Text: John 18:33-37
Date: November 21, 2021
Event: Christ the King Sunday
John 18:33–37 (EHV)
33Pilate went back into the Praetorium and summoned Jesus. He asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?”
34Jesus answered, “Are you saying this on your own, or did others tell you about me?”
35Pilate answered, “Am I a Jew? Your own people and chief priests handed you over to me. What have you done?”
36Jesus replied, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would fight so that I would not be handed over to the Jews. But now my kingdom is not from here.”
37“You are a king then?” Pilate asked.
Jesus answered, “I am, as you say, a king. For this reason I was born, and for this reason I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”
Listen to Your True King
We rightfully teach young children to not listen to strangers. Don’t take candy from them, don’t lead where they follow, don’t trust what they say. Why? Because a stranger may not (or likely does not) have the child’s best interests in mind. They might hurt or steal the child or give them something that is otherwise dangerous or harmful. You only listen to people you know you can trust.
That’s a principle not just for young children but for all people, right? Does that financial advisor have your best interest in mind or is he just trying to sell you a product that will get him a big commission? Is that used car salesman being honest about the history of that car, or is he trying to sell you something that will be a heap of trouble? Is that person contacting you in your email really your loved one or colleague who desperately needs many gift cards to get out of trouble, or is it a scam?
Putting our trust in the wrong places, listening to the advice and direction of the wrong person, can lead us to a lot of troubling or harmful situations. But what about trusting or listening to someone who does have your best interests in mind? Well, then you just might get a great deal on a gently used vehicle, have your long-term finances in order, or even get yourself some delicious candy!
As Jesus stood on trial before Pontius Pilate, he probably didn’t look all that trustworthy. Sleep-deprived and beaten, he probably looked like a lunatic who would have been more likely to spout utter nonsense than a coherent thought. Pilate assumed he had authority over Jesus rather than that relationship being the other way around. He did not listen to what Jesus said.
And Pilate’s reaction to Jesus is the same as the world’s reaction to Jesus. He doesn’t look like an eternal king. He doesn’t look like he was the one created the universe by calling it into being. He doesn’t look like the one who would rescue mankind from the eternal threat of sin and hell. But he is. He is the eternal King, the King who testifies to the truth. It’s a truth that we often don’t want to hear, but a truth we need to hear.
We often would rather believe false truths we’ve made up rather than facing reality. After all, I can concoct supposed truths that are far more fitting to my desires or fit my own personal life narrative better than anyone else. We can create all sorts of fictions for ourselves to cling to. But when it comes to our eternal King, there seems to be two extremes at either end of the spectrum. On the one end, we might consider God to be our angry King whom we have to appease and make up with because of our sin. In this situation we make ourselves king. On the other end, we might consider ourselves, our wishes, our desires to be the most important in existence. Here, fear and desperation are our king.
Let’s start with that first one, where we make ourselves and our desires to be the highest priority in our lives, when we really make ourselves the kings. I decide what is right and wrong for me. I decide that my desires are more important than God. So I do what I want to do when I want to do it with little regard for God and what he’s said and done. Maybe it’s not broadly and across the board, but maybe it’s in smaller places. Greed takes control for one person, lust takes control for another, anger sometimes takes control for yet another. And we feel justified in this because we have exalted our tendencies and habits and desires over everything else.
If my inflated ego has any room for God, any room for Jesus at all, it’s an attempt to use him rather than serve and honor him. It actually views Jesus as my servant rather than my King. It makes the things of the here and now more important than anything else. If God is a part of this charade, it’s only because I am trying to control God. I want him to do what I want him to do, to give me what I want for right now. Note how quickly we ignore what Jesus declared, “My kingdom is not of this world.”
On the other end of the false-truth spectrum, we let fear drive our relationship with God. It’s natural to think that this omnipotent Creator and Judge is angry with us. He’s told us to be perfect and given us his law to follow. And what have we done? We have failed time and time again. We’ve actively done wrong things that we shouldn’t have done. We have failed to do good things that we should have done.
And so our gut reaction is that we have to do something good to make up for the bad, and that will change God from being angry with us to being happy with us. We’re hardwired to think that, something we’ve come to call the opinion of the law. And we see that often it is appropriate to behave this way in our relationships with other people (doing something to make up for some failure), so why should it not be appropriate in our relationship with God?
