John 18:33-38
This
may be a very big, very wrong assumption on my part, but I suspect that
everyone here as at least heard about a certain prince who married a certain
commoner last May. If my assumption is wrong – not everyone is as obsessed with
them as I am – and you don’t know who I’m referring to, I’ll fill you in.
Prince Harry, second son of Prince Charles and fifth in line of succession to
the throne of England
She is American –
that should have been strike one. She is divorced – that should have been
strike two. And she is of a multi-cultural background. Her mother is African
American. Her father is white. That should have definitely been strike three. Once
upon a time, any one of those factors would have completely and utterly knocked
Markle out of the running to be royal. It has not been that many years since
Prince Harry’s great uncle abdicated his throne because he was not allowed to
marry his divorced American squeeze. Yes, I said, “squeeze.”
It takes
permission from the Queen for a royal to marry, and she gave her grandson
permission to marry this divorced American with a multi-cultural heritage.
Times are a changing, and those changes are even being felt in England
If anyone did not
fit the mold of what it meant to be a royal, it would be Jesus. He was a new
kind of royal indeed. Our passage from John’s gospel may seem unexpected this
morning. The meeting between Jesus and Pontius Pilate is one we expect to hear
during Holy Week, but on Christ the King Sunday this exchange between Pilate
and Jesus rings true and relevant.
The religious
authorities did not have the power to have someone executed. That was up to the
Roman state. That is why Pilate was brought in. These same leaders could also
not enter Pilate’s headquarters without becoming ritually unclean. So they had
Jesus taken to Pilate, but would not be there to witness the conversation
between the two men. The religious leaders wanted Pilate to do their dirty work
for them.
Pilate must have
understood this, and I imagine that if we could go back in time and listen in,
we would hear his understanding in his tone of voice.
“Are you the King
of the Jews?” might sound more like, “So you’re the King of the Jews, are you?”
Jesus, ever aware
of the verbal traps laid for him, would not give him a direct answer in return.
“Do you ask this
on your own, or did others tell you about me?”
King of the Jews
would have meant something different to the religious leaders than it would
have to Pilate. To Pilate, a King of the Jews would have been a political
threat, a potential political upstart. A King rising from the Jews might have
been someone poised to revolt against Roman rule and threaten not only Pilate’s
position of power, but Roman power as well.
But
the religious leadership, those priests and scribes, saw the claim of Jesus
being the King of the Jews as someone believed to be anointed as Messiah. Jesus
was not just claiming to be another kind of religious authority; he was
claiming to be the authority. He was the Truth, the Way, the
Life. This was also a threat to their power. From both perspectives, from
Pilate’s and from the religious leadership, this threat had to be eradicated.
If there were going to be a King of the Jews, it could certainly not be this
particular man, this very different, unexpected, very new kind of royal.
Jesus
was definitely a new and, to some, an unwelcome kind of royal. His royalty was
what Pilate was trying to get at with his interrogation of him.
When
Jesus responded with his question about who told Pilate about Jesus’ kingship,
Pilate answered,
“I’m
not a Jew am I? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to
me. What have you done?”
Jesus
still did not give him a straight or satisfactory answer. Instead he said,
“My
kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my
followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But
as it is, my kingdom is not from here.”
Pilate
just wants an answer.
“So
you are a king?”
“You
say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world,
to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my
voice.”
“What
is truth?”
My
kingdom is not from this world. Jesus was a new kind of royal, and his kingdom
was a new kind of realm. Jesus’ answer was not so much about who he was, but
about where he was from. His kingship and his identity as king was and is tied
up in where Jesus came from, more specifically who he came from.
My
kingdom is not from this world. That means that it does not look like the
kingdoms of this world. It does not sound like the kingdoms of this world. It
does not seek to rule like the kingdoms of this world. It is not like the
kingdoms of this world. Jesus was and is a new kind of royal, which means that
his kingdom – the kingdom of God
What
does this mean for us? What does it mean that Jesus, our Savior, our Sovereign
and our King is a new and unexpected kind of royal with a new and unexpected
kind of kingdom? I know that I have preached this before, but one thing that we
need to understand about the kingdom
of God kingdom
of God
Whatever
our understanding of the kingdom of God kingdom
of God
Again,
what does this mean for us? What does observing Christ the King Sunday mean for
us? I think that recognizing that Jesus was and is a new kind of royal, with a
new kind of kingdom is a reminder of who we are called to follow and how we are
called to follow. How easy it is to get caught up in the trappings of this
world’s kingdoms. How easy it is to confuse this world’s kingdoms with the kingdom
of God
That’s
why this Sunday was established: as a reminder to believers of who they were
supposed to be following, to whom they were supposed to pledge their loyalties and
the kind of kingdom they were to participate in. So that is what we are called
to do as well: to remember that our King is a new kind of royal and that we are
called to follow him, to follow in his unexpected footsteps. We are called to
participate in his kingdom, right now, in this time and in this place; to
remember that the kingdom of God
No comments:
Post a Comment