Sovereignty Come Down

Rev Dr Mark Porizky

11/26/06

John 18:33-37

Pilate entered the praetorium again and called Jesus, and said to him, "Are you the King of the Jews?" Jesus answered, "Do you say this of your own accord, or did others say it to you about me?" Pilate answered, "Am I a Jew? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me; what have you done?" Jesus answered, "My kingship is not of this world; if my kingship were of this world, my servants would fight, that I might not be handed over to the Jews; but my kingship is not from the world." Pilate said to him, "So you are a king?" Jesus answered, "You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth. Every one who is of the truth hears my voice."

      An American family once went on vacation in England .  While they were visiting Windsor Castle , the 17-year-old daughter, Karen, saw a statue of a man on a horse halfway down the meadow.  She wondered who it was.  At the suggestion of her father, she asked a security guard who the man on the horse was.  He grinned, knowing that the family was American, replied, "Oh, that's your last king." 

      Karen was silent for a moment and then quickly said, "Ah, King George." The security guard was impressed, and it made the Americans stop to be reminded that at one time they DID have a king.

      We Americans today find it difficult to imagine that we once had a king.  It seems like such a foreign idea.  We think of kings, queens, princes and princesses as something that happens across the ocean in England .  It's just not something most of us can relate to.

      But Pontius Pilate knew what a king was.  It was not a far-off, fantasy image for him.  He served the most powerful king in the world at the time.   Pilate knew about the power that a king, the absolute authority that he wields, the unquestioning obedience that he demands and the power that he has to compel obedience when it is not willingly given.

      When Jesus was accused of being a king, Pilate took notice.  The religious leaders saw Jesus as a threat to their power over the people.  Jesus said and did too many things that exposed their authority, and so the religious leaders were out to get him executed.  They knew that one sure way to get him in trouble was to say that he was disloyal to the king, that he was setting himself up as a political ruler, and that he was trying to get the Jews to revolt against Rome .  So they told Pilate, "He wants to be king."

      Those accusations are the prelude to this scene of the trial of Jesus by Pilate.  But we are forced to ask, "Who is the real king here?"  The trial is supposed to be a scene in which a powerless, poor, itinerant rabbi named Jesus stands trembling before the man who represents all of the power and might of Imperial Rome.

      Yet scarcely has the trial begun before we realize that this trial is not going to go the way we expected.  There is Pilate, jumping around all over the place, moving back and forth seven times from one room to the next, checking with this legal expert and that judicial scholar.  We see Pilate biting his nails, uncertain, inept, indecisive and frightened of the crowd outside.

      "Are you king of the Jews?" Pilate asks Jesus.  Surely Pilate's question is meant as a joke. The Jews are a captive people.  They have no army.  Pilate stands there, backed up by a huge Roman occupation force.  Pilate looks at this forlorn, whipped and bleeding Jew and asks, "Are you king?"  What a question!

      And Jesus calmly responds, "Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?" . . .and we think the tables may be turning.

      Again there is a question followed by Jesus' assertion, "My kingdom is not from this world."  And we are beginning to get the point of this courtroom drama.  The kingdoms of this world depend upon armies and violence for their power.  But Jesus says, "My kingdom is not like any you have ever seen before."

      And suddenly, Jesus the defendant has become Jesus the prosecutor.  Pilate the judge has become Pilate the defendant, standing sheepishly before Jesus the judge.  Every statement shows Pilate more and more confounded by Jesus. 

      Thus, our confrontation between Jesus and Pilate is a scene filled with irony.  Jesus was to be crucified, but it was Pilate who was defeated.  Pilate wore the royal garb, but Jesus wore the royal manner.  Pilate peppers Jesus with his questions, "Are you a king?  What have you done?  What is truth?  Where are you from?"  By the end of the scene we know the answers.  Jesus is king.  He is truth. He is not from our kingdom, but rather from God's kingdom which is breaking into this world in his person.

       The image of Christ as king is useful to us as Christians as long as it doesn't become the only way we think and talk about Jesus.  The Bible gives us many, many images of Jesus.  Some of them even seem at odds with each other.  Jesus is both the Lamb of God and the Good Shepherd.  Jesus is the Prince of Peace and the one who said that he came not to bring peace, but a sword. 

      And so, when we call Jesus King, we must be careful to understand what that means.  When we talk about Christ as a King, we are not talking about an earthly king who has absolute power over a certain geographical area.  We are using the idea of king to describe something that we don't have words for.

