Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen
The text for this meditation is written in the 18th Chapter of the Gospel according to St John; Verses 33 – 37:
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 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.” 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.”
Where are you going? Where are we going? That question can be as simple as a child's fantasy journey or a parent's trip to the grocery store. It can be as complex as issues of national foreign policy or world environmental policy.
Where are we going?
Ultimately it involves the deepest questions of existence: Why am I here? Does my existence mean anything at all? Is my life going anywhere? Does it have purpose, meaning, hope? Our answers to these questions have implications for all our relationships.
As we gather for worship on this last Sunday of the church year, looking back across a year nearly completed and looking ahead to a new year that will end who knows where, the passing of time itself confronts us with questions of our destination.
The church's own unique way of observing time proclaims to us the answer, holding before us our faith, which alone enables us to live lives filled with meaning, purpose, joy, and hope.
This of course is the tri-annual cycle known as the liturgical calendar, which dramatically portrays the life of Christ and the life of his church, proclaiming his birth, death, and resurrection and challenging our Spirit-empowered response.
Indeed, the church’s liturgical calendar is cyclic through years A, B and C, and yet its concept is not that of a circle, which has neither a beginning nor an end. Rather the church calendar portrays a spiral, which, like the propeller on an airplane, moves forward through time with each rotation; or, like the threads on a screw, with each rotation pulls us along toward our final goal. That goal is the kingship of Christ, the answer to all our questions of existence.
This Christ the King Sunday proclaims the accomplished fact that Christ is king, the king of all kings and the Lord of all lords, "the Soverign of time, creator of the continuing universe, inexpressibly sublime!" Christ the King Sunday challenges each one of us to pray that Christ may be king for us, that he may be our eternal king.
That was precisely the issue confronting Pilate in today's Gospel. Although he phrased the question in different ways, he was caught up in the same issue that catches us up: Who is the king? Are you our king? If so, how can this be possible?
The scene is one of the most dramatic in the entire New Testament. The accused Christ had been led by the high priest's guards to Pilate, the Roman governor.
The Jews would not enter the praetorium, the palace of the governor. To do so would defile them, so they would be unable to eat the Passover meal. Pilate came out to them and then called Christ inside the palace. Then, Pilate, the most powerful man in Roman Judaea bounced back and forth like a Ping-Pong ball between the jeering Jews on the outside and the gentle Jesus on the inside. Seven times Pilate went back and forth, a mere pawn pushed by events beyond his control.
Ruler confronted ruler. Kingdom confronted kingdom. Pilate proclaimed his authority but acted in confusion and fear. Pilate said he was in charge and wanted everyone to believe that, but the passing of time shows that he was not. Supposedly Jesus was on trial. In fact, it was Pilate who was being tried.
As the text opens, Pilate has entered the praetorium again, leaving the jeering Jews outside. Pilate called Jesus and said to him, "Are you the King of the Jews?"
There the scene is set. There stood Pilate, resplendent in the robes of a ruler, with the kingdoms of the world and all their authority behind him…… and the kingdom of God before him.
On this Christ the King Sunday, liturgically we stand between the climax of the kingdom on Easter Sunday when Christ rose as the Victorious King, and, the promise of the future coming of the kingdom into our lives. Today we can celebrate being one turn of time closer to the completion of Christ's kingship.
The fact is, that you and I also stand there with Pilate in the praetorium, living between two kingdoms and the King.
You see, in reality, we are all Pilates, …… rulers in our own house. We sit here with the kingdoms of the world behind us. Make no mistake, we are of the world, outside that door, in the world we are part of, stands the kingdoms of culture and custom, the kingdoms of religion (of all makings) and tradition, the kingdoms of politics and power, the kingdoms of greed and corruption, the kingdoms of money and prestige. And here we are, worldly leaders of our lives, with the kingdom of God before us, facing here the Christ, confronting here in this moment his complete and universal kingship. This shook Pilate’s confidence to his core – do we feel the same way?
Most of us here have lived in much simpler decades in world history, but as each one passes we find ourselves confronted with a dramatically changing world order in which many of the old ways simply do not work anymore, we find ourselves like Pilate shuffling back and forth, trying to figure out what is really going on, who is really in charge, often feeling hopelessly confused.