This might feel very different than exalting our own desires over and above God, but is it really? Stop and think of what hubris and false humility this is! Is God so easily manipulated? When he has made a demand of perfection and we have sinned, is he so easily bought? God is not a child distracted from a scrapped knee with an ice cream cone. No good work on our part can ever change that fact that we did sin, thus nothing we do can change God’s impending judgment over that sin. Nothing you or I can do can change the fact that hell is waiting for us because of our sin. Thinking otherwise is to assume we have a very weak and fickle God.
There’s a good chance that both of these extremes feel a little bit too familiar. We often find ourselves waffling between these two points of view. As the cycle of sin and guilt continues in our lives, we bounce back and forth between these two attitudes. Sometimes, the hubris that we and our desires are the most important things in the world rules our thinking and attitudes. At other times, perhaps during moments of clarity over the false gods we have created in our hearts, we are overwhelmed with guilt for what we have done and desperately try to do something to make our true King happy with us again. Why does this back-and-forth cycle continue? Because we’re not listening to our true King.
So on this Last Sunday of the Church Year, let’s listen, actually listen, to what our King says. Let’s set aside our preconceived notions and our desires, and let Jesus, our eternal King, speak. And let’s hear what he says; let’s apply what he says. Let’s cast off our false truths and delusions that we’ve created and let him speak for himself.
Jesus told Pilate, “I am, as you say, a king. For this reason I was born, and for this reason I came into the world, to testify to the truth.” As Jesus stands before Pilate on trial, just hours before he would be crucified, everything is coming to a head. His entire life, from his birth in Bethlehem through his whole ministry, was leading up to this moment. Here he is testifying to the truth. What truth is that? The truth that God has been saying all along. It’s the truth that speaks of the seriousness of sin and the eternal penalty it bring. It’s the truth that assures us of God’s love, of his promises fulfilled. It’s the truth that God desired to save mankind from sin from the first moment our parents fell in the Garden of Eden.
Jesus has spoken and taught about it. He testifies to it with words to Pilate on this Friday morning. But his ultimate testimony to God’s truth will come at the cross where he will suffer and die to pay for the sins of the world. And that testimony will continue the following Sunday morning as his resurrection from the dead proves his victory over sin and even death itself.
Jesus’ testimony to the truth shows just how unhinged our false truths were. Can God be bought with little token good works? Absolutely not! Look at the violence, the blood, the suffering, the literal hell that Jesus endures to actually remove sin. Can my desires take precedent over God? Absolutely not! Look at how deadly serious God is about punishing sin. He wasn’t making empty threats; here we see his wrath in all of its horrid glory.
But our King goes through it for us. He takes our place under that wrath to pay for our false truths. He testifies to the real truth: our sins are disastrous and bring eternal condemnation, but God’s love wills us to not have to suffer that. So our King does become our servant, but not in the way we wanted to warp him. He becomes our servant by his choice to do what we needed him to do, not what we self-servingly and short-sightedly wanted him to do. He bears our sins in his body. He is the King, not just of the Jews, but of all people because he takes on the punishment of sin for all people.
Jesus finished with Pilate in our lesson, “Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.” You belong to the truth because you belong to Jesus. He is your King here and now today. His kingdom is not just that eternity of heaven that we long for. His kingdom is in your heart; he rules in you by his grace through the faith he has given you. The gift of trust that he provides is his ruling action among us. And that faith, that trust in the truth of his work for us, is what will bring us to that eternity that he has prepared for us.
Here today we listen to our eternal King our true King. It’s not always pleasant to be told that the things we think and desire are not reality, but we need him to bring the real, objective truth to us. And the reality is this: we have sinned and deserve hell, but Jesus lived and died to rescue us. Our King saved us from eternal death by his death in our place and brings us the triumph of his empty tomb. At the last day, our tombs will be empty as well, and then we will be with our eternal, true, triumphing King forever, face-to-face with him for all eternity. That’s the truth. Listen to the One who speaks it.
May our true King be our guide through every step and stage of our life! Amen.
