Christ the King?

John 18:33-37

Welcome to the end of our liturgical year! Next Sunday we start Advent. As our undecorated Christmas tree tells us, soon, very soon, we’ll begin to officially anticipate the birth of Christ. But we’re not there yet. We’re still in Ordinary Time, which is where we spend most of our time.

Before we can start to dream of a sweet, newborn Jesus, we remember the events just before Easter-- we must listen in on the confrontation between Pilate and Jesus. Jesus has been turned in and Pilate has to figure out why. Jesus isn’t really on his radar, but he’s obviously upset somebody and so here we are. The only thing that slightly disturbs Pilate is this alleged claim of Jesus’ to be king, for this could signal possible political disturbance and unrest and it’s illegal to just challenge the emperors throne. And we watch this scene, wondering, with Pilate, if Jesus really is a king. But Jesus doesn’t answer, not directly, he doesn’t make the situation any less confusing for Pilate or for us.

Sometimes, reading this, I want the story to be different. I want Jesus to say “No!” I’m not here to challenge Caesar’s throne, I’m not a threat in the ways that you think, I was no threat to Herod, just let me go, back to what I was doing all along.

Sometimes, I want Jesus to say “Yes!” Of course, I am the king of the Jews, of the entire world, and your emperor should still not be concerned with me, because I’m not taking over in the way that you think—I’m not after his particular throne, but out to change the entire world--not as a power-hungry maniac, but as the living breathing god that I am, now let me go so I can get back to what I was doing all along.

But Jesus rarely behaves the way we want him to. Instead, he turns the question back to Pilate. Just as he did to his disciples when they asked if he was the Messiah and he replied with, “who do you say that I am.” To Pilate’s inquiry: those are your words not mine. “You say that I am.” And with Pilate, we wonder, does this cryptic, noncommittal response make Jesus a king? It’s enough to convince Pilate that Jesus is not a criminal, but not enough to save him from death.

This Jesus as King business is no less complicated and strange for us who do not live in the land of kings, than for the people who were much more familiar with the likes of King David. King David had questionable integrity, and yet was loved and chosen by God

Jesus is a king we can feel confident in, no moral ambiguity about this one—not possessing wives and slaves and riches and power, not about control, military might, or coercion.

And while Jesus does not say he is a king, he does lay claim to a kingdom—one that is “not of this world.” If his kingdom were an earthly one, his followers would fight for his freedom—he would have some sort of military might—some fighting power, followers who were organized and motivated to defend and protect their leader—but Jesus needs no such protection.

Not a violent, political image, not a worldly leader with robes and a crown—not a literal reality, but a metaphor. Because this humble man standing before Pilate, the one who is about to be tortured, is not of earthly royalty.

What does it mean for us? Do we say that Jesus is King of our hearts/king of our lives? Jesus is King—as ultimate ruler, or does it mean something else? Something bigger, something more expansive.

Because Jesus is both ruler and servant, both King and subject. It’s a paradoxical image, because Jesus is lowly servant as well as master of the universe—one who comes to save, rather than to control.

He tells Pilate, “I came into this world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice”—those who listen have no need to ask. Pilate demonstrates his cluelessness, his lack of insider knowledge, his missing VIP card to the club of truth, when he asks: “What is truth?” There’s no answer—if you don’t know, you don’t know—and if you read through the gospel of John, you’ll find your answer: It’s Jesus. Pilate looks him right in the face and misses the literal truth that is before him.

It probably wouldn’t make Pilate’s life any easier for jesus to say “I’m not a King, I’m the almighty God incarnate.” Jesus doesn’t say those things so much as let people figure it out for themselves. God generally doesn’t approach us and demand that we recognize God, God is more subtle, more shifty, more difficult to pin down, sometimes easy to miss, and easy to dismiss, and easy to doubt. Faith isn’t easy, isn’t obvious, and so jesus is going to parade around as God the King in any recognizable fashion and demand that we bow before his crown and kiss the hem of his robes. For those who do bow and kiss his feet, he offers praise, but he never asks for such devotion. That is on our part. It’s our responsibility to see God, to be alert, to watch for the truth. Sometimes it hits us over the head like a frying pan, obvious, plain to sight, and yet even then, what we see of as “proof” others can easily call coincidence, modern medicine, friendship, love, luck, but nothing more, nothing divine and holy, not the hand of God.

And so we have our unusual King to crown this morning—one who is humble and subtle, not loud and ostentatious, not obvious, but rather easy to pass by, to mistake as a bruised and battered and misunderstood criminal.

And he is our Lord. When we are bruised and battered and misunderstood, we know he has gone before us, has been there too. He’s not a distant king, living a good and comfortable life, removed from everyday existence. He is a servant who has suffered—most likely even more than we ever will.

And when asked who he is, Jesus says the Truth. Which is still rather confusing and why there are still so many answers in the world: Jesus is Lord, Savor, King, prophet, teacher— to some God, to others merely an exceptional human being, and to some, a complete joke.

And yet he is the Truth—the entire truth of the universe, of existence, of all that is divine, of all that is God—embodied as a human man. No wonder our words fail us.