Today is Christ the King Sunday. On this day, the last Sunday of the church year, we lift up the kingship, or reign, of Christ. When we think about kings, we might picture jewel-encrusted crowns, flowing fur-lined robes, or lavish throne rooms glinting with gold. We may call to mind the image of a king valiantly leading an army into battle, or issuing edicts and proclamations from a far balcony, or sitting at the head of a table filled with all kinds of rich food.
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| Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash |
If this is the mental image we create, then the scene from John’s Gospel we heard today is more than a bit jarring. We are in a throne room of sorts, it’s true. And there is a robe and crown brought out in the verses following today’s reading. But the throne room is Pilate’s headquarters, where Jesus is on trial. And the robe and crown that will be presented to Jesus are a mockery of his kingship - someone else’s purple robe, and a crown woven from sharp thorns.
If we were expecting a traditional portrayal of kingship, this is not it. Here, Jesus instead seems to be at his most vulnerable. He has been betrayed by a friend, arrested under mock pretenses, questioned, beaten, and mocked. Here, brought before cruel Pilate, Jesus is questioned again - “Are you the King of the Jews?”
If Pilate wants to understand Jesus, he’ll never get there with this line of questioning. He has no context, no framework, for the kind of kingship Jesus holds. As Jesus tells him, “My kingdom is not from this world.”
If it were from this world, if it were the kind of kingship Pilate expected, there would be violent clashes as Jesus’s followers fought to protect him. But Jesus’s kingdom is not from this world, and his followers are led by a king who acts not through force or violence, but through vulnerability and love. Back in the garden where Jesus was arrested, Peter tried to fight back to keep Jesus from being handed over. But rather than celebrate Peter’s actions, Jesus tells him to put his sword away. His kingdom will not be ruled by violence.
Pilate isn’t following. “So you are a king?” he asks Jesus again. Jesus’s response must sound cryptic to Pilate’s ears. “You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world.”
As we are poised to enter the season of Advent and journey toward Christmas, we too are thinking of Jesus's birth. From the very beginning of the story, we already know that this child will embody a different kind of rule. He is born not in a palace, but in a stable. His birth is announced not in the halls of power, but in shepherd’s fields. He is visited not by kings or governors, but by magi - foreign stargazers.
From these humble origins we already see the shape of Jesus’s coming kingdom. It shuns the traditional wealth and power of the world, instead announcing good news to those on the margins. It speaks the truth in a world where self-serving versions of events and empty promises are the norm. It conquers, ultimately, not through force, or coercion, or might, but through sacrificial love.
Pilate doesn’t understand any of that. He can’t picture anything other than the kind of rule to which he himself aspires. And because Pilate can’t see that, he also misses this most crucial point. While everything in this scene seems to point to Pilate’s power over Jesus, we know that the opposite is true. Jesus is here because this is the path laid out for him, the cup he must drink. Pilate’s not calling the shots here – God is. And God will use all of this to accomplish God’s purposes - to save the whole cosmos.
We know that it is Jesus who has the ultimate authority. His kingdom, not from this world, is a kingdom of justice, truth, and love. The sentence he proclaims is one of forgiveness, grace, and relationship.
We give thanks that Jesus’s rule is not like the rulers of this world. As we look for glimpses of this kingdom here and now, we also cling to hope for our life together in the world to come, where Jesus is enthroned and we receive life, abundant and everlasting.
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