“Reign of Christ”
“Reign of Christ”
Psalm 132:1-12, Revelation 1:4-8, John 18:33-37
November 24, 2024, Christ the King/Reign of Christ Sunday Year B
Pastor Andy Kennaly
Sandpoint, Idaho
In Revelation the short passage we read begins and ends with a description of God. God speaks as one “who is and who was and who is to come.” We might feel a temptation to reduce this to mere chronological time, as if God was in the past, is in the present, and will be in the future. But time is not that simplistic. This is not a declaration of linear time that makes God fit into our understandings, but it’s a recognition of the quality and intensity of God’s living presence in, thru, and beyond time. It is a statement of relationship.
We are included in this, as the other part of the passage talks about Jesus who frees us from our illusions of separation, the limitations of our perspectives, and loves us. Grace, peace, love, these are laced throughout this passage. Jesus and his blood are mentioned, and we are reminded that God finds created life important enough to become enfleshed. It’s good to be human because as humans we are in relationship with the living Christ, and because of this we are in relationship with all things. All life expresses God’s life and God’s intention to be revealed.
In the reading from John, the Roman leader, Pilate, enters the headquarters and summons Jesus for questioning. Interesting imagery: headquarters, a leader having power to summon someone. Pilate thinks he is in charge! The Roman State assumes control. But maybe “presumes” would be a better word? Empires haven’t changed much. They make many presumptions.
The Roman Empire in time of Jesus was a force of occupation. Pilate is appointed to keep things under control. For him to have this Jesus situation disturb the peace with the local religious establishment is unsettling. His job is to keep order in that part of the Empire. Any sense of rebellion or uprising would destroy the status quo. It’s no wonder the religious elite, from their positions of power and prestige, have Jesus arrested.
Pilate asks Jesus if he’s the king of the Jews and Jesus answers with a question pointing out Pilate’s lack of awareness and disconnection. Pilate lashes out, “I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me.” Pilate has no love for the Jews and his Roman arrogance shines through his reply to Jesus’ question. As Pilate rants about not being Jewish and saying Jesus’ own nation and the chief priests handed him over, he simply alienates himself. He is politically strong, culturally powerful, but ultimately without hope as he lacks relational trust in God. His perspective limits his view. Even as someone in charge, from that narrow view he’s trapped within, Pilate lives in fear, cloaked in his own illusions of control.
Jesus is not interested in the title of King; it’s amazing we have so many Christian songs about Christ as King, lots of churches named as Christ the King, and yet Jesus never wants to be a king. When the crowds try and make him king, Jesus retreats to the mountains alone; he won’t have it! Pilate uses the term king as a political category. Jesus is interested to make evident the truth. To belong to the truth is what helps people listen to his voice. Belonging.
Not kingly coercion, not being forced or manipulated or controlled by fear, not from the need to be different than you are. Belonging, in this sense, is a relational term, not an identity term. Identity has to do with externals. Belonging through relationship is an internal quality where superficial distinctions simply break down. Maybe that’s why Jesus asks Pilate if he asks this on his own, or if other told him about Jesus. In this conversation, Jesus moves, not politically, but poetically, from the head to the heart.
Jesus says, “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.” As it is, my kingdom is not from here. Jesus is not eluding Pilate but does make a statement. This is John’s way of writing a gospel story to illustrate that “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.” That’s how this Gospel starts in chapter one, and Jesus claims this ongoing incarnation as the Christ in him reaches out to the Christ in Pilate. But Pilate is blinded to his own divinity as one created in the image and likeness of God, and he misses the sacredness of all things.
Jesus testifies to the truth. His very life is his authority as he lives and embodies truth. Trust, love, relationship, covenant, grace and peace beyond understanding. Jesus knows what and who he’s up against here in the hard realities of the Earthly realm. He doesn’t back down from Pilate, but through this scene and the terminology he uses, we see Jesus put his life on the line. His trust in God is sure and certain; his experience in the depths of life is far more than death can contain, even death on a cross. Jesus shares a deep Wisdom, while Pilate is simply stuck with limited knowledge.
Jesus says his kingdom is not from this world. Maybe a better way to say this is the word worldview. Jesus’ kingdom is not from the worldview of Pilate. Cynthia Bourgeault gives us something to consider in that sense as we talk about heaven. She says, “The Kingdom of Heaven is really a metaphor for a state of consciousness; it is not a place you go to, but a place you come from. It is a whole new way of looking at the world, a transformed awareness that literally turns this world into a different place. . . The hallmark of this awareness is that it sees no separation—not between God and humans, not between humans and other humans. And these are indeed Jesus’s two core teachings, underlying everything he says and does. . . When Jesus talks about this Oneness . . . what he more has in mind is a complete, mutual indwelling: I am in God, God is in you, you are in God, we are in each other. (Cynthia Bourgeault as quoted by Richard Rohr in his daily devotional for Wednesday, November 18, 2020, Jesus and the Reign of God, The Kingdom as Consciousness).
This is the conversation Jesus has with Pilate. This is the truth the life of Jesus reveals. And Pilate lashes out because he’s stuck in the courtroom of political blindness.
God’s truth is a larger truth in which belonging sets the stage for awareness as we follow Jesus, who says, “My kingdom is not from here.” Not from the world, not from the level of Pilates and states of external distinctions which deny deeper bonds. But from the divine and inclusive Source of Christ, in whom there is simply belonging, relationship, and love; and this Presence transcends dimensions, modes of thinking, and limited perceptions.
This week, go about your life, which includes Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday, and a plethora of other consumeristic opportunities that tend to gloss over our nation’s treatment toward Native Americans who helped saved the vulnerable lives of those first European colonizers. Think about how you come alongside the Pilates of the world who want Jesus to be a certain way to validate worldviews to protect standards of living, privileges and entitlements, and the comforts we take for granted.
We can take a limited stance to answer the question, “Who do you want or need Jesus to be for you right now?” Or, we could be willing to take Jesus on his own terms, and allow the God who is and who was and who is to come, the Christ revealed in relationship, to help our worldview expand in grace, peace, and love. Thanks be to God for truthful conversations, for mutual indwelling, and for life evermore. Amen.