Tag: Feast of Christ the King

Sermon: King’s Cross, Luke 23:33-43 (Last Sunday Before Advent, Feast of Christ the King, Year C)

Luke 23:33-43

Christmas Pudding Flames: Wikimedia Commons

Last Monday, our daughter went to visit my sister to continue a family tradition. Every year, they meet to make the Christmas puddings together. It’s a tradition that began when my Mum and my sister used to make them. Even when Mum was confined to a care home in the last six months of her life, my sister took the Christmas pudding mix into the care home for her to stir. After Mum died, my sister invited our daughter to continue the tradition with her. They follow an old family recipé.

Yes, today is what has historically been called ‘Stir-Up Sunday’, the stirring of the Christmas pudding mix linked to the traditional Collect prayer for today:

Stir up, O Lord,
the wills of your faithful people,
that they, bringing forth the fruit of good works,
may by you be richly rewarded;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.[1]

But in the last hundred years – in fact, this year is the centenary – the Last Sunday Before Advent has been given a new and better name: the Feast of Christ the King. An initiative of Pope Pius XI to emphasise the reign of Christ in the wake of increased atheism and secularism after World War One, I think it’s an excellent name.

Why? Because the last Sunday of the Christian Year (which begins again on Advent Sunday) should be the climax of the Christian story. Our God reigns – no contest – in the life of the age to come. It’s where we’re heading. It’s our controlling vision for life.

And so I want to reflect on Christ our King today.

Firstly, Jesus is King at the Cross:

Earlier this year, our nation was stunned when a six-figure crowd marched through London for the ‘Unite the Kingdom’ rally led by the far-right activist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, better known as Tommy Robinson. Many people commented on the number of Christians and people with overtly Christian symbols, chanting Christian slogans, on the march. ‘Christ is King!’ they shouted. Some were dressed in mock-ups of Crusader uniforms. Alarmed at the spread of Islam, particularly in its militant form, they seemed to view a return to what they saw as the traditional religion of this nation as a way of subjugating Islam and Islamic terrorism. It was a view that seemed to want to impose Christianity by force. Is that the way Christ is King?

It’s very different from what Luke tells us. For sure, it’s what the religious authorities wanted from a Messiah. To them, Jesus couldn’t possibly the Chosen One, because here he was, nailed to a Cross, dying a shameful death as a convict:

‘He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Messiah of God, his chosen one!’ (verse 35b)

The Roman soldiers saw it similarly. They were used to enforcing the emperor’s will violently:

36 The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him sour wine, 37 and saying, ‘If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!’ 38 There was also an inscription over him, ‘This is the King of the Jews.’

And yet he was King of the Jews. And not just of the Jews. Here is the enthronement of King Jesus, not on a battlefield taking the blood of his enemies but shedding his own in the conquest of sin and of evil forces.

Had we read from Colossians 2 rather than Colossians 1 for our first reading, we might have come across these verses:

13 And when you were dead in trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive together with him, when he forgave us all our trespasses, 14 erasing the record that stood against us with its legal demands. He set this aside, nailing it to the cross. 15 He disarmed the rulers and authorities and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in it.

The Cross is an exercise in disarmament. Forgiveness takes away the power of shame that evil forces have over us. Jesus reigns, not through violence but through suffering love.

Is that something for us to remember in our Christian witness? Surely it is. When the world doesn’t like what we say, we don’t cower in silence but neither do we force it on people. Instead, we witness to Christ by a love that is willing to endure hardship and even suffer to be faithful to him.

Secondly, Jesus is King in Heaven:

Hear again some of the words of the penitent thief:

42 Then he said, ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.’ 43 He replied, ‘Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.’

Jesus has the authority to welcome the penitent thief into Heaven. He reigns there, too. After his Ascension he will return there to reign at the Father’s right hand.

Right now, Jesus reigns from Heaven. He is King there. To be sure, as I have said before, not everyone acknowledges that, any more than criminals acknowledge the laws of our land passed by Parliament and enforced by the Police. That doesn’t change the sovereignty of Parliament in our nation.

