Christ the King Sunday

Christ the King Sunday
Rev. Dr. Chris Hensley
November 24th, 2024
John 18:33-38

On this, the final Sunday of the Christian liturgical calendar, we pause to reflect on the statements of Jesus regarding his identity and to wrestle with the theology behind such statements. Throughout the Gospel according to John there are a collection of seven “I am” statements which Jesus makes in relation to himself which reveal much about his identity. Further, Jesus makes a theological connection to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob of the Hebrew Bible with specific connection to the account of Moses’ encounter with this same God at the burning bush in the wilderness during which God reveals the Divine name to be “I am.” For the Jesus of John’s Gospel account, there is significant intentionality in making these statements as they are revealed to be Christological truths for Jesus of Nazareth as revealed in John’s account. The author of this account is making it clear that this Jesus of Nazareth is more than a prophet, more than a country teacher and preacher, more than a wandering rabbi. Jesus of Nazareth is indeed the fulfillment of Divine promises made to the people of God throughout the Hebrew Bible. Jesus of Nazareth has come to graft more individuals into the people of God. Has come to reveal the Divine as revealed in the Hebrew Bible as being relational, approachable, and concerned for the well-being of the marginalized and focused on flipping societal norms upon their heads in an effort to bring about positive change into the world dominated by selfishness, cruelty, the abuse of persons without a voice and the abuse of the world which has been gifted to humanity by the Divine.

Our text records John’s account of the trial of Jesus before the Gentile, Roman courts. This text, as well as the passion accounts of the Gospels collectively, has been used to support anti-Semitic attitudes and behaviors throughout history. A lazy reading of the text would allow one to come to the conclusion that the guilty party for crucifying Jesus would be the Jews. However, this is just that, a lazy reading and the exercise of eisegeting the text – or reading into the text one’s own interpretation – without doing the slight work necessary to understand that Jesus’ death comes at the hands of an external and oppressive empire and the coaxing of a small minority of individuals afraid to lose their power and influence who just so happened to be Jewish religious leaders. Rather than broadly condemning Jews, a better, more accurate reading of the passion narratives of Jesus as recorded in the Gospels of the Christian Testament would be to realize that Jesus was executed because he was stirring up what could be called good trouble against those in power.

The exchange which occurs in our text for this morning, though, is between the Roman governor of the region and Jesus. Jesus stands accused of making claims that he is the King of the Jews, a threat to the religious elite in power and, potentially, a threat to the Roman government as it exercises it’s own form of power and control over the region. This is what the religious leaders are banking on, that Jesus’ statements might be inflammatory enough so as to bring down the might of Rome upon the troublesome rabbi’s head. The exchange between Pilate and Jesus is one of confusion, derision, and is dismissive of the concerns of the religious leaders and Jesus. Pilate asks Jesus of the accusations and Jesus answers that he is indeed a king, though his kingdom is not of this world and does not exercise dominion over the bodies of others. Jesus, in very Jesus fashion, offers cryptic responses to Pilate’s questions, though the identity of Jesus as king comes out in their brief back and forth.

The section concludes with Jesus stating that he has come to bear witness to the truth and Pilate responds with an unintentionally philosophic and cryptic question of his own, asking what is truth? Richard Burridge points out that Pilate’s question of “what is truth” carries additional weight as he asks this question to the one who Orthodox Christianity holds up as truth incarnate. For John, as theologians Arthur Gossip and Wilbert Howard point out, the truth of which Jesus speaks is the true knowledge of God. The same God of the Jewish people, the same God who calls on hospitality to the stranger and alien among you, the same God who calls for a year of jubilee during which all debts are forgiven, the same God who is deeply concerned for the well-being of those marginalized by the wealthy, the powerful, and the “elite.” This is the God and the kingdom, or kin-dom, which Jesus represents and of which he speaks in this exchange.

On this latest Christ the King Sunday, let us reflect on the kin-dom which Jesus the Christ represents: a kin-dom of hope for the hopeless, belonging for the marginalized, comfort for those made uncomfortable by the powers of this world. Further, let us be encouraged to act as Jesus did, by making uncomfortable those who are comforted by their own power and wealth, by dismantling the systems of marginalization built upon racism, sexism, and other forms of exclusion, and let us unsettle those whose hope is in this world rather than in the kin-dom of God.