Reign of Christ Year B
Mary Holmen

2 Samuel 23:1-7; Psalm 132:1-13; Revelation 1:4b-8; John 18:33-37

What a strange way for a king to behave! What a place to find God’s Anointed!

The scene is the Praetorium, and Jesus is on trial for his life. Pilate, a very earthly ruler, is both judge and jury. The political powers have been set in motion by what Jesus has said and done, and Pilate is troubled by questions of identity and truth. Who are you? What have you done? Are you the King of the Jews? asks Pilate, and whatever he discerned from his encounter with Jesus, we do know this: Jesus was condemned and crucified on the political charge of claiming to be a ruler, the Messiah.

We come today to the end of the liturgical year, the Last Sunday after Pentecost, called the Reign of Christ. Through this past year, we have travelled the course of the Gospel, marked for us by the Creeds. We have been at the stable, at the cross, in the garden of resurrection, and in the upper room as the Holy Spirit swept down like wildfire.

At this year’s end, we turn our sights toward the ultimate End, also marked for us by the Creeds. We open ourselves to welcome the Last Day when “he will come in glory to judge the living and the dead”. We look for “the life of the world to come”.

God’s people have awaited the Last Day for a very long time. Long ago, God made a covenant with David, to make of him a “house” or dynasty. One of David’s descendents would always occupy the throne of Israel. In truth, many kings of the house of David were a sorry lot, ruling by coercion and fear, allowing corruption and injustice to run rampant. The covenant with David was said to be “everlasting”, but historically, David’s heirs ceased to rule the land when the Babylonian army invaded in 586 BCE. The longing for a perfect ruler was transformed over time to the expectation of a Messiah, God’s Anointed One, who would restore the nation, bring freedom to the people, and establish God’s reign of justice on earth before bringing an end to human history. In the meantime, for the just there was the hope of security and prosperity, with God’s help.

On this last Sunday, we also hear about the Last Day from the Last Book, the book of Revelation. John of Patmos has seen that Day in a vision. John declares, oddly and despite appearances, that Jesus Christ is the ruler of the kings of the earth. The rulers are themselves ruled. John seems to stretch out his finger and point, saying, “Look, all of you! He is coming with the clouds. Every eye will see him, even those who pierced him.”

After hearing the promise of a Davidic dynasty, after hearing John’s pronouncements about the kingdom which God has established and will bring in, we come to the Gospel. It all boils down to two men, facing one another, talking across one another. Jesus, descended from the house of David, and Pilate the governor. Jesus before Pilate and Pilate before Jesus. Pilate is not a king. He is a civil servant. His authority comes from Caesar and can be removed by Caesar. Jesus seems even less like a king. He is one step away from execution. This is not the splashy inauguration of the kingdom we were set up for just a few minutes ago. Or is it? The late Raymond Brown, one of the leading scholars in John’s gospel, is convinced that the dominant theme of Jesus’ trial before Pilate is that of kingship.

We hear a bit of the kingship debate:
     Pilate: “Are you the king of the Jews?”
     Jesus: “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.”

Jesus declares that his rule is marked by a refusal to resort to violence.

     Pilate asks again: “So you are a king?”
     Jesus is noncommittal: “You say that I am a king...”

The theme of kingship continues beyond our reading for today, and I invite you to go home and read the rest of chapter 18 and chapter 19 of John’s gospel. When Pilate addresses the crowd, he consistently calls Jesus “your king”. Jesus undergoes a mock enthronement at the hands of Pilate’s soldiers. He wears a thorny crown and a purple robe. The soldiers salute him as “king of the Jews” as they repeatedly slap him in the face. Pilate regally presents Jesus in his trumped-up costume to the crowd saying, “Behold the man.” The people shout as one in answer – not “Long live the king!” but “Crucify him!” Finally, Pilate has fixed to the cross, above the twisted body, a placard which says “...the king of the Jews”, in all the languages of those who might pass by, so that they will see and understand. Look here. Let this be a lesson to you. This is what happens to any pretender to power who would challenge the rule of mighty Caesar.

I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, says the Lord God Almighty, who is and who was and who is to come.