The evangelistic call is to acknowledge Jesus as King. Again, as I’ve said before, ‘good news’ in the Roman Empire was the announcement of a new Emperor on the throne or of that Emperor’s armies conquering other nations. We call people to recognise who is on the throne of the universe, and to swear allegiance to him.

And it also means that if this is our message, it is one by which we are to live. Remember that earliest Christian creed: ‘Jesus is Lord.’ It is a challenge for you and for me to live under the teaching of Jesus, because he is Lord (or King).

If you’re anything like me, you will almost immediately know some areas of your life that do not currently conform to the commands of Jesus. Maybe you are battling in those things, wrestling between the will of Jesus and what you want.

But this is important for our witness. The world soon notices when we who proclaim God’s will in Jesus are not living like that. It’s why we are often called hypocrites.

Sometimes we believe the enemy’s lie that satisfaction in life is only found when we concentrate on gratifying our desires. It is as if God is some kind of cosmic spoilsport who just wants to make us miserable. Yet is it not actually the truth that real fulfilment comes from adopting the ways of Jesus, even when they are costly? Is it not a wider application of the principle that it is more blessed to give than to receive?

What are the parts of our lives where we sense Jesus is whispering to us by his Spirit and calling us to walk in his ways, acknowledging him as King? Will we finally believe the Good News that true contentment is found in the kingdom of God and not in self-centredness?

When the world sees Christians living like that, there is often a sneaking admiration for such people. Such Christians as these often earn the right to speak about Jesus, and their words carry weight.

CS Lewis wrote in his book ‘Mere Christianity’:

Human history is the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy.

When we live under the reign of Jesus, we point to this better way.

Thirdly and finally, Jesus is King for eternity:

Verse 43 again:

He replied, ‘Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.’

Paradise. What’s the significance of that word here? I’m going to quote the New Testament scholar Ian Paul:

The language of ‘paradise’ would have made sense to a non-Jewish audience, but it was also used by Jews to refer either to an intermediate state in the presence of God as well as to our final destiny in a renewed heaven and earth. It is worth noting that the Greek translation of the Old Testament (the Septuagint, LXX) constantly translated the Hebrew for ‘garden’ with ‘paradise’, so that God planted a ‘paradise’ in Eden for the first human in Gen 2.8. For anyone aware of this, Jesus’ promise to the thief is of the restoration of all things.

Jesus’ promise to the penitent thief holds not only for the immediate context when he reigns despite opposition, but right into eternity, when God has made all things new, when the redeemed live in the new creation and worship in the New Jerusalem.

For this is the climax of God’s reign in Jesus: that he will so rule over all things in goodness and love that they will be made new. Sin, suffering, and death will be no more. People will live in fully reconciled relationships with God and each other. There will be peace and justice.

This is where we’re heading as disciples of Jesus. This is our direction of travel. The destination sign on the bus says, ‘New Jerusalem.’ That’s why I said in the introduction that today is the climax of the Christian Year. For this is where the mission of Jesus is taking us.

And if that is the case, then we live accordingly now. We build our lives, relationships, and values based on what God will bring in under his benevolent rule. We don’t lord it over one another, because there is one Lord and Saviour who is over all of us. As the Colossians 1 reading today said, he is over all things and is head of the church.

Anyone who does try to lord it over others is not fit for the kingdom of God. That’s why many of our American friends have been protesting against Donald Trump at the ‘No Kings’ rallies – not merely to protect the American constitution but because Christians say Jesus is Lord, and when they see Trump not merely exercising authority but lording it over people and dismantling any accountability through Supreme Court decisions, that is contrary to the Gospel.

We may not face temptation on that level, but we can be enticed into acting as big fish in small ponds. The church is not the place to climb the greasy pole but to kneel and serve, because Jesus is Lord, and will be for all eternity.

Conclusion

Sometimes, I like to talk about the Local Preacher whom my church youth group adored. Alfred John Evill was born in 1902 and was therefore a toddler when the Welsh Revival of 1904 happened. He preached like the revival was still going on.

