John 18.33–37
Then Pilate entered the headquarters again, summoned Jesus, and asked him, ‘Are you the King of the Jews?’ Jesus answered, ‘Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?’ Pilate replied, ‘I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done?’ Jesus answered, ‘My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.’ Pilate asked him, ‘So you are a king?’ Jesus answered, ‘You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.’
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I think this morning some background to our passage will be helpful.
Jesus has had his last supper with his friends knowing what was about to happen to him, he has been to the garden of Gethsemane where he desperately prayed to God to not have to go through what he was about to go through. That was where he was betrayed by Judas and brought before the Jewish authorities. His closest friend Peter, a man who he has spent three years with, denied that he even knows him in order to save his own neck.
The Rulers of the Jewish people have brought him to trial. They question him and accuse him of blasphemy. They want to condemn him to death,
And Now Jesus stands before Pilate, the Roman governor, and he asks him if he is the King of the Jews.
what does that mean?
Well to Pilate, If Jesus was the King of the Jews in the way that Pilate would have understood it, It would have been a direct threat to peace and order in his province. after all Pilate was the Roman leader of the occupying force in Judaea at that time, known as the Prefect. He is an agent of Tiberius Caesar, his Emperor. Tiberius is a man whom according to the Imperial cult is a man with divine mandate to rule. The Roman Empire is one that brings peace and order to the lands through the use of the sword. It would not be good if the Emperor heard that in one of his provinces, the Prefect was failing to keep control by allowing them to rise up behind somebody claiming to be King and causing revolution. Pilate knows this, he knows that he needs to keep the peace, he knows that he has to deal with any threats to that peace swiftly and decisively.
But Pilate doesn’t seem to think that this is what is happening. He knows that the Jews want to get rid of Jesus. Later on Pilate goes out to the Jews that he finds no basis for a charge. Perhaps he finds no basis for a charge because he doesn’t see any threat in Jesus, this man with his band of followers wandering all around the Judaea countryside didn’t look like he was going to be creating an army any time soon to take on an empire. That is what you wanted to do if you were a would be king or leader.
Jesus isn’t interested in that, he says that, ‘Blessed are the peacemakers’ and ‘turn the other cheek.’
If Jesus did look like an upstart King that the world expected, then Pilate would have had him executed then and there. The Prefect would not risk an uprising in his province. But if Jesus is not going to fight the Romans, then what does it mean to be the king of the Jews? What does it mean to be the king in the Kingdom of God.
Although the idea is not stated explicitly in the Old Testament, the idea of God being a King, or the ruler of the universe ran deep in the mindset of the Israelite people. And It basically means the God’s rule over the earth, God’s rule being one of goodness, of justice and righteousness. And the family of Israel were his chosen people, who would exercise that justice in the world. They’re really to shine like a beacon in the ancient world, showing them what God was like, how good he was and how faithful he was. But they weren’t very good at it. And often they were judged, and even exiled for their sin.
But hope is not lost, as also throughout the Old Testament there is the promise that God will bring his reign onto earth fully, promise that salvation will come, and it will come through a person. God promises that he will act in such a way as to change everything, to revolutionise the world where the righteousness will be written on the hearts of every person. We will see this more and more as we come up to advent and Christmas.
Jesus says at the beginning of his ministry at the beginning of Marks’s Gospel. The time is fulfilled, the Kingdom of God has come near, repent and believe in the Good news. What Jesus is saying is that the long-awaited rule of God has finally come in him.
How do we know that this is true? We know because of what Jesus did.
He healed people from infirmities that they had had since birth. He spent time with and welcomed those people whom Jewish society ostracised at the time, he treated men and women equally, unheard of at the time. He was able to speak to anybody, and he was listened to, who accepted him for who he was, their lives were completely changed. Zacchaeus for example was a tax collector working for the enemy, for Rome, but one meeting with Jesus and he gives half his possessions to the poor and promises to pay back fourfold anybody he had ever defrauded.
Not I don’t know about you but in my opinion that is a pretty incredible change. That is what the Kingdom of God is, it is Jesus himself, restoring the world to the way in which it should be, bringing salvation to those who are poor and oppressed, changing the hearts of tax collectors (I used to be one of those you know) and sinners and the pious and everybody in between. And this change, this breaking in of the Kingdom in the world was not only limited to that time 2000 years ago. Jesus’ Spirit lives inside every christian today. This is what one writer says about him.
“ He did not aim at establishing a temporal power, to be supported by armies and maintained by taxes. The only dominion He exercised was over men's hearts, and the only weapons that His subjects employed were spiritual weapons. A kingdom which required neither money nor servants for its support, was one of which the Roman Emperors need not be afraid. In the highest sense it was a kingdom "not of this world."
There are all kinds of theories out there about what will make the world a better place. Is it better to have large government, or small government for example?
We all have the desire to see justice and peace in our society, but far too often, we only recreate society in our own image, and not what is best for everybody. We te society and the ways in which things are done in our own image.
This is not what changes the world, that is not what ushers in the Kingdom of God. Let me tell you what does, it is the presence of God, here and now in our lives by the Spirit of the Lord Jesus that changes people. The only true change that needs to happen is for Jesus to come and dwell among each one of us, to be the guiding force in our lives, to bring salvation to us.
Social policy doesn’t change people’s hearts, Jesus Changes hearts. He brings us restoration through the Holy Spirit who dwells within.
Jesus stands before Pilate, and Pilate asks him the Question, ‘are you the king of the Jews’ that is a question that we all need to ask of Jesus, so I would like to encourage us all to really take some time to think over the coming advent period. Look again at Jesus, and who he claimed to be. Get that dusty bible off the shelf and give Mark or John’s gospel a good read through, think about it, meditate upon it. Look at who Jesus is.
I promise you you won’t regret it, because knowing the Lord Jesus is to know the author of life itself, to experience him is to be in the presence of the divine.
Amen.