Will Rice - Sermon #33 - "What King of King?"

Rev. Will Rice
Grace United Methodist Church
Corpus Christi, TX
pastorwillrice@gmail.com

John 18:33-37

“What Kind of King”

I was hesitant to celebrate Christ the King Sunday today. I can’t imagine that I would have gotten a lot of letters of complaint. Not that people dislike Christ the King Sunday, it is just that they don’t often think about it. I always figured that with a name like Christ the King Sunday, this must be a pretty old celebration. But although it has some ancient roots, it actually only dates back to 1925. It wasn’t until 1969 that it was appointed as a festival for the last Sunday of the Christian year which is today. How odd that a celebration recognizing Christ as a King would have been created in a time when Kings aren’t what they used to be.

What the heck is a king? When we talk about Christ as King, what is our point of reference? Unfortunately for me, a child of the 70s and 80s, when you say king, I hear Burger King. Most of us have some mental image of a king. For kids, it may be the Lion King. Some of our images are of the fairly tale variety. Many of us get our images of royalty from Great Britain where the Queen rules from a historic palace, rich in history and tradition. And from her throne she makes important decisions about… wait, what does the Queen of England do?

Today’s reading picks up sort of mid stream in the narrative that we usually read around Easter. Jesus has been arrested and now he is in front of Pontius Pilate, the governor of Judea.

³³Then Pilate entered the headquarters again, summoned Jesus, and asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?”

We just don’t get what a provocative and inflammatory question this is. This is one of those questions that would have made everyone in the room stop and say, “He did not just ask him if he was the King of the Jews! Did he?”

There are two things that make that question inflammatory. One is political, the other historical. First, politically, this was taking place in a remote part of the Roman Empire, known as Judea. The Israelite people were living under the rule of the Roman Empire, as was just about everyone in this time period. Caesar was the emperor and to this particular area Pontius Pilate had been appointed governor. Rome had once allowed there to be a King of the Jews, Herod the Great, who was only sort of Jewish and a loyal puppet of the empire. But Rome withheld the title “King of the Jews” from his somewhat bumbling heirs. So, there was currently no King of the Jews and to proclaim yourself as King of the Jews would really annoy the Roman Empire and no one needs to annoy the Roman Empire. For you Star Wars fans, it was sort of like making Darth Vader angry. Bad idea.

So the first problem is political, the second, historical. Israel has had kings before.

As I tell my Disciple Bible Study students, we miss so much in the New Testament if we don’t read the Old Testament, and frankly we just don’t read the Old Testament.

There are lots of kings in the Old Testament. However, most of them are from foreign lands and they are always beating up on God’s people Israel.

After the people of Israel escaped Pharaoh’s Egypt, and then received God’s law at Sinai, after they spent forty years wandering around in the wilderness, they crossed over into the promise land. Leaving Egypt and wandering around in the desert God had appointed Moses to lead them. To get them into the land God promised them and to begin settling it, they had Joshua.

But then Joshua dies. Judges 2:7-10:

The people worshiped the Lord all the days of Joshua … Joshua son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died at the age of one hundred ten years. …another generation grew up after them, who did not know the Lord or the work that he had done for Israel.

They went through this period of Judges. Judges 2:11-16:

Then the Israelites did what was evil in the sight of the Lord…and they abandoned the Lord… So the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he gave them over to plunderers…and he sold them into the power of their enemies all around, Then the Lord raised up judges, who delivered them out of the power of those who plundered them.

You may have heard of some of these judges, especially Samson, the guy with the hair that got messed up with Delilah. We think of judges as people in black robes who rule in court cases but these judges were men and women raised up to deliver Israel out of the muck that they had created for themselves.

These people of Israel without proper supervision just kept messing up. They wouldn’t listen to God through the prophets or the priests not even the judges God appointed to help them.

Judges 2:17:

¹⁷Yet they did not listen even to their judges; for they lusted after other gods and bowed down to them.