He didn’t pick the most modern of hymns, but he was the most challenging preacher – which we loved. But he said one important thing about the fact that his sermons were challenging.

“I never challenge you without first challenging myself.”

Today’s sermon has been challenging. It has brought me up short as I wrote it, thinking about my willingness to practise suffering love, the areas where I fall short of acknowledging Jesus as Lord, and my commitment to serve.

May God grant me – and may God grant you, too – the grace to affirm in both words and deeds that Jesus is King.

[1] Methodist Worship Book, p560

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Jesus Wins! (Last Sunday Before Advent, Feast of Christ the King) Daniel 7:7-14 with Revelation 1:4-8

Daniel 7:7-14 (with Revelation 1:4-8)

World War One was called ‘The war to end all wars.’ The suffering and depravity of it shocked millions of people around the globe. Despair filled Europe. One Christian leader thought he could change the atmosphere.

That leader was Pope Pius XI. He believed people needed reminding of who was truly in charge, namely Jesus Christ. And so he proclaimed a new feast, the Feast of Christ the King. He said (and you’ll have to excuse the exclusive language of his day),

If men recognise the royal power of Christ privately and publicly, incredible benefits must spread through the civil community, such as a just liberty, discipline, tranquillity, agreement, and peace.

He directed that the feast be observed on the Last Sunday Before Advent, and that made excellent sense. It is the last day of the Christian Year. What begins in Advent with looking forward to the coming of Christ, continues with his birth, life, and ministry in Lent, marks his death and resurrection at Easter, then his Ascension, followed by the pouring out of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, reaches a climax with Christ reigning over all things.

There was just one problem. Not everyone heeded the teaching. Governments in places such as Berlin and Moscow ensured that the rest of the twentieth century was filled up with even more unimaginable and reprehensible evil as they rejected the rule of Christ.

To explore the reign of Christ now and in the future, and the tension with the presence of evil in the world, I’m going to take the final two verses of the Daniel reading as my foundation:

13 “In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. 14 He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all nations and peoples of every language worshipped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.

I’m going to interpret this, as the New Testament does, with the ‘son of man’ (NIV) or ‘human being’ (NRSV) being fulfilled by Jesus. There is much more nuance than that involved, but that will do us for our purposes today.

Firstly, let’s consider the reign of Christ now:

You may remember that Matthew, Mark, and Luke all record a conversation the disciples have with Jesus where they are in Jerusalem in ‘Holy Week’ and they point to the beauty of the Temple. Jesus replies by telling them that not a stone of it will be left standing, because Rome will come and destroy it. The disciples then ask him when this will happen, and Jesus launches into some prophetic words about the harrowing events that will come.

In that context, he quotes Daniel 7:13, about the Son of Man coming with the clouds of heaven, and many Christians have jumped on these words to think he is now talking about the Second Coming. If Jesus is the Son of Man and he is ‘coming’ then surely this must be his return? People who believe this then get into all sorts of knots about what Jesus says regarding people alive then who will witness this.

But they forget one important detail. When the Son of Man comes on the clouds of heaven, where does he come to? In Daniel, he doesn’t come to earth: he comes to the Ancient of Days, that is, Almighty God. It is about him returning to heaven. In other words, Jesus is talking about the Ascension. Jesus is reigning at the Father’s right hand from the Ascension onwards.

However, we live in a world where not everyone accepts this. We would rather have others in charge, or perhaps run our own lives. How does that work out? The writer James Cary puts it like this:

We say things like ‘The Prime Minister is running the country’. Could this ever possibly have been true? This is not a comment on Keir Starmer, or his predecessors or successors. I seek only to point out the insanity of the notion that any one single person can run an extremely complex and diverse society of 65 million people – all of whom seek to be their own king or queen. Premiership after premiership has ended in failure with ever increasing rapidity. Keir Starmer, impressively, has saved time by starting with failure. That’s rare but, at least, efficient.