Because we have been to the cross and the garden of resurrection, we can see through the charade in this narrative. The pretenders to power are Pilate and his bosses. The true king is the harassed and seemingly helpless Jesus. John’s narrative shows us a ruler with all the trappings of power, who has authority to take life away, yet who stands powerless in the face of true power, authority and life. Jesus, as portrayed by John, is very much in charge of his fate.

When Pilate asks Jesus a second time if he is a king, Jesus adds, “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.” Remember that earlier, Jesus called himself the way, the truth, and the life. As the Truth, Jesus unmasks the sham of all oppressive worldly pretensions to power. Does Pilate belong to the truth? Will he listen? From this point on, the subject of the trial is not Jesus’ innocence. Even Pilate knows the answer to that one. The man on trial is now Pilate himself, and the question is whether he will respond to the truth. Pilate’s question to Jesus is telling: “And what is truth?” Pilate doesn’t even know what truth is. He doesn’t recognize the Truth when he sees him face to face.

The trial in John’s gospel places before us a choice: the kingdom of this world, or the realm of Jesus the Truth. The chief priests make their choice: “We have no king but Caesar.” Now it’s our turn. Will we listen to the voice of truth? Will we take our stand and say, “We have no king but Jesus”?

The very first Creed of the church was “Jesus is Lord.” A simple message, but a deeply subversive one, because it calls into question all other loyalties and allegiances, whatever they may be. To say that Jesus is Lord is to say that Caesar is not. The reign of Christ stands in sharp contrast to, and in stunning judgement upon, the kingdoms and rulers and systems of this world. Small wonder that Pilate is confused and all earthly authority is exposed and threatened by Jesus’ answer. There is no option but for Jesus to suffer and die. The world will not have it otherwise.

The daily prayer of Christians is the Lord’s Prayer. In it, we say, “Your kingdom come...on earth”. What does it mean to pray those words? When we say, “Your kingdom come”, we are of course asking for God’s reign of justice and peace to be established on earth. That is God’s will and it is the present reality of heaven. And it might be one of those “Be careful what you pray for” petitions, because for God’s reign to be established will require that we change. In fact, it will require that we die – die to old habitual ways of being in this world and begin to live in the ways of the kingdom. But when we say those words, we are not just asking. We are also announcing that it has already happened – that God’s reign has broken into human history in the person of Jesus of Nazareth and nothing is the same any more. As Timothy Radcliffe says in his book, Why Go to Church?, in Christ all barriers and divisions are overcome, of race, ethnicity, religion, gender, power, wealth and poverty, sin and separation from God, and even death. It’s such an important point that he repeats it throughout the book. In Christ we are one with God and one with each other, and this sacrament of the altar both forms and reveals this unity.

The kingdom of Jesus subverts the state wedded to the vast military, industrial, commercial complex, founded upon the truths of capitalism and efficiency and fed by the advertising media. Those are the powers of our world. They are Caesar. The reign of Jesus, though, is centred not upon clout, coercion and capital, but upon the cross, the sign of a self-giving love that conquers death, the sign of the victory of God over hatred, evil, and death itself. No more will we be seduced by the slick advertisement, the employee-of-the-month incentive, or the might of the stealth bomber. No more will we be duped by fear of the other and fear for our own security. We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come.

Easy and high-sounding, perhaps, for a preacher to say. But what should we do? Should we declare unilateral independence? Hole up in a fortified compound? Form a Christian Political Action party? Lead a tax revolt?

No. Christ’s realm is not from this world. So what can we do? We can be the church. We can be the community baptized into this king’s death and resurrection, the messianic people which lives no longer for itself, but for him who died for us and rose again. Jesus’ kingship submitted to worldly authority so that all political powers and all earthly rulers should behold and tremble. And the still deeper mystery is that this seemingly defeated, crucified one has been given dominion over all things. The last word is God’s, as was the first. The Holy One is the beginning and the end, to whom all earthly rulers will bow down. Human history will at last be understood in the light of God’s loving purpose. We, in our worship and our service to God and neighbour, have been given a place now in that kingdom which is and which is to come. Amen.