Rev.
Debbie Cato
John
18:33-38 and Revelation 1:4b-7
Fairfield
Community Church
November
24, 2024
Open us,
Holy One, to your Word and your Way. Clear our minds of daily distractions.
Fill our hearts with the humility we need to hear and receive the message you
intend for us today. Amen.
Christ the King
Today we celebrate
Christ the King Sunday or the Reign of Christ Sunday. This is 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 reading from Revelation that gives us
an image of Christ the King, when he comes again. ‘"I am the Alpha and the Omega,"
says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.’[2] The Alpha and the Omega – the first and last
letters of the Greek alphabet. God is
the beginning and the end. You can hear
the kingship in this passage. The respect. The awe. The image brings an
emotional feeling of God’s greatness.
His sovereignty.
Then, the lectionary gives us, what I think, is a rather odd
Gospel reading to reflect on Christ the King. 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?[3]
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.[4] 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. Someone who did 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 Pilate 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
“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.
It seems we are in a “post-truth era.” 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. We listen to whoever is talking the loudest or making the
most outrageous claims and that becomes our 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 this world or 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 friends, so do you and me, his followers.
Even historically, the church has distorted the truth to reject and dehumanize those we conveniently call “others.” It continues today. 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.[5]
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.[6]
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. We
will be looking at “Words for the Beginning.”[7] The
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. He’s our King. No other. Amen.
[1] Journey to Jesus. Debi Thomas.
What is Truth? November 21, 2021.
https://www.journeywithjesus.net/lectionary-essays/current-essay?id=3220
[2] Revelation 1: 8
[3] Ibid.
[4] Journey to Jesus.
Debi Thomas. What is Truth? November 21, 2021.
https://www.journeywithjesus.net/lectionary-essays/current-essay?id=3220
[5] Journey to Jesus.
Debi Thomas. What is Truth? November 21, 2021.
https://www.journeywithjesus.net/lectionary-essays/current-essay?id=3220
[6] Ibid.
[7] Sanctifiedart.com.
Advent Series. 2024.
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