So what’s required of us? As God’s people, we are a colony of his coming kingdom. One classic definition of the church is to say that we are a sign and foretaste of God’s kingdom. It is our calling to live under that reign and seek to bring people and all of creation under that reign, too. We see the vision of that in verse 14:

He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all nations and peoples of every language worshipped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.

We are junior partners in God’s project to usher in the day when ‘all nations and peoples of every language’ will worship Jesus Christ.

That means first of all bringing our own lives in order under his Lordship. The very fact that we have seen safeguarding scandals where church leaders were more concerned to protect the reputation of the church than the welfare of victims and survivors has had a devastating effect on the church’s witness. In the light of the John Smyth scandal, the radio broadcaster Nicky Campbell said on air that there was no way he would now ever consider the Christian faith. Campbell is on record as saying he was abused as a youngster.

But then a Christian woman came on his show and told her own story of abuse. And she told him how the church and her faith had helped her come through the experience. With great integrity, Campbell softened his position on Christianity as a result of her testimony.

We need then both to live our lives under the reign of Christ, which includes using power when we have it in a godly way, and taking the side of the last and the least in our world, as Jesus did. We also need to be inviting others to do the same.

And this links secondly with the reign of Christ to come:

I said that the Gospels use Daniel 7:13 about the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven to mean the Ascension. But Revelation 1 doesn’t. John chops off the bit about coming to the Ancient of Days and puts it with some words from Zechariah 12:

7 ‘Look, he is coming with the clouds,’
    and ‘every eye will see him,
even those who pierced him’;
    and all peoples on earth ‘will mourn because of him.’
So shall it be! Amen.

Now we do have the appearing of Christ again in view. This is the time when all nations and peoples of every language will worship him. It is the time Paul spoke of in Philippians 2 when every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

We may long for that day when all will be good and true, when society will be just, when darkness in all its forms will be banished. This is our great hope. Just as God remade Jesus’ body in the Resurrection, so he will remake all things. It gives us that longing to say, ‘Come, Lord Jesus.’ And when we come to Holy Communion, our sharing in a small piece of bread and a sip of wine makes us ache for the heavenly banquet, the marriage feast of the Lamb.

Our critics would say this is classic ‘pie in the sky when you die.’ But it isn’t, if we understand it properly. Because this vision makes us restless with hope now. This hope drives us to action.

On Tuesday, one of the greatest preachers of our generation, the American Baptist minister and sociologist Tony Campolo, died at the age of 89. I heard him preach a few times when I was in my twenties and his emphasis on true discipleship involving not just belief but also committed action on behalf of the poor influenced many thousands of Christians.

On Wednesday, I watched a video of an old sermon of his from Spring Harvest.

In it, he tells contrasting stories of two students he knew from the university where he taught. One went on a mission trip to a developing country and came back saying, I am going to train as a doctor and then go and serve these people. He did train as a doctor, but instead of keeping his promise he became a cosmetic surgeon. He didn’t practise the kind of cosmetic surgery that helps people who have suffered life-changing accidents: he practised the sort that only the wealthy and vain pay for. Yes, he was a lay leader at his church, and yes, he tithed his income. But in Campolo’s eyes he blew it, because he was seduced by wealth and didn’t serve the poor.

The other student went from Campolo’s university in Philadelphia to Harvard Law School, and qualified to practise law. He was offered a lucrative job with a $500,000 annual salary, but he turned it down. He moved to Alabama to defend prisoners on death row. Many of them were on death row, because they couldn’t afford good lawyers, so he didn’t charge the fees he could have earned elsewhere. For him, it was an outworking of Jesus’ Beatitude, ‘Blessèd are the merciful.’

Which one followed Jesus? Which one anticipated the everlasting dominion of Christ? I think you know.

Apart from the obvious teaching of Jesus, what motivated Tony Campolo to make this emphasis his life’s defining characteristic? He used to tell a story of how people would ask him why he was so relentlessly cheerful in a world so full of pain and injustice. His reply?

‘I believe the Bible, and I’ve peeked at the final chapter. And Jesus wins.’