Because of this, they also kept getting beat up by the surrounding nations whose militaries seemed much stronger and more organized. The Philistines in particular were beating the tar out of them.

1 Samuel 4:10-11:

¹⁰So the Philistines fought; Israel was defeated, and they fled, everyone to his home. There was a very great slaughter, for there fell of Israel thirty thousand foot soldiers. ¹¹The ark of God was captured; and the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, died.

They looked to the other nations around them to see what was keeping them going. They went to Samuel who had been appointed by God to help them and said in 1 Samuel 8:

⁴Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah, ⁵and said to him, “You are old and your sons do not follow in your ways; appoint for us, then, a king to govern us, like other nations.”

They wanted a king of their own. A king of the Jews.

Wouldn’t it be nice to have a king, they thought? What a great way to take the problems of the world off our shoulders and place them on someone else’s shoulders. Samuel wasn’t really happy about this and tells God so:

⁶But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, “Give us a king to govern us.” Samuel prayed to the Lord,

But watch what God says:

⁷and the Lord said to Samuel, “Listen to the voice of the people in all that they say to you; for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them.

And Israel gets a king, the first one was named Saul.

1 Samuel 10:1:

¹⁰Samuel took a vial of oil and poured it on Saul’s head, and kissed him; he said, “The Lord has anointed you ruler over his people Israel. You shall reign over the people of the Lord and you will save them from the hand of their enemies all around.

Let me point out something real quick that you will need to know later. “The Lord has anointed you.”

anoint = xvm – mashah

Remember that.

Israel gets a king, and I have to tell you, historically, this did not go very well.

This is a very cursory overview. Saul was the first King anointed by Samuel. Saul starts out fine, wins lots of military battles, but gets into a little disagreement with Samuel who anointed him, loses his anointing, and then sort of goes crazy.

At least that never happens with those we elevate to rule over us.

Somewhere in there Samuel anoints another King, David, you may have heard of him. He is the one that killed the giant with a slingshot. But Saul still thinks he is King and David doesn’t really care so he works in the King’s house playing music for Saul until Saul tries to kill him. (Remember Saul is the crazy one.) Fortunately the people we elevate to rule over us never get into power plays. Eventually David really becomes King, but has a scandalous affair of the type that would take up several weeks of coverage on CNN. I tell you, you really ought to read this stuff. David gets things back together with God, has a bunch of trouble with his kids, gets dethroned for a while by one of them. Eventually his son Solomon gets to the throne, decides to build this terribly elaborate temple for God, overtaxes and enslaves his people so much to do it that they revolt splitting the kingdom in two. These two kingdoms have a number of other kings, but things are never quite the same and eventually both Kingdoms get worn down fighting their enemies and are eventually overrun by another kingdom thus forcing the Israelites into a time of captivity we refer to as the exile, perhaps the darkest time in the history of God’s people Israel.

That went well.

³³Then Pilate entered the headquarters again, summoned Jesus, and asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?”

This is a loaded question.

I would want some clarification. You see to the original audience, there are two questions here. Rome wants to know if Jesus is messing with the political order, i.e. is he a revolutionary. This is how the people who aren’t very fond of Jesus are trying to get him executed, as a revolutionary. But, other people are trying to see if what Jesus’ followers say is true. They are listening to hear if Jesus might be a king to rescue them from the current oppressor, Rome.

The original kings of Israel were anointed king by prophets.

Let me read again a passage I read earlier:

1 Samuel 10:1

Samuel took a vial of oil and poured it on his head, and kissed him; he said, “The Lord has anointed you ruler over his people Israel. You shall reign over the people of the Lord and you will save them from the hand of their enemies all around.

Remember I already said this - anoint = xvm – mashah

anointed one = x;yvim; - meshiah

meshiah = messiah

x;yvim; = meshiha = messiah translate that into Greek and you get Cristou (Christo) = Christ = anointed one.

³³Then Pilate entered the headquarters again, summoned Jesus, and asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?”

