Göttinger Predigten im Internet
ed. by U. Nembach, J. Neukirch, C. Dinkel, I. Karle

CHRIST THE KING SUNDAY, November 26, 2006
A Sermon based on John 18: 33-37 (RCL) by David Zersen
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Pilate then went back inside the palace, summoned Jesus and asked him, “Are you the king of the Jews?” “Is that your own idea,” Jesus asked, “or did others talk to you about me?” “Do you think I am a Jew?” Pilate replied. “It was your people and your chief priests who handed you over to me. What is it you have done?” Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews. But now my kingdom is from another place.” “You are a king, then!” said Pilate. Jesus answered, “You are right in saying I am a king. In fact, for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.” (NIV)

During the last month I was doing some teaching and consulting in Tanzania and I began to notice that the very high Jacaranda trees were dropping purple blossoms on the ground.

“These are royal trees,” the people explained, “and as they drop their petals they remind us of the coming of the King.” The central quadrangle of the campus was covered with Jacaranda trees and I could only imagine how beautiful it would be when a carpet of purple covers the grass in November and December. In a very striking way, nature had encouraged people to think of King Jesus who exercised a rule in their lives and of the decisions Christians need to be making.

From the earliest centuries, Christians have had to decide who has the supreme place, the lordship in their lives. In some eras, Roman emperors, proclaiming their divinity, attempted to secure the loyalty of their subjects. Christians were forced to say either “Caesar is Lord” or “Jesus is Lord.” In the eastern sphere of Christianity, this decision is still remembered and praticed under the domes of Orthodox churches. There, Jesus is pictured in the trappings of the ruler, inviting the loyalty of his subjects. Within the walls of the church, worshippers continue to repeat the ancient Christian confession, “Jesus is Lord.”

Today’s text invites us contemporary Christians to consider anew our loyalties. To who and to what do we owe our allegiance. Troubled by the growing atheism in Eastern Europe and Russia in the 1920s, Pope Pius XI introduced the Sunday we today call Christ the King Sunday. On the Last Sunday of the Church Year, many denominations now ask worshippers to confess to whom they owe their loyalty. What is the supreme principle and who is the preeminent Master of their lives? It is an important question for us to place today.

I. The King who gives it all away

A dramatic conversation is taking place in our text. Pilate wants to know who Jesus is. Is he a king? Jesus wants to know whether Pilate is interested for his own sake or only because others have told him. Either way, kingship means very different things to both of them.

Pilate as procurator, a designate of Caesar who supervises Palestine, has privileges of authority which include life and death decisions. Jesus as a spiritual leader, seeks to help people enter into a more personal relationship with God and accept the new life God grants to those who are transformed by his forgiveness and love. In this new life, Jesus’ disciples discover that they no longer need to control things and people in order to preserve their lives, but they can openly give their lives away.

Jesus tells Pilate that his kingdom and kingship are different than Pilate’s because if he were to represent an earthly kingdom, his followers would fight to keep him in control. Self-preservation is the key to maintaining power for an earthly ruler. Pilate had to see to it that riots and general chaos in this disaffected community of Jews did not cause him to lose control or to be perceived by Caesar as being ineffective. Jesus has no such concerns. He will lose his life in the process of claiming his Kingship. He will give everything away in order to gain it all.

As we try to understand what allegiance we will offer to those to whom we will give the rule in our lives, there are important principles here. And the principles are frightening to us because we are accustomed to believing that security is more important than dispersion, that holding on to things is more important than giving them away. In this context, Jesus is the one who teaches us to share, to give, to serve, to visit, to feed, to nurture; in short, to love. It seems to us initially as a strange sort of activity fostered by a strange kind of lordship. Yet we are moved by this King who from a cross surrendered himself for others to consider what we gain by giving ourselves away.

II. The King who gives life its meaning

The two leaders who meet will shortly appear before the crowd. Some scholars say that Pilate places the humbled Jesus on the throne from which he himself typically renders judgement and asks the people to consider that enough is enough. Perhaps in the folly of letting him appear as their king or perhaps in the embarrassment of seeing one of their own as humiliated before the Roman authority, they would say that Jesus should be released. But we know this doesn’t happen. What does happen is that one king defeats another, one rule shows another to be powerless. Although Jesus goes to the cross, this is not the end, but rather the beginning. Through Jesus’ execution on the cross, God judges our judging, makes invalid our secular approaches to establishing value, and frees us for a new way of life.

Jesus tells Pilate in our text, “I came into the world to testify to the truth.” It is falsehood which we so readily cling to that says life is established by securing our position, by putting others down so that we can be uplifted. It is falsehood which individuals, corporate entities and nations exalt. All the battles we fight, the takeovers in which we participate and the wars we wage result from a human need to establish ourselves over our brothers and sisters, our neighbors, our coworkers and our fellow humans in foreign lands. The less we know about these people, the easier it is to condescend to them or denigrate them. If their religious beliefs are different, if their cultural customs seem strange, it is not difficult to regard them as unworthy. Jesus said that he came to testify to a different kind of truth.

In the Oscar-winning film of some years back, Chariots of Fire, Eric Littel, the Scotsman who can run like the wind, one day has to speak his own kind of truth before his king. The race is to be run on Sunday, but Littel, a devout Presbyterian, has grown up believing that Sunday is a day for worship and for rest. He has to decide whether running the race—and possibly winning—or choosing to obey God rather than men, will have the day. His insistence on following a deeper truth or pacing a higher ground gets the officials to change the time for the race so he can participate. And, in such a case, those who had positions of authority were judged by the very one who had been placed in judgement by them.

For each of us, there is this serious question: If we are to follow Jesus as our master and Lord, will the decisions we make seem to us as advantages or disadvantages? If we give ourselves in love to our fellows, seeking to sustain and affirm them, will we mourn our losses or rejoice in the new opportunities we have been given? It is important for Christians to be able to answer these questions positively if they are to see the Gospel for what it is and the new life that King Jesus brings as a blessing, not a curse.

Christ The King Sunday comes at the end of some 20 Sundays in the church year when we consider the teachings of Jesus. These challenges to our lives and these words of encouragement and hope seek to bring us to a new perspective from which we can say “no” to life’s dead ends and “yes” to the life that lasts in and through Jesus Christ.

It is one thing to hail Jesus as our King on this final Sunday of the church year with trumpet-supported melodies and with white and gold-colored paraments. It is more important, however, to remember what kind of lifestyle this King lived for us and makes it possible for us to live.

By the power of the Spirit at work among us, we are emboldened and encouraged to let love lead the way, not counting our physical losses.

By the power of the Gospel living within us, we look forward to naming heroes and models in our culture who embrace the life which Pilate and others don’t understand.

By the hope which daily sustains us we look forward to embracing the King who himself will one day crown the lasting life in us which he first introduced so long ago.

Prof. Dr. Dr. David Zersen, President Emeritus
Concordia University at Austin
Austin, Texas
djzersen@aol.com

 


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