his dictum that, “Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.” And yet here was one who truly did have absolute power, but his agenda was motivated by mercy and love.
Many people have been captivated by the show A Game of Thrones. This show is based on the best-selling set of books by George R. R. Martin. It is about the bloody, desperate struggles between warring clans trying to claim the throne of a fictional world called Westeros. In the show, the noble, heroic character of Ned Stark falsely believes his honorable character is sufficient to allow him to prevail in a wicked and power-hungry kingdom. One of his enemies, Queen Cersei tells him the hard truth, “When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die. There is no middle ground.” (5)
What a revealing theme: “When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die. There is no middle ground.” The religious and political leaders of Jesus’ day were playing the game of thrones. They were out for power. They were out for dominance. It was win or die for them. No middle ground. An honorable character would not guarantee a victorious outcome.
But they were fighting for an earthly kingdom and a temporary power, and they had to use lies and coercion, violence and fraud to maintain it.
Jesus was playing the game of thrones too, but he was fighting for a heavenly kingdom. His opponent was Satan, which was why he could look into the faces of the brutal soldiers and the mocking bystanders and pray, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” And Jesus’ motto wasn’t “win or die.” It was “die and win.” Take on the burden of our sins and die in our place, as our perfect sacrifice, to free us from our enemy Satan and save us from the penalty of death forever. The second thief saw a King whose agenda was motivated not by dominance but by mercy and love.
And finally, the second thief saw a King whose sacrifice was necessary for our salvation.
The first thief wanted to be saved from his situation. But he didn’t want to be saved from his sin. Let me say that again. The first thief wanted to be saved from his situation. But he didn’t want to be saved from his sin. His cry was simply, “Get me down off this cross. Be the Christ of convenience, the Messiah of magic tricks.” That was the desire of his heart. He didn’t want to be redeemed, just rescued.
And that’s us, isn’t it? “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down (from the temple).” If you’re the Son of God, save my marriage. Heal my child. Take away my pain. Just get me down off this cross. Then I’ll believe in you. Then I’ll call you Lord.
But the second thief looked at Jesus’ sacrifice, and he recognized the character, the mercy, the plan of God. He looked at Jesus, beaten and bloody and insulted and spit upon, and he saw a God who loved the world so much that He came to walk in our shoes and share our sorrows and die the most painful and humiliating death imaginable so that we could live forever with God.
Pastor John Stott wrote, “Before we can begin to see the cross as something done for us, we have to see it as something done by us.” Let me say that again: “Before we can begin to see the cross as something done for us, we have to see it as something done by us.”
The second thief looked at Jesus in his last, awful moments and saw his King hanging on a cross. He saw the purpose for Jesus’ sacrifice. He saw God’s plan for salvation. And all he could do was ask for mercy. “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” Whether or not you ever save me from my situation, save me from my sin and from my self.
Steven Cole tells the true story of a mother whose daughter ran away and fell into a life of sin. For a long time, no one even knew where she was. But eventually that daughter returned home and repented of her sin and gave her life to Jesus.
Someone asked the mother what she had done to bring her daughter back. She said, “I prayed for her night and day.” But that was not all. She also said, “I never went to bed at night without leaving my front door unlocked. I thought that if my daughter came back some night when I was in bed, she should never be able to say that she found the door locked. She should never be able to say that she came to her mother’s home, but couldn’t get in.” And so it happened. One night the daughter came back, tried the door, and found it open. This unlocked door was such a symbol of God’s grace to the young woman that she decided that night to turn her life around. The author writes, “That unlocked door is a beautiful illustration of God’s grace toward sinners. God’s door is always unlocked whenever you are willing to come home.” (6)
The cross of Jesus Christ is the key that unlocks the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is a chosen kingdom, not an imposed one. God’s not going to force it on you. You have to see it. You have to believe in it. You have to want it, like the thief on the cross, knowing that you don’t deserve it but throwing yourself on God’s mercy anyway because that kind of love can’t be earned. “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom,” said the second thief. And that is our prayer as well.
If we receive Jesus as our King, our identity is rooted in the love of God. The will of God becomes our agenda. The work of God becomes our calling. The hope of eternal life becomes our inheritance. Jesus didn’t come to just save us from our circumstances. He came to walk in our shoes and share our circumstances and use those circumstances to grow us into God’s image. And as we learn to submit our lives to Jesus’ reign, no matter what our circumstances, others will see the truth and the glory of God in our lives.
1. https://www.just-one-liners.com/topic/deja-vu/.
2. Drs. Michael Roizen and Mehmet Oz, cited in “9 Things Your Brain Is Trying to Tell You When You Experience Déjà vu” by Brandi Neal, Feb. 26, 2018. Cited at https://www.bustle.com/p/9-things-your-brain-is-trying-to-tell-you-when-you-experience-deja-vu-8334677.
3. “The 15 Most Bizarre Perks of the Royal Family” by Morgan Cutolo https://www.rd.com/culture/bizarre-royal-family-perks/.
4. “A Policeman’s Bear Hug Stops a Suicide Bomber From Killing More” by Rod Nordland and Fahim Abed, New York Times, Nov. 16, 2017. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/16/world/asia/kabul-explosion-police.html.
5. A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin (New York: Bantam Books), 1996.
6. https://www.sermoncentral.com/sermons/the-shrewd-steward-tim-smith-sermon-on-parable-shrewd-manager-204259?ref=SermonSerps. (J. C. Ryle, Foundations of Faith [Bridge Publishing]).