The King of The Kingdom
John 18:33-37
Intro:
Last week we began a new series, exploring the whole idea of the Kingdom of God. It is something Jesus talked a lot about, but a message that sometimes gets lost on us today. We don’t live in a “kingdom”, we live in a democracy. We have a queen, sort of, (with apologies to the English among us), but she really has absolutely no authority over our lives. We have a distrust of the ideas of kings and kingdoms, because we have witnessed too much damage in history by the way that power corrupts.
Author and influential Christian leader Brian McLaren thinks we should get rid of the language: “for many today, kingdom language evokes patriarchy, chauvinism, imperialism, domination, and a regime without freedom—the opposite of the liberating, barrier-breaking, domination-shattering, reconciling movement the kingdom of God was intended to be! If Jesus were here today, I’m quite certain he wouldn’t use the language of kingdom at all, which leaves us wondering how he would articulate his message.”
I don’t disagree (begging your pardon for the double negative…). But the fact is, Jesus is not here physically today, and so although it takes greater effort for us to understand His message in His cultural context, those of us who read Scripture are faced with that task. We can wonder, we can explore other language, but when we go back to Scripture we are still going to find Jesus, talking about the Kingdom of God. So I think it is worth the effort, especially if we keep in mind McLaren’s earlier comments: “When Jesus spoke of the kingdom of God, his language was charged with urgent political, religious, and cultural electricity. But if we speak of the kingdom of God today, the original electricity is largely gone, and in its place we often find a kind of tired familiarity that inspires not hope and excitement, but anxiety or boredom.”
(from “Found in Translation: ’Kingdom of God’ is so last-century. Are there new ways to talk about Jesus’ good news?” by Brian McLaren (http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=magazine.article&issue=soj0603&article=060310)
Jesus and Pilate:
Perhaps we can discover some of that “original electricity” if we use our imaginations to put ourselves in the middle of the scene I want to read today.
Imagine you lived in Iraq. The politics are unstable, and one of the influential minority groups drags one of their own before the most powerful person in the government and accuses him of being a revolutionary who rejects the authority of the government and speaks like people should follow him. They demand the death penalty. The leader is in a difficult place – the crowd might revolt if he doesn’t do as they ask, yet he does not wish to put an innocent man to death. And is he dangerous? Or isn’t he?
John 18:33-37 (NLT)
33 Then Pilate went back into his headquarters and called for Jesus to be brought to him. “Are you the king of the Jews?” he asked him.
34 Jesus replied, “Is this your own question, or did others tell you about me?”
35 “Am I a Jew?” Pilate retorted. “Your own people and their leading priests brought you to me for trial. Why? What have you done?”
36 Jesus answered, “My Kingdom is not an earthly kingdom. If it were, my followers would fight to keep me from being handed over to the Jewish leaders. But my Kingdom is not of this world.”
37 Pilate said, “So you are a king?”
Jesus responded, “You say I am a king.
How The Story Ends:
We know how the story ends – Pilate decides that appeasing the crowd is more important than the life of one man, and though he says Jesus is innocent, he still hands Jesus over to be crucified.
King Jesus:
This exchange between Jesus and Pilate points out one of the things I believe is central to our idea of the Kingdom of God, and it is this: Jesus is King. He says, “My kingdom”, and though the words come out of Pilate’s mouth, Jesus agrees: Jesus is King.
Now again, we have to work a little harder to really comprehend this idea, because we don’t live under an earthly king. But 2000 years ago, what was a king? He was the absolute authority. He had power over every one and everything. He decided everything he wanted to decide – who lives, who pays taxes, who gets to enjoy luxuries, who should fight and whom they should fight, who is innocent and who is guilty. 2000 years ago, a king was the head of the government, head of the courts, head of the bank, head of the religion, head of the army, and the head of anything else he wanted to be head of. It was absolute power.
Now obviously Pilate wasn’t going to recognize any claim to kingship that Jesus had in the political reality, but Pilate knew that if Jesus’ followers believed he was their king, Jesus would have absolute power over them.
What Kind of a King?
In the exchange, Jesus describes His kingdom: “My Kingdom is not an earthly kingdom. If it were, my followers would fight to keep me from being handed over to the Jewish leaders. But my Kingdom is not of this world.”
It begs the question – what kind of Kingdom is “not of this world”? It is obviously different from the physical idea we have of an earthly kingdom, and as I mentioned last week it is a not just a future, heavenly Kingdom. Instead, it is a spiritual kingdom.
When I say that phrase, “spiritual kingdom”, I wonder what you think of. Do you think of another “dimension”? Do you think of ghosts, angels, demons? Do you think of our thoughts and imaginations? Do you think of a whole other aura that surrounds us?
None of those would be quite right. It is more than the physical, but the physical has a big impact on the spiritual. Angels and demons are part of it, but they also have a big impact on our physical lives, and besides, that idea still keeps it outside of us – at arms length, we are not really engaged with it.
So let me suggest, instead, that the spiritual Kingdom Jesus is describing has to do with each of us – each of our spirits. Our spirits, or soul if you prefer that term, is that part of us that will exist forever. It is the part of us that enables us to connect with God. It is not a separate part of us, as if we could split ourselves up neatly into different parts, it is integrated into every aspect our ourselves, and when the Holy Spirit fills us and brings our spirits to life, we start to see how the spiritual really does permeate every part of our being.
Is Jesus Your King?
And when we talk of Jesus as King, that is what He wants to be King over. If we will let Him, He will be King over every part of our life which is permeated with our newly-born spirit.
And so, let me ask you the blunt question: is Jesus your King? And when I say King, I mean King in the way that Jesus understood it in His culture. Just a moment ago, I said, “2000 years ago, a king was the head of the government, head of the courts, head of the bank, head of the religion, head of the army, and the head of anything else he wanted to be head of. He had absolute power.” Is Jesus King of your decision making process? Is He King of your sense of right and wrong, and do you really leave Him to punish those who do wrong and defend those who are innocent? Is He King of your finances? King of your time? Will you obey His written word the way a soldier obeys his commanding officer?
That is what we mean when we say, Jesus is our King. My challenge for you today is this: as you look at your life, is it everything you believe it should be? If that answer is no, are there any places where you are not allowing Jesus to be King in your life?
One Last Sentence:
One last sentence this morning: the only reason it works to surrender absolute authority over our lives to Jesus is because of this: He loves you and I so much that He willingly laid down His life for us: that is what makes Him such an incredible King for us.
