"Pilate entered the headquarters again, summoned Jesus, and asked him, "Are you the King of the Jews?" Jesus answered, "Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?" 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?" Jesus answered, "My kingdom is not from this world. If it 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 this here." Pilate asked, "So you are a king?" Jesus answered, "You have said 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."
--John 18: 33-37
What does royalty look like to you? Do you imagine royalty decked out in
splendor, with long flowing robes, maybe a scepter and a crown? Chances are your image of royalty reflects
power, strength, prestige. Today is our
last Sunday of the church year, which we call Christ the King Sunday, or Reign
of Christ Sunday. That’s the reason we’re
wearing white today. The reason this
day exists is that, as we get ready to start a new year next week and begin our
Advent journey, we end the year with the reminder of Jesus’ sovereignty and
kingship over the whole universe.
We express Jesus’ kingship in a number of ways. In the church I serve there is a beautiful Christus Rex (which literally
means, 'Christ the King') on the wall behind the altar. It shows Jesus adorned with a crown, decked
out in lustrous robes. We don’t see the wounds that were inflicted upon him,
we only see his majesty and his glory.
It’s a strikingly beautiful reminder for everyone who comes into this
space that Jesus reigns over all.
The Christus Rex on the east wall at the Church of the Good Shepherd, Asheboro
In the 8th century there was a fella named Bede
who wrote an Ecclesiastical History of the English People, the first account of
Anglo-Saxon England ever written. For
this we call him the Venerable Bede. But
his contribution is even greater because he adopted the regular use of using BC and AD to date things. It was a method originally used by Dionysius Exiguus in relation to the dates after Easter, but Bede said that we should use it for all dates after the earthly birth of Jesus. His reason? Since we generally
used the reign of monarchs for dating—this event happened in the blank reign
of king what’s his face—human history since the time of Jesus should be differentiated from the time before him since Jesus, after all, is the king over the whole
universe, and his reign shall never end.
Thus, he regularly used BC—Before Christ—for the years prior to Jesus’ human birth
and AD—Anno Domini, or Year of Our Lord—for the dates since his birth. So we are living in the Year of Our Lord
2015. You have the Venerable Bede to
thank for that.
An artist's depiction of the Venerable Bede, whose promulgation of BC and AD led to their regular use in chronology.
Jesus’ kingship is one that has literally changed the world
in a multitude of ways. So you might
expect our Gospel to reflect that. But
instead of Jesus giving us images of him riding the clouds or judging the world
or seated at the right hand of God the Father, we have a very different image
today. In this year, Year B, we have
been walking with the communities of both Mark and John, who have been
continuously reminding us that it is the kingdom of God, not the kingdom of
Rome, that has the supreme authority in the universe. And with that in mind, today we find those
two kingdoms staring each other right in the face in the forms of Jesus and
Pontius Pilate.
The meeting between Pilate and Jesus, as seen in The Passion of the Christ.
Pilate was the governor of Judea and a visible symbol of
the might and power of Rome. Earlier in
the week, as Jesus was riding into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey—a symbol
of humility—he was riding in on the other side of the city in a grand Roman
parade. He lived in a palace in the
northwestern end of Jerusalem, and the authority that he exerted was granted to
him by the world’s greatest superpower Rome and its emperor who laid claim to
the title Son of God—which went back to the days of Julius Caesar. Surely this is what royalty looks like.
Standing in front of
him is Jesus. A homeless son of a refugee family living
in a land occupied by a foreign power.
His clothes are rags. He stands
physically beaten and broken, abandoned by his friends and scorned by his own
people, accused of heresy and treason, awaiting his execution. Surely, surely, this cannot be the face of
the kingdom of God. Oh but it is.
Our Christian faith is really quite radical when we think
about it; it's crazy! Our faith flies in
the very face of our human instincts and what the natural order would have us
believe about the way the world works.
Our faith tells us that this homeless guy, this dirty pacifist who
hung out with the most notorious of sinners is the face of true royalty, not
this guy with the palace and the riches and the fancy title and the army at his
back. Crazy!
In this perfectly set scene, which is only in the Fourth
Gospel, we see the Kingdom of Humanity and the Kingdom of God face to face. Preston Epps, who was a Greek professor at
UNC, once wrote about the differences between these two kingdoms. Some of the things he wrote include: the kingdom of humanity says assert yourself,
the kingdom of God says humble yourself; the kingdom of humanity says
retaliate, the kingdom of God says forgive; the kingdom of humanity says get,
accumulate, the kingdom of God says give, share. It is a truly crazy thing to actually live
our lives as though we are citizens of the Kingdom of God because all around us
is the Kingdom of Humanity telling us otherwise. And it is a truly crazy thing for us to
really believe that our King is the one standing there in rags preparing for
his execution. But we Christians are a
crazy lot.
All summer long we have been talking about these two
kingdoms and how the gospels remind us that it is the kingdom of God that has
the final say. What they also say to us,
especially in this day and age of accumulation and wealth and material possessions
is that if we look to the rich, the powerful, the armies with their might, and
the elite politicians spewing their rhetoric, and expect to see the kingdom of
God, we will be sorely disappointed. You
want to know what the kingdom of God looks like? Walk down the street and see someone standing
on the corner with a cardboard sign for a testimonial. Go to a soup kitchen like Our Daily Bread and
see the faces of those who are hungry,
homeless, jobless. Visit Randolph Correction and spend time talking to
prisoners and hearing their stories. That’s what the kingdom of God looks
like. It looks like the marginalized. Because that is what our king looked like
when he walked this earth, when he stood against the greatest political and
military power the world has known. Yes,
he reigns in glory with all of his radiance as seen in the Christus Rex. But we must never forget that as he walked
among us he walk as one of the least of these, as an “other”, an outsider, and
someone who pushed so hard against the establishment that they crucified
him. This is true royalty. This is what our king looked like, and
brothers and sisters, I’m telling you, we still see him day after day after
day. And we still hear him calling us to
love him and serve him and make his kingdom come here on earth as it is in heaven.