      We must use this word carefully first because it is not a word that Jesus used about himself.  At the beginning of his earthly ministry, one of the temptations he faced and rejected was to be a political Messiah.

      Jesus was king, but not in the way we normally think of kings.  He was a servant king, the suffering servant that Isaiah mentions in the Old Testament.

      There have been earthly kings who have glimpsed something of that servant-role.  During World War II, London was the site of many bombing raids.  Buckingham Palace , the home of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth was a prime target and was hit at least once.  Most families who could afford to leave the city left or at least sent their children away.  King George VI and Queen Elizabeth chose to stay.  The Queen said, "The girls will never leave without me, I will never leave without the King and the King will never leave." 

      This example of the king gave enormous encouragement to the working people of London , those who had no choice but to stay through the bombing.  The good King does not leave his people, but endures whatever they are enduring alongside them. 

      Jesus was THAT kind of king.

      Princess Diana was not a king, but she was royalty.  She was the beautiful, fairy-tale princess.  Americans, who have chosen not to have kings and queens, watched her wedding by the millions.  Two billion people watched her funeral.  In the media coverage around her tragic death and funeral, everyone wanted to talk about what made Diana special  -- her beauty, her accessibility, her vulnerability, her compassion - the list went on and on.  Everyone who had ever had any connection to her had a chance to speak. 

      But the key to what Diana did was this: in the princess of Wales , majesty stooped.  She certainly had her flaws, extensively articulated, but she had a greatness about her that came because she was willing to lay aside the trappings and prerogatives of royalty to be with those who were downtrodden.  Diana had an amazing ability to communicate her concern for the wretched of the earth.  One American physician accompanied her on hospital rounds where there were no cameras. He said she did not hesitate to caress and linger beside patients with disfigurements and symptoms that were distressing even to medical personnel.  That capacity, the doctor emphasized, cannot be faked.

      In other words, her greatness was because royalty stooped, royalty came down from its place of privilege and dwelt among the common people.  The princess let go of her right to be served and became the servant.  She did not pay someone else to minister to these sick and dying people, but walked among them, caressing and comforting them. 

      Jesus was THAT kind of royalty, THAT kind of king.

      Isn't that part of how we understand Christ as King?  Philippians 2 tells us that Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself and took the form of a human.  Royalty stoops.  Jesus, who is God, becomes an ordinary, humble human being.   Sovereignty comes down.

      We find another example in the legend of King Christian X of Denmark .  According to the legend, when Denmark was occupied by Hitler's forces during World War II, the order came that all Jews were to identify themselves by wearing armbands with yellow stars of David.  King Christian said that one Danish person was exactly the same as the next one.  So the King donned the first star of David, and let it be known that he expected every loyal Dane would do the same. 

      The next day in Copenhagen , almost the entire population wore armbands showing the star of David.  The Danes saved 90% of their Jewish population.  The Danish people knew their king loved them and that he would identify with them to the extent of putting his own life on the line by wearing the Jewish star. 

      Jesus was THAT kind of king.

      In these examples of human royalty, we find the sort of king that Jesus was.  Philippians declares that Jesus also stooped.  Because Jesus was humbly obedient, God exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name.  Jesus is Lord, not because he held onto power and demanded the absolute allegiance due him, not because he rules over the kings of the earth, not because he is God and was with God from the creation of the world.   Jesus is Lord, because in him, God has come near to us.  In Jesus, royalty stoops.  In Jesus, the idea of what a king is has been turned around.

      Return from New Orleans/Book The Great Deluge/mayor Ray Nagin/Hilton Visit? 

      We want our leaders to be with us.

      King Jesus had a way of turning the world upside down.  In the end, Pilate allows Jesus to be crucified with the words "King of the Jews" posted over his head in three different languages.  He is being sarcastic, mocking the Jews for having such a pitiful, powerless king by having the sign put up.  He does not believe what he has caused to be written.  The irony was that Jesus was a king, just not one like anybody expected.

      I wonder if it is the same for us.  I wonder if we, like Pilate, name Jesus as King in our church songs, in our church language, but we don't really stop to think about what that means, how Jesus is or is not a King, what it means when Jesus says that his kingdom is not from this world.

      Jesus wants to be the king of your life and mine, not ruling with absolute power and authority, but as a suffering servant.  In Jesus, royalty stoops to stand with us, to love us, to be in relation with us.  The question is, "Will we let this kind of king be Lord of our lives?"

      That is the question that prepares us for the Advent, for the Christmas season.

      Will you pray with me now?

St. Andrew Presbyterian Church, Groton , CT

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