Like Pilate, we question this Jesus, for we are not at all sure what his kingdom will really mean for us in our ruler's robes. We are not sure how he can really be a king. Most profoundly, we are not at all sure if we want him to be our King. So we phrase the question in abstract terms, "Are you the king of the Jews?"
Jesus immediately confronts us with the choice between commitment and curiosity, challenging us to decide between being an idle (and safe) spectator or an active participant in the kingdom: "Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?" You see, He refuses to accept or reject the royal title, compelling us to confess him as King, if he is indeed to be King for us.
Pilate once again evaded responsibility, demanding to know from Jesus what he had done to deserve being called king. "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 responded by describing not the accomplishments of his kingship but the quality of it: "My kingdom is not from this world." My kingship is not the same kind as the kingships of this world. My kingship is defined by being totally different from the world's kingdoms.
Pilate seized the opening: "So you are a king?" Jesus knew Pilate meant something exactly opposite from his own understanding of the word: "You say that l am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth."
There's the answer! There's the good news! "For this I came into the world." Christ's kingship is not of this world, but it is indeed in this world. "For this I have come into the world!"
The kingdom of God was in fact standing right there in that praetorium in the person of the accused Christ. That means the kingdom of God is even now right here in our very midst, in the personal presence of the crucified and risen Christ. …….. Present as he comes through the word read and proclaimed and heard, present as he joins us to himself through the waters of Holy Baptism, (as He will do for Hugh today), presentas he enters our lives bodily through the bread and wine of his Holy Supper. That means that the kingdom of God is here even as the King himself is here among us.
To all our profound questions of existence, of meaning and purpose and hope, this Christ the King Sunday answers loud and clear with the new song of Easter, with the revealing of accomplished victory, with the vision of the crucified Christ risen and living, with the voice of truth, Christ's own voice proclaiming the transcendent truth of our faith: "My kingdom is not from this world." In my death and resurrection the kingdoms of this world have been transformed forever. "The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdom of our God and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever!"
As you and I turn from the kingdoms of this world and put them behind us and turn this morning to face Christ the King, we see in him the truth about ourselves and about the eternal heart of God; the truth that triumphed when Christ accepted a cruel cross and burst a terrible tomb and poured his Holy Spirit upon his people.
We see the truth and discover the reality of the kingdom in our very midst. We find ourselves being transformed into kingdom people, priests to our God, a community that both knows and tells the truth.
"For this I have come into the world." For this we the church are being sent into the world. Here in these days of conflict and confusion where the Kingdom of the World and the Kingdom of God co-exist on this earth, Christ the King stands in our midst, equipping us, empowering us to represent to the world a foretaste of things to come. Christ the King is not of this world, but He is most surely in this world, in, with and through us to bear witness to the truth.
All of us have stood outside on a summer evening watching an approaching storm and seen the brilliant flash of lightning and then heard the thunder follow a few seconds later. The laws of physics tell us that light and sound travel at different speeds. But in fact, they are one simultaneous event. They happened at the same time. But in that experience of a few seconds between lightning and thunder, for us humble observers of the wonders of creation, the same event is an experience both present in the lightning, and future in the thunder.
The kingdom of God is like that. Climaxed at Easter, it is not yet complete, and we live between the lightning from an empty tomb and the thunder of a new universal creation.
Dear friends, we have experienced the lightning with confidence. We have witnessed it in our hearts and minds through the Word and the Holy Spirit that filled our hearts at our Holy Baptism. We have partaken of the Body and Blood of the risen Christ. And now through the gracious gift of faith we know the thunder of the new kingdom will come, just as certainly as it does on a summer night, just as certainly as this crucified and risen Christ the King stands even now in our midst. By his great grace, we become kingdom people, bearing witness to the truth that the kingdom comes daily closer in this time and this place. As written in (1 Chronicles 16:31) “Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice; And let them say among the nations, “The Lord reigns.” Amen
The love and peace of our Great Triune God that is beyond all human understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen
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