In other words, his commitment to the poor of the world was driven by his vision of Christ the King. He is reigning now, but currently not everyone acknowledges it. While waiting for the glorious day, Campolo called all who call themselves Christians not to be mere believers: after all, he said, the devil believes all the right doctrines about God. Jesus didn’t say go into all the world and make believers: he said go into all the world and make disciples. And that will involve us doing Jesus-like things, such as caring and advocating for the downtrodden.

You or I may not be a lawyer or a doctor. We may not hold some socially prestigious position. But all of us have opportunities to serve the disadvantaged in some way. We do it, because on the great day when Christ rules as King without any more resistance, there will be no more downtrodden, no more disadvantaged, no more poor, no more suffering of injustice. So we prepare for it now.

Remember: Jesus wins. Let’s get ready for that day.

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It’s The King, Jim, But Not As We Know It, Luke 23:33-43 (Sunday Before Advent Year C 2022)

Luke 23:33-43

It has become fashionable to refer to this Last Sunday Before Advent as the Feast Of Christ The King. But once of my minister friends said recently he wasn’t going to call today the Feast Of Christ The King, because that was only invented by the Pope in 1925.

My friend is right, but I disagree with him.

He is right that Pope Pius XI came up with that name, but just because a Catholic Pope invented the feast doesn’t mean it’s wrong.

I mean, what’s the alternative? When we just call today the Last Sunday Before Advent it’s as if everything is just petering out so that we can start winding up through Advent again, getting excited for Christmas.

But does the Christian Year really fizzle out like that? The Christian story doesn’t. It comes to a climax with the kingdom of God coming in all its fulness and God putting everything right at the Last Judgement. It comes with everything, even death, being conquered by Christ and placed under his feet. It is the time when everything will have been made new. Pain, tears, and suffering will be abolished. I want to celebrate that before we begin to retell the Christian story at Advent.

So I’m sticking with the Feast Of Christ The King. It’s a wonderful day. I was even twenty-four hours later than I intended emailing the order of service through this week because I was so spoilt for choice of hymns and songs, there are so many that celebrate Jesus as King.

But here’s the surprise. If we take a final episode from Luke’s Gospel to explore this wonderful theme, then we end up in an unexpected location. For although we read throughout Luke of Jesus inaugurating the kingdom of God, the place where Luke shows Jesus being addressed as King is in the reading we heard. He is proclaimed King at the Cross. Of all the places.

So how does Jesus act as King at the Cross? In this strange location he also exercises kingship in startling ways.

Firstly, Jesus forgives his enemies.

If you’ve been to any of the weddings I’ve conducted you may have heard me tell the story about the newlyweds who had all their photos taken outside the front of the church after the ceremony. The photographer got all the usual groups together there: groom with best man, bride with bridesmaids, happy couple with his family, with her family, with friends, and so on. What the photographer didn’t notice is that behind the couple in every photo was the church noticeboard, which served as a wayside pulpit. So immediately behind the bride and groom was a Bible verse: ‘Father forgive them, for they don’t know what they’re doing.’

34 Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.’

A king may pardon criminals. But that is usually after they have been convicted and with a sense that yes, these people have indeed done wrong. But Jesus is surrounded by people who are wilfully taunting him and inflicting pain on him. These are the people he asks his Father to forgive. People who think that the wicked things they are doing are actually right.

They don’t know what they’re doing? They’re acting with their own free will and are therefore answerable for their actions, but this passage is stuffed with allusions to Old Testament psalms and prophecies, indicating that God was working out his eternal purposes at the Cross. So yes, they were morally responsible, but God was using even their sinful actions to accomplish his will.

So here is a kingdom that is based on justice, yes, but not on revenge.

And how glad we should be that his kingdom is like this. We have all acted as enemies of God in our lives. We have all put Jesus on the Cross by our actions, even without realising it. If God’s only option were vengeance, we would have been fried by now.

But at the Cross, Jesus says, whatever you have done to me, I offer you forgiveness. Will you respond by leaving behind the ways by which you have crucified me and live instead under my kingdom?

The invitation is there. How do we respond?

Secondly, Jesus suffers.

