Christ the King

First Reading Daniel 7.9-10,13-14

Daniel said: “As I looked,
thrones were set in place,
and the Ancient of Days took his seat.
His clothing was as white as snow;
the hair of his head was white like wool.
His throne was flaming with fire,
and its wheels were all ablaze.
A river of fire was flowing,
coming out from before him.
Thousands upon thousands attended him;
ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him.
The court was seated,
and the books were opened.

“In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all peoples, nations and men of every language worshipped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.”

Gospel John 18.33-37

Pilate went back inside the palace, summoned Jesus and asked him, “Are you the king of the Jews?”

“Is that your own idea,” Jesus asked, “or did others talk to you about me?”

“Am I a Jew?” Pilate replied. “It was your people and your chief priests who handed you over to me. What is it you have done?”

Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews. But now my kingdom is from another place.”

“You are a king, then!” said Pilate.

Jesus answered, “You are right in saying I am a king. In fact, for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.”

Sermon

Christ the King is the title given to Jesus in many passages of scripture. Many denominations, including Anglicans, Roman Catholics, Presbyterians and some Methodists and Lutherans observe the feast of Christ the King on the last day of the church year. Sunday before Advent.

Surely, you may say, Jesus did not call himself a King? Jesus did not describe himself as a King in the conventional sense. Nor did he even want to be called Messiah. Both of these titles carried overtones of worldly power and might. To claim kingship or even to say he was the Messiah would invite misunderstanding on the part of those who listened to his words.

Still, in the exchange with Pilate, Jesus admitted to being a king of sorts. A king not of this world. When challenged by Pilate to say what kind of king he was, Jesus answered:

“You are right in saying I am a king. In fact, for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth.”

In reply, Pilate asked the famous question: “What is truth?” - a question we will all spend our lives trying to answer.

In order to try and address this particular question, we have to jump back from chapter 18 to the beginning of John’s gospel.

¹ In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ¹⁴ The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only [Son], who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Jesus’s kingship is revealed by John as God in human flesh. He is the Word. The Word is God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.

Throughout John’s gospel, Jesus’s kingship is veiled. Andrew finds Jesus, then goes to get his brother Simon. We have found the Messiah he says.

Jesus calls Philip who finds Nathaniel.

⁴⁹ Then Nathanael declared, "Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the king of Israel."

In Matthew, the wise men were seeking Jesus the king. "Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him."

Jesus himself preferred another title. Son of Man. You can see where it came from in today’s reading from Daniel.

“In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all peoples, nations and men of every language worshipped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.”

So the King Jesus claims to be is very far from worldly sovereignty. It is all about truth. Revealing the truth to human beings. This is the explanation Jesus gives to Pilate, and Pilate does not question it, any more than he believes Jesus is guilty of the crimes brought against him. In fact, Pilate even orders a sign for the cross. It read JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS. John’s gospel adds:

²⁰Many of the Jews read this sign, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and the sign was written in Aramaic, Latin and Greek. ²¹The chief priests of the Jews protested to Pilate, "Do not write 'The King of the Jews,' but that this man claimed to be king of the Jews."

²²Pilate answered, "What I have written, I have written."

So Pilate seems to accept that Jesus somehow has a kingship of a kind, but he gets no answer to his question “What is Truth?” Or does he?

If Pilate affirms Jesus’s kingship so clearly, does he see, as we do, that Jesus is Truth? Does he perceive that this prisoner is in himself the answer to that eternal question we all spend our lives trying to answer? The person of Jesus, standing in front of him accused of sedition embodies the Truth. Truth is the One on trial. Truth is the Word made flesh. And the Word made flesh is indeed Christ the King – the true witness and proclamation of John the Evangelist today, the feast of Christ the King on the Sunday next before Advent.

But Jesus’s insistence on calling himself Son of Man (literally ‘one like a human being’) also reveals to us God. Not only Jesus himself – God incarnate – but God’s place in an increasingly chaotic world. In Daniel’s vision, the Son of Man comes to deliver the people from the threats that overwhelm them. God is depicted as King, on a throne but the delivered looks like a human being, the Son of Man.

So God is in the midst of all this chaos, both as King and as a human deliverer. This shows God is not far away from the everyday events of life, but is moving, acting and intervening in the real life struggles of believers, however much it may sometimes seem that he has taken a back seat or is just an observer.

As one American theologian[1] has written:

Particularly as we are entering this season of Advent we take heart in the image of Christ our King who was born in the shadow of the empire; who was threatened and eventually persecuted and killed by the empire; but who has risen from the dead, reigning on high. It is this advent hope in the already and the not yet of our salvation that gives us the strength to endure.

Amen

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[1] Juliana Claassens

Associate Professor of Old Testament
Wesley Theological Seminary
Richmond, VA