The King On His Knees

Sermon Text for Nov. 26: John 18:3-37

A praise hymn says, “He is exalted, the king is exalted on high, and I will praise him.” This morning we will sing an older familiar hymn that says, “Crown him with many crowns, the Lamb upon his throne.” This image of Christ the King is probably as old as Christian thought itself, but most of us are not too comfortable with the idea of “King Jesus”. Even the words sound funny. King David, King Saul, or King George, sound good to our ears but King Jesus, sounds strange.

The idea of King Jesus is probably hard for us on several levels. In the first place we are in a church whose roots are sunk deep in the Reformation. Our spiritual ancestors rejected the Monarch in Rome, and as Americans the founders of our nation rejected the Monarch from England. How do we deal with the concept of King Jesus? It might help if we consider the idea that King Jesus might bring us closer to God’s original intentions when God took the Jews across the Jordan and into the Promised Land.

In Israel’s far distant past, God created a society which was different than anything the world had ever seen, or will ever see again. In the days of the judges, Israel was a totally egalitarian society. Everyone had a birthright, No one had authority over any one else. If God had an issue with the people, or something was happening that was difficult to solve, God raised up judges to convey God’s word. These were people like Gideon, Sampson, Deborah, and Samuel. Some of the judges seem to have been important to Israel for decades, and others faded away when the problem was solved. God was the only ruler, or king, that the people had.

All of the people who lived in the nations surrounding Israel had a human king who ruled them, and it seemed to the Chosen People that having a “real king” gave a measure of security that they lacked. By about one thousand B.C.E. the citizens of Israel were demanding that Samuel anoint a king to rule over them. At first Samuel refused. God was the King and they needed no other.

God received the people’s wishes as a rejection, and told Samuel to pick a king, but to warn them of the consequences first. In contrast to the egalitarian reign of God, this is what the people could expect: A “king will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots …” Some will be in the army, others will serve on the kings farms, or in the palace and he will “Take one tenth of your grain and your vineyard and give it to his officers … and you will be his slaves.”

God’s original intention was to be the only ruler over the people and that the people should live in freedom. But freedom brought its own anxieties and the people elected to trade freedom in God for life under a tyrant. Samuel anointed first Saul and later David to be King over Israel.

Today is Christ the King Sunday, the day in the life of the church when we celebrate King Jesus, the heir to David’s throne. We sing songs to the King, while all the while questioning in our hearts the image of King Jesus. We are not alone in our questioning, almost twenty-one centuries ago King Jesus stood before a confused Pontius Pilate, and Pilate asked Jesus, “Are you the King of the Jews?”

The man standing before him looked nothing like a king. Jesus stood before Pilate after having spent an incredibly painful and stressful night. It began wonderfully with an intimate dinner with his closest friend. They ate, prayed, sang, and shared a common litany recalling Passover. But it quickly deteriorated into betrayal, an arrest, trial, beatings, humiliation, and a jail cell.

Archeologists believe they have found the home of Caiaphas, the Chief Priest who presided over Jesus’ trial. Underground at the site of the home is a dungeon with several cells. Prisoners were thrown down about six or eight feet into the cave-like cells. Many undoubtedly suffered major injuries just from the fall. On the wall of one of the cells is the image of a man, arms outstretched as if he was hanging on a cross. Christians can’t avoid wondering if the image belongs to Jesus, but the likelihood is that hundred of prisoners over the years were tied in that spot and the oils in their skin seeped into the porous stone. The dusty, inhumane dungeon, like the manger in Bethlehem, is not the kind of place where one expects to find a king.

On the day Jesus stood before Pilate he probably looked more like a vagabond than a king. The irony was not lost on Pilate. I believe he was being sarcastic when he looked at Jesus and said, “Are you the King of the Jews?” Jesus took Pilate’s question seriously and attempted to engage him on a personal level. “Are you asking me on your own or did others tell you about me?” Pilate was not used to being challenged and he became flustered. In anger he answered, “I am not a Jew am I? Your own people turned you over to me. What have you done?”

Jesus chose to answer Pilate’s first question, “My kingdom is not of this world, if it were my followers would fight to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. … As it is my kingdom is not from here.” I believe that this passage has been misunderstood for generations. “The kingdom” has often been interpreted as heaven, a place we get to after death. But I don’t think that is what Jesus meant. I think that Jesus established the kingdom, the reign of God, on earth, but that someone with the mindset of Pilate’s would never understand. The kingdom is not from this world because, like the society God created in ancient Israel, it is different from anything humans have conceived. King Jesus reigns over a peaceful kingdom in which violence is not an option, even to save the king.

All of the kings of Israel, like kings everywhere, ruled by intimidation. They forced people to accept their rule through jailing, killing, or beating them into submission. And Pilate himself was a great intimidator who used strategic murders to remind the people who was in control.

But Jesus had a different vision of leadership which was not based on fear, where people volunteer for service out of love and loyalty. Perhaps the most poignant picture of the reign of Jesus is found in the thirteenth chapter of John. On the last evening Jesus spent with his disciples, they were all together in the upper room. They were tired and uncomfortable from a long day on their feet, and Jesus stripped down, took a towel and basin and washed the disciples’ feet.

Imagine a king serving and loving his subjects instead of demanding that they serve him. Imagine a king on his knees, carefully washing his subjects’ feet. Now we know why Jesus told Pilate that his kingdom was not of this world. It is not that the kingdom exists in heaven instead of on earth. The Kingdom of Jesus is based on concepts that leaders like Pilate will never understand.

King Jesus expended every resource he had, including his own life, to serve the people. It is now up to us to decide if Jesus is the kind of king we can follow – serving, caring, loving, as Jesus served, loved, and cared.

King Jesus does not demand that we follow. He does not rule through intimidation or fear. Jesus simply invites us into the kingdom saying, “Come follow me.”

Copyright © 2006 by Dwight R. Blackstock