38 There was a written notice above him, which read: THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS.

But Luke writes this against a backdrop of rulers and soldiers sneering at his apparent inability to save himself (verses 35-37). The supposed Messiah, the true King of Israel, is suffering. This invalidates his claim in their eyes. And so they mock.

That way of thinking hasn’t gone away. It’s still present in the world. As I’ve said before, Islam believes Jesus couldn’t have died on the Cross, because no prophet of God should end up suffering and dying unjustly. To which Christians say – they shouldn’t, but they do. However, God will put things right in the Resurrection.

It’s a contrast to what we marked a week ago with Remembrance Sunday. We remembered great and terrible suffering then, but of a different kind. People risked suffering for the sake of freedom. But it wasn’t that their suffering brought freedom. The surrender of the Nazis and of Japan happened when they could no longer endure the suffering and defeats inflicted upon them.

But in the case of Jesus at the Cross he suffers not in defeat but in victory. His suffering for the sin of the world is what brings freedom to those who will embrace him.

Once again, Jesus turns our expectations of kingship upside-down. Unlike Roman emperors condemning gladiators to death in the Colosseum, he takes on death, feels all its force, and protects others from its consequences. He is like the bumper of the car taking the force of the collision and protecting the driver and passengers.

And he is victorious. For he removes the sting of death, and serves notice on it in the Resurrection.

Jesus is the King in the model of the Old Testament: slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. And he shows that truth about God not only in the way he lives but in his death on the Cross.

Others mocked that title ‘King of the Jews’ at Golgotha but Jesus was showing his true kingship in the most radical way possible – the King of Love is the King of Suffering Love, suffering for his people.

Thirdly and finally, Jesus restores.

We come to the account of the two criminals executed with Jesus. One joins with the mockers:

39 One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: ‘Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!’

But the other, knowing that they have been justly convicted for their crimes unlike the innocent Jesus (verses 40-41) , makes his famous heart-rending plea:

42 Then he said, ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.’

43 Jesus answered him, ‘Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.’

‘Remember me.’ This sense of being forgotten and rejected by society – understandably! But has he heard of how merciful Jesus is to sinners? Has he heard the stories of Jesus sharing meal tables with the socially disreputable?

And guess what? Even in the middle of his agony as he hangs there, Jesus’ heart still beats for the excluded. He responds with grace to the cry for mercy.

And he does so with a change of his usual language. Normally when Jesus talks about death he uses the image of ‘being asleep.’ Not here. ‘Today you will be with me in paradise.’ Why?

Ian Paul, whom I often quote, puts it like this:

The language of ‘paradise’ would have made sense to a non-Jewish audience, but it was also used by Jews to refer either to an intermediate state in the presence of God as well as to our final destiny in a renewed heaven and earth. It is worth noting that the Greek translation of the Old Testament (the Septuagint, LXX) constantly translated the Hebrew for ‘garden’ with ‘paradise’, so that God planted a ‘paradise’ in Eden for the first human in Gen 2.8. For anyone aware of this, Jesus’ promise to the thief is of the restoration of all things.

The criminal will be in a place of restoration. His salvation means that he, like creation, will be restored to all that he was meant to be. All things are being made new, and that includes him. As the Apostle Paul says in 2 Corinthians, ‘If anyone is in Christ, new creation!’ Jesus isn’t about locking up the criminal and throwing away the key. He truly remembers him and makes him new. He makes him all he was ever meant to be.

He has the same project for us, too.

Conclusion

So King Jesus forgives his enemies, suffers out of love, and restores the forgotten. All this will reach its climax at the end of history as we know it.

How then do we live now in the light of that? If we return to Pope Pius XI and listen to why he made this Sunday the Feast Of Christ The King we shall know the answer. Pius said:

If to Christ our Lord is given all power in heaven and on earth; if all men, purchased by his precious blood, are by a new right subjected to his dominion; if this power embraces all men, it must be clear that not one of our faculties is exempt from his empire. He must reign in our minds, which should assent with perfect submission and firm belief to revealed truths and to the doctrines of Christ. He must reign in our wills, which should obey the laws and precepts of God. He must reign in our hearts, which should spurn natural desires and love God above all things, and cleave to him alone. He must reign in our bodies and in our members, which should serve as instruments for the interior sanctification of our souls, or to use the words of the Apostle Paul, as instruments of justice unto God.

