Sunday, November 21, 2021

Christ the King

 

Rev. Debbie Cato
John 18:33-38
Fairfield Community Church
November 21, 2021

Christ the King

 

 

Experts – I’m never sure who these experts are, but experts say that we are in a “post-truth era” or “post-truth world.”  That there is no such thing as truth anymore.  We are steeped in a culture of  outright lies, exaggerations, wild conspiracy theories, and fake news.  Objective facts do not exist or even matter anymore. Everyone seems to have their own truth these days. 

 

What does this have to do with today’s scripture?  Well, today we celebrate Christ the King Sunday or the Reign of Christ Sunday.  The end of the long church season after Pentecost, called Ordinary Time, and before the start of Advent.  This week we pause to reflect on the meaning of Christ's reign over the church, the world, and our lives. What kind of king is Jesus?  What does his rule look and feel like?  What does it mean to live under his kingship?[1]

 

The lectionary gives us a rather odd Gospel reading to reflect on Christ the King.  You might even be wondering why we are reading this passage on Christ the King Sunday.   We don’t see Jesus in his kingly glory, transfigured and dazzling on a mountaintop.  We do not watch him rise from the waters of baptism with heaven thundering in his ears? We don’t witness one of his spectacular miracles?[2]

 

Our Christ the King does not appear in any of those majestic guises. Instead,

the Gospel of John offers us a picture of Jesus at his physical and emotional 

worst; his most vulnerable.  Jesus is arrested, disheveled, harassed, hungry,

abandoned, sleep-deprived — and standing before the notoriously cruel Pontius Pilate for questioning.  If I were going to write Jesus into a kingly scene, this would not be the one I’d write.  This week, our king is an arrested, falsely accused criminal.  A dead man walking.  His chosen path to glory is humility, surrender, brokenness, and loss.[3]  And that’s who Jesus was.  Not someone who grabbed onto power and glory, but someone who was humble and surrendered himself to serve others and do God’s will.

 

Now, consider the exchange that takes place between Jesus and Pilate in light of our current crises of truth: “Are you a king?” Pilate asks Jesus repeatedly, annoyed, perhaps, that a bedraggled peasant is taking up his valuable time.  Annoyed perhaps that he even has to deal with this.  “You say that I am a king,” Jesus answers cryptically, implying both that Pilate’s question is the wrong one, and that Pilate’s assumptions about power and kingship are irrelevant to the ways of God.  Then Jesus continues: “For this I came into the world, to testify to the truth.  Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”  “For this I came into the world, to testify to the truth.  Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”

 

Pilate’s response echoes down to us across the ages, a question to end all questions: “What is truth?” What is truth?  We’ll never know if he asks out of contempt or curiosity or anger. Maybe he actually wants to know.  But it doesn’t matter; Jesus doesn’t respond. That is, he doesn’t respond with words.  He doesn’t engage Pilate in a philosophical debate.  Instead, his reply is embodied with his whole life: “You’re looking at it,” his silence implies. 

 

 “You’re looking at the truth.  I am the truth."  In other words, truth isn’t an instrument, a weapon, or a slogan we can put on a refrigerator magnet. The truth is Jesus.  The life of Jesus, the way of Jesus, the love of Jesus.  Jesus himself is the complete embodiment of truth.

 

On this Christ the King Sunday, this Gospel passage reminds me that one of the most urgent tasks facing the church is creating a robust, urgent, and gracious relationship to the truth. If Jesus came to testify to the truth, if he is the truth, if he is the king of truth, then what do we, his followers; his church, owe our king?  What does loyalty to truth look like?

 

As followers of Christ, we belong to a kingdom that is not bound to the world and what the world says.  You and me, as followers of Jesus, as Christians, belong to Jesus.  We belong to the truth.  Speaking the truth, being the truth, and even belonging to the truth are what make Jesus a king.  His kingdom – his nation – is not defined by earthly terms.  Jesus comes from and belongs to God’s kingdom and so do you and me, his followers. 

 

Even historically, the church has distorted the truth to reject and dehumanize those we conveniently called others. And if we are honest, it continues in many ways today. But if truth is king, then lazy doctrine is not.  If truth is king, then distorting inconvenient facts for our own political, racial, social, cultural, religious, or economic comfort, is not.  If truth is king, then “fake news” is not.  If truth is king, then self-deception is not

 

The truth Jesus embodies in his life, death, and resurrection is not instrumental or self-glorifying in any way.  It does not serve to bolster his own power and authority. Quite the opposite — it humbles him.  It empties him.  It takes away his life.[4]

 

Nowhere in scripture do I see Jesus using any version of truth that sidesteps humility, surrender, or sacrificial love.  He doesn’t secure his own prosperity at the expense of other people’s suffering.   He doesn’t allow holy ends to justify corrupted means.  He doesn’t make honesty optional when the truth strikes him as inconvenient.  And he never aligns himself with dishonest power to guarantee his own success.[5]

 

This is our king.  Can we stand for the truth as he does?  Can we belong to the truth as he does?  Can we tell and keep telling the beautiful, hard, joy-filled, pain-filled, powerfully undeniable stories we know to be true about this Gospel Jesus whose very identity is truth, and whose best expression of power is surrender?

 

Next week we enter into Advent, a season of waiting, longing, and listening.  We will walk into the expectant darkness, waiting for the light to dawn, for the truth to reveal itself, for the first cries of a vulnerable baby, born in humble circumstances, to completely and unexpectantly, redefine kingship, authority, and power forever. 

 

Yes, we are living in a post-truth culture.  But we are not a people without hope.  The king who reigns will never abandon us.  The truth lives.  Truth will survive. And we belong to him.  We belong to Christ the King.   Amen.

 



[2] Ibid.

[3] Journey to Jesus.  Debi Thomas.  What is Truth?  November 21, 2021. https://www.journeywithjesus.net/lectionary-essays/current-essay?id=3220

 

[4] Journey to Jesus.  Debi Thomas.  What is Truth?  November 21, 2021. https://www.journeywithjesus.net/lectionary-essays/current-essay?id=3220

[5] Ibid.

1 comment:

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