Reign of Christ Sunday

by | Nov 24, 2024 | sermons

Scripture: John 18:28-38

Then they took Jesus from Caiaphas to Pilate’s headquarters. It was early in the morning. They themselves did not enter the headquarters, so as to avoid ritual defilement and to be able to eat the Passover. 29 So Pilate went out to them and said, “What accusation do you bring against this man?” 30 They answered, “If this man were not a criminal, we would not have handed him over to you.” 31 Pilate said to them, “Take him yourselves and judge him according to your law.” The Jews replied, “We are not permitted to put anyone to death.” 32 (This was to fulfill what Jesus had said when he indicated the kind of death he was to die.) 33 Then Pilate entered the headquarters again, summoned Jesus, and asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” 34 Jesus answered, “Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?” 35 Pilate replied, “I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done?” 36 Jesus answered, “My kingdom does not belong to this world. If my kingdom belonged to 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.” 37 Pilate asked him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “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.” 38 Pilate asked him, “What is truth?”

  • In the period after King David reigned, followed by the reign of the wise King Solomon, the Book of I Kings tells the history of a succession of other kings of Israel.
    • There were a few good kings among them.
    • But most of them sound like terrible people who died grisly deaths
    • Nadab was unfaithful to God and was assassinated after 2 years
    • Baasha killed everyone from the previous reign of King Jeroboam
    • Elah assassinated Baasha, then was assassinated by Zimri
    • Zimri ruled for only a week before the people overthrew him and made Omri  king;
      • Zimri then committed suicide by setting himself on fire in a burning palace
    • Ahab was known for marrying the infamous Canaanite Queen Jezebel
      • Queen Jezebel was thrown from a tower, was trampled by horses, and her body was eaten by dogs before her remains were buried.
    • In many cases, these terrible leaders either self-destructed or were destroyed by infighting among their own circle of jealous cronies.
    • Of each of these leaders, the bible says “He did what was evil in the sight of the  Lord”  
    • I Kings tells about the drama of a nation whose kings did not align with the nation’s core values and were destroyed over and over again because of it.
  • Given how many bad kings there were in biblical history, it’s no wonder that Jesus really  didn’t want to be referred to or thought of as a king.
    • Instead, he talked a lot about the character of God’s Kingdom without identifying himself as an authority over that Kingdom.
    • So when Pilate, a Roman governor with his own political authority in Jerusalem,  asks Jesus if he is the king of anything, Jesus skillfully re-directs the question.
    • He asks Pilate, “Are you asking this because of your own curiosity, or because of someone else is pushing you to label me?”
      • In other words, Jesus wants to know: “Who rules you, Pilate?” 
    • Jesus goes on to affirm that
      • there is a Kingdom,  
      • it is “not of this world” 
      • and he never claims claim to be the “king” of that Kingdom.  
    • The Kingdom he’s talking about doesn’t have borders or armies—
      • It isn’t the kind of Kingdom that would be a threat to Rome
    • This kingdom is not a human construct; it’s more like a divine plan
      • And it already exists wherever people listen to and follow God’s Truth;
        • Meaning, the bigger universal Truths that give life purpose
    • To all this, Pilate responds with his own existential question: what is Truth?
      • I can’t tell if this question is asked curiously or sarcastically
      • But I like to think Pilate, in this suspended moment, is drawn into the deeper question of where authority comes from
      • and what values Jesus might actually stands for;
      • It’s a moment where both Jesus and Pilate stand on the border between two worlds:
        • the human world with its systems of domination and human control and violence
        • and the realm of God, represented by everything Jesus taught about how loving power is wielded for ultimate good and Truth is  obeyed
      • But then… the moment passes, and Pilate throws Jesus back to the crowd to be lynched and executed
  • Back in the time of the ancient kings of Israel, God tried to help people live between these two worlds (of human and divine authority) by appointing prophets to prophecy alongside its kings.
    • This was God’s “checks and balances” system for the nation of Israel,
    • prophets like Elijah and Elisha, and Jeremiah and Isaiah would alert the kings and their people to that disconnect between what they were doing and what God wanted for them.
    • The prophets and kings represented two worlds that existed side by side:
      • One was the world of politics and governance, taxation, military might, economics, and all the give and take of running a human society
        • We cannot live in civil societies without these kinds of systems
      • The other was the world of miraculous wonder and divine judgment and spiritual authority
          • A realm just as real and just as vital to the well-being of God’s people!
        • We need that spiritual world too!
      • the prophets lived and moved in these two alternative universes,
      • Directly calling human kings accountable for their sins
      • But also, teaching, healing and demonstrating what the kingdom of God  looks like by their prophetic leadership.
  • Maybe we in the 21st Century have lost that sense of connection between divine and human power
  • In the 5th Century AD, St. Augustine puzzled over these two worlds as he watched Roman society collapsing:
    • He saw Christians as living simultaneously in these two worlds and how we have to negotiate our awareness of each.
    • Augustine called them the City of God and the City of Man
    • I’m not an Augustine scholar, and I realize that some of his thinking is problematic for us today,
    • But in general, he was trying to help his generation of Christians live in the Roman, human political system ALONGSIDE the realm of God, the dream of a kingdom not yet fully realized.
  • Augustine’s idea of these two parallel worlds presents us with limits and possibilities:
    • It reminds us we have to engage with the world as it is, we can’t escape into our utopias or move to Canada or wallow in apocalyptic fear or bury our heads in the sand.
    • We have to keep working for something that looks more like God’s reign
    • BUT it also acknowledges that we are not little gods.
    • no particular party or regime or social movement is to be identified with God’s kingdom.
    • God has a power beyond all of those systems.
    • And God is actually growing God’s reign right here where we might catch glimpses of it now and then.
    • In that way it gives us hope and a vision of something better coming
    • It gives us a reason to try to embody Christ’s reign as best as humanly possible!
  • This morning some of us walked around the Whittier neighborhood: your City of Humanity, and we looked for signs of God’s presence, of the Holy Spirit, as we walked.
    • Sometimes a place looks successful and vibrant; other places look forlorn and  beaten down;
    • But if we pay attention, in any realm where we find ourselves, we see signs that God has not abandoned us, our neighborhoods, our church, our nation, other nations, or the natural world.
    • An aside here: you may or may not be interested in Augustine;
    • But as we address the powers of our own culture—like the rise of Christian nationalism–we need to have theological language that helps us address some bad theology out there with better theology.
    • We’re all going to need to get a little more rooted in understanding those old heresies and classic teachings of our theological heritage.
  • Reign of Christ Sunday reminds us there is a power beyond our power
    • It assures us that presidents and dictators will not have the last word in history
    • While human power comes with all kinds of trouble,
    • But also, human power has done a lot of good in the world!
    • There is an alternative power that helps us aspire to something bigger than ourselves and is worthy of our ultimate trust in a world where we no longer know who to trust.
    • Christ’s reign may be harder to see than what you’re reading in the paper these days,
      • but the reign of God is a layer of reality we need to always be watching for and building with full faith that God is working alongside us, and God will not give up
    • And that ultimately, God will reign.