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Last Sunday Before Advent, The Feast of Christ the King (Year B)

John 18:33-37

I feel sorry for Pontius Pilate. This was the man who should be in charge – well, on behalf of the Roman Emperor, of course. But he doesn’t know what to do with Jesus, this supposed King of the Jews. Pilate should be decisive, he should be acting powerfully, but he isn’t.

Why? He’s a lame duck ruler. We’ve sometimes seen lame duck Prime Ministers in the UK when the ruling party has lost its majority in the House of Commons and no other party will enter into an arrangement or a coalition with them. And we’ve seen lame duck American Presidents when their party has lost its majority in both Houses of their elected representatives.

Pilate is at the mercy of the Jewish leaders. They might be speaking as if they are soliciting a favour or pleading with him, but they have him round their little finger. For a few years previously, Pilate had sent Roman soldiers into the Temple in Jerusalem, where some of their acts had scandalised Jewish religious sensibilities. The Jewish leaders had sent a deputation to Rome to protest, knowing this kind of unnecessarily offensive behaviour was against Imperial policy. As a result, Pilate was on a final warning from Rome. One more mis-step and he would be exiled.

So we have this dreadful, ironic situation before us. Pilate, the man who has all the human power and authority, is weak. The Jewish leaders, who should have been kept in check by a better political operator, can play the system. And the One who looks weakest of all is the One hailed as King.

King of the Jews

33 Pilate then went back inside the palace, summoned Jesus and asked him, ‘Are you the king of the Jews?’

It’s a Jewish title being applied to Jesus. Never in the New Testament is Jesus called ‘Emperor’ in contrast to Caesar. No: when the Gospel gets thoroughly into the Graeco-Roman cultures the title the early church appropriates for him there is not ‘Emperor’ but ‘Lord’, corresponding with the divine claim that Roman Emperors made for themselves. That was used to claim not merely Jesus’ right to reign and rule, but his divine status. He is more than an Emperor.

But ‘King of the Jews’ – now that’s a problem. The Jewish nation had longed to have a king again since losing their monarchy at the Exile in the sixth century BC. And it was a threat to Rome, because of Jewish aspirations to have a leader who would topple the occupying Roman forces. Jesus could be a threat to Pilate, even if previous pretenders had usually been summarily arrested and executed.

Pilate would not be alone in finding the title ‘King of the Jews’ problematic. It was an issue for the Jewish leaders, too. It had become clear that Jesus didn’t conform to their ideals and not only that, he was fiercely critical of them. Whichever group of Jews they belonged to, Jesus had a largely unfavourable critique of them.

So if you were a teacher of the law but taught it rigorously without factoring in love for God and love for neighbour, Jesus had something to say to you. If you were a Pharisee with a passion for faithful, orthodox religion but had held that in such a way that you had become harsh and judgmental, Jesus would point that out. And if you were a Sadducee, believing as little as possible and all the while being in cahoots with the occupying forces who gave you a privileged position in society, then Jesus wasn’t going to be your biggest fan.

And none of this is merely interesting historical detail, because there are similarities and parallels in our lives today. If Jesus is King, then we need to look at our lives and attitudes.

For he threatens to topple our personal authority and autonomy. We think we have the right to run our own lives. In the title of a popular play many years ago, we ask, ‘Whose life is it anyway?’ Or we sing along with Billy Joel, ‘Keep it to yourself, it’s my life.’

But Jesus says no, it’s not your life, you were bought with a price. You belong to me. I am king. We have some re-ordering to do.

Or we apply our faith in Jesus harshly, looking down on others, casting aspersions on them, acting as if only they are the ones who have things to put right in their lives, because we hold to the true and pure faith. But many a passionate Christian has turned into a Pharisee over the centuries, and it’s still happening.

