Christ the King – 2024
John 18:33-37
Marian Free
In the name of God who continues to surprise, confound and amaze us. Amen.
Many years ago, I read an article in an occupational therapy journal about children in foster care. It reported that no matter how much abuse or neglect a child had suffered at the hands of a natural parent they still wanted to go home. It seemed that the idea of family, mother, father created a deep longing to belong, even if the child’s reality did not live up to expectation. Apparently, an abusive mother was better than no mother, a disparaging, derisive father was better than no father.
Terms like mother, father, mum, dad, family come laden with meaning – often idealistic and vastly different from many people’s reality. Few parents are perfect and even if they were, their styles of parenting would differ according to their own experience, their personalities and the relationship that they have with each other – no one family is the same. Even though the definition of “family” has vastly changed over the last 50 years, still many of us have an idea of what a mother/father/family should be like[1].
The same is true of the expression “God”. In the eighties and nineties many feminists and others chose to use the term “Godde” to make it clear that the divinity in whom they believed was not a bearded, white-haired man sitting on a throne, condemning people to the fire of hell and that “Godde’ was much bigger and broader than the narrow image that was circulating. Many of us still confront the problem that the God which many of our friends have rejected is unrecognisable to us – a human invention not a revelation of scripture ad certainly not related to our experience.
Over and again, scripture confronts a narrow, unimaginative concept of God, an image of God that is easier to manage, understand and, dare I say, control. In a phrase that I often repeat, Isaiah says: “God’s thoughts are not our thoughts and God’s ways are not our ways.” (Is 55:8). Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians makes the same point when he argues that the cross exposes our false understanding and overturns all our preconceptions. “God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.” (1 Cor 1: 28).
Though there might be some assumptions that we can make about God, God consistently overturns and challenges our simple-minded ideas. Nowhere is this more obvious than with the person Jesus. On every level, Jesus failed to meet expectations and at every turn Jesus refused to be bound by the limits of the human mind. Jesus came to serve not to be served, he argued that the first would be last, and announced – not that he would lead the Israelites to victory – but that he would suffer and die.
That Jesus confounds every attempt to label him and to box him in, is particularly clear in Jesus’ interaction with Pilate. Despite the fact that Pilate is in a position to put Jesus to death, Jesus refuses to give Pilate a clear answer to Pilate’s question as to who he is. In response to Pilate’s questioning Jesus is evasive, elusive and enigmatic.
Until the moment of Jesus’ trial, Jesus was probably unknown to Pilate and now he is brought before him by the Jews (whose traditions and laws Pilate does not understand, and over whom he has no jurisdiction). Pilate makes an attempt to discover who and what Jesus is, yet Jesus speaks in riddles and throws Pilates’ questions back to him. “What makes you think I’m a king?”
Jesus does not deny that he is a king, but he is clear that like “God” and “family” the title “king” is impregnated with meaning and expectation and that if he admits to being “king” Pilate (and the crowd) will impose their own understanding on the word – Pilate will see Jesus as a threat to Caesar and the crowd will expect him to seek power.
By prevaricating, by being evasive, by not directly answering Pilate’s question, Jesus is trying to redefine “kingship”. Yes, he is a king, but not the sort of king that people are used to – not a king who enriches himself at the expense of others, not a king who expects everyone to be subservient to him, not a king that seeks to dominate and oppress all the nations of the world. Jesus is king of an unworldly kingdom, a king whose primary purpose is to testify to the truth – the content of which is contained in John’s gospel, the purpose of which is that those who hear Jesus’ voice will attain eternal life.
In just five verses the author of the gospel has de-stabliised and undermined the traditional understanding of what it means to be king. Jesus is king, but he is king on his own terms, he will not be defined and confined by the expectations of others – whether they be his fellow Jews or the representatives of Rome.
The passage is left hanging with Pilate’s question: “What is truth?”
There is an interesting twist to John’s account of Jesus’ trial and crucifixion. Traditionally a name is attached to the cross to identify the one being crucified. Pilate orders that the sign on Jesus’ cross read (in Hebrew, Latin and Greek): “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.” Despite the objections of the Jews, Pilate leaves the wording as it is. Has Pilate come to see the truth? Has he grasped that Jesus is a king (albeit a very different one) or is this is Pilate’s way of justifying an execution which at heart he believes is not justified.
Either way, Jesus’ crucifixion is the ultimate act de-stablises, unsettles and even undermines all our expectations of what it means to be King of the Jews, the one sent by God, the anointed.
Jesus’ dialogue with Pilate, is a reminder that the narrative is not within our control, that God the Trinity will always act in ways that we do not expect and will always defy our attempts to categorise and define. In the face of Pilate’s efforts to label him Jesus infuses the expression with new meaning. He is a king, but he is a king like no other (before or since).
May all our longings for the kingdom be tempered by the knowledge that the kingdom is not of our making and that our human intellects are inadequate to the task of truly comprehending who and what God is, what it is that God plans, and what the kingdom will finally be revealed to be.
[1] Of course, the nature of families has completely changed and with that comes a change in expectations.
Swallowsrest 