Two questions. For Rome it is, “Are you here to cause trouble?” For some Jews, it is “Are you here to save us?” Jesus responds as one should when the question being asked is much more complicated the questioner believes it to be, he asks a question back:

³⁴Jesus answered, “Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?”

Pilate responds as people do when their question has not been answered:

³⁵Pilate 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?”

Jesus again does not answer the question, but while seemingly staying on topic, changes the subject completely.

³⁶Jesus 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.”

This is sort of a yes and no to both questions:

• Yes, I am here to cause trouble, but not like you think.
• Yes, I am here to save you, but not like you think.

This is not the first time this king thing has come up for Jesus. In John, chapter 6:

¹⁴ When the people saw the sign that he had done, they began to say, "This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world." ¹⁵When Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself.

But now, Pilate thinks he has him.

³⁷Pilate 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.”

Perhaps, Jesus is simply saying, “Yes I am a king, but not that kind of king.”

As we reflect on this Christ the King Sunday on what we mean when we say Christ is King, as we celebrate the last Sunday of the Christian year and prepare for the season of anticipation called advent, let’s not forget the history of God’s people and what a king has meant for them. Christ has always been King as God has always been King. But we don’t always like the kind of king God is. We do not always like the kind of king that Jesus is.

⁷and the Lord said to Samuel, “Listen to the voice of the people in all that they say to you; for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them.

On this Christ the King Sunday, oddly, I want to warn us about making Christ our king. The danger is, and I believe that this passage points to it, is that we will make Christ a king in our image of a king. We will place Jesus and God in the role of earthly king, complete with the inherit limitations and failings, complete with our human desires and misunderstandings. Jesus is asking for something much bigger of us. Yes Jesus is sovereign, in that he reigns over all things all places and times. But Jesus is a king that is pointing us to his kingdom, the kingdom of God, which is not a place that we earn admittance to by simply being faithful to the King, but a state of being that we are empowered to help God create. Jesus is a king that requires personal responsibility and requires action. Jesus is the kind of king that won’t let us sit back and let the king take care of it but requires us to serve and be part of the Kingdom of God that he rules over.

And Jesus is also the kind of king who won’t be confused with regular old royalty. Because as King of the kingdom of God, Jesus is about saving us from the enemies that plague us. Not the Philistines, not some national aggressor, not from culture, but the enemies that fight us inside, like despair and hatred and depression and anger.

And Jesus made sure that we understood this by acting like a king of that sort of kingdom would, by living down in the muck with the sick and the outcast and then dying a humiliating death on the cross to say, “I love you more than you could ever hate me.”

On this Christ the King Sunday, oddly, I want to warn us about making Christ our king, because if we choose Christ as the ruler of our lives, he might lead us to some places that we don’t want to go. A king who hangs out with the sick and the outcast, the least, the last and the lost will force us to hang out with the outcast, the least, the last and the lost and ask unpopular questions like who nearly two million children die each year just because they don’t have access to clean water.[1] People always get upset and me when I bring stuff like that up in church, but if Christ is my king, why wouldn’t I?

On this Christ the King Sunday, oddly, I want to warn us about making Christ our king, because if we are not careful, Jesus will not be the kind of king we expect and we will elevate someone else into that role. Will pick a president, congressman, justice, pastor, government, church, philosophy, economic system, or something else and make that king.

⁷and the Lord said to Samuel, “Listen to the voice of the people in all that they say to you; for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them.

On this Christ the King Sunday, let us celebrate the ruler of the Universe, the sovereign God made very real and present to us in Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. As we prepare for advent, let us begin to look for this mighty king, waiting for us, among the lowly animals in the manger.

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.”

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[1] “Clean water, hygiene could save countless lives around the world”, Corpus Christi Caller Times, November 16, 2006. Accessed online at: URL: http://www.caller.com/ccct/editorials/article/0,1641,CCCT_840_5148057,00.html on 25 November 2006; internet.