And others of us would rather hob-nob with the powerful of our society, feathering our nests and hoping that some of their glory brushes off on us. But Jesus the King will tell us that this is a highly disordered way to live, and will call us to account, not least when our attraction to power is bad news for the poor.

My kingdom is not of this world

36 Jesus said, ‘My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place.’

Well, maybe here is where we’re let off the hook? If Jesus’ kingdom is not of this world, if it’s other-worldly and all about heaven, then perhaps we won’t be too challenged by it after all?

And for all their strictness, that’s the sort of line that cults like the Jehovah’s Witnesses take. Because Jesus’ kingdom is not of this world, we should not get involved in the things of this world, such as politics or economics. We can avoid getting messy with them.

And some Christians construe a version of faith that is a little bit like that, where Jesus is interested in their private, personal morality, but not about the rest of life. His kingdom is not of this world.

Except – there’s a problem. It would be better to translate these words ‘My kingdom is not from this world.’ You can see the intent from the rest of the verse, where Jesus says, ‘But now my kingdom is from another place.’

So it’s not about the limitations of the kingdom, it’s about where the kingdom originates from. The kingdom over which Jesus rules originates from heaven. It originates from the One who is the Creator of all things. And therefore, when Jesus says his kingdom is not from this world, he is distinguishing it from earthly kingdoms and empires, but not by limiting it. In fact, he’s expanding its reach.

If Jesus is King, then, he’s going to affect my personal morality, but he’s also going to affect my politics, my economics, my working life, and everything else. Many years ago, the late John Stott said that you can’t have Jesus as Saviour without having him as Lord, and if he isn’t Lord of all then he isn’t Lord at all.

As Christians we are recognising Jesus as King now, before the great day when every knee shall bow at his name and every tongue confess him as Lord[1]. We live in the knowledge that he is reigning now, before the day when all his enemies, death included, will be put under his feet, and there is no longer any rebellion or contesting of his rightful place.

We recognise Jesus as King now, because he is reigning already. That’s what the passage from Daniel 7:9-14 is about. When the one like a son of man (which in New Testament terms we understand to be Jesus) comes on the clouds of heaven it is not him returning to earth in glory in the Second Coming, for we read that at that time he comes to ‘The Ancient of Days’ – that is, Almighty God, and reigns there. This is a passage that foretells the implications of the Ascension.

At present, people ignore, disregard, oppose, or reject the reign of Jesus as King over all. But we know that day is coming, so as Christians we live as subjects of the King now. And in doing so, we witness to the world about what is coming.

The great twentieth century church leader Lesslie Newbigin once said that the local church is what he called ‘The hermeneutic of the Gospel.’ Now that may be high-falutin’ theological jargon to you, but the word ‘hermeneutic’ simply means ‘interpretation’. In other words, then, the way the local church lives interprets the Gospel to the people around it in society. If people want to know what the Christian message is, it’s not simply that we should be able to tell them what it means in our lives, they should be able to see what it’s like to live under the reign of Christ from the way we live.

I wonder how the local community looks at our church. Does it see a colony of Christ’s kingdom, living by what he says? Or does it see something else?

The Feast of Christ the King

And that is really what this Sunday is all about. I am reluctant to call it ‘The Last Sunday Before Advent’, with rather sounds to me like everything is petering out but don’t worry, everything will get going again next week.

I would rather call it by its positive title, ‘The Feast of Christ the King.’ This is where we have been heading for all of the church year since we began last Advent. We anticipated the coming of Christ and celebrated it. We marked his life and ministry, his death, resurrection, and ascension. Then we recalled the gift of the Spirit at Pentecost and the mission of God in which the Spirit-empowered church shares.

All this leads up to today. We are looking to the great day when Jesus reigns without any opposition, unlike now.

Therefore, it’s the climax of the Christian Year. This is where we’re heading. This is where history is heading.

Our calling is to live more faithfully like that future is here already, and to do so as a witness before the watching world.

[1] Philippians 2:10-11

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