OK, so this is an odd passage for this
time of year, isn’t it? We’re heading into Christmas, not Easter! What’s going
on here? Well, don’t worry, I’m not completely confused. Today is actually a
holiday! Today is Christ the King Sunday, or as it’s called in the Catholic
tradition, the feast of Christ the King. You may not have heard of this before,
so let me just explain a little bit what this day is.
As a church – universal – not just
this church – we follow what’s called a liturgical calendar. A lot of pastors
preach by this liturgical calendar. I do sometimes, but not always. The
liturgical calendar contains scripture that follows the life and ministry of
Jesus throughout the year, and the liturgical calendar actually begins, it’s
start date, is the first Sunday of Advent, which is next week. So today is
actually the last day of the liturgical year for the church! So if next week is
the beginning of the liturgical calendar, and we start with the birth of
Christ, what do you think we celebrate this day, the last day of the year?
No, not his death. That’s Good Friday.
We celebrate his resurrection on Easter. And we actually celebrate Easter for 7
Sundays until ascension Sunday, the day we celebrate Jesus going back to
Heaven. Then after that we celebrate Pentecost, the coming of the Holy Spirit
into the world. And then we have what is called “common time” from June until
today, where we don’t really celebrate anything in particular about Jesus’
life. But we come to this day, the last day of the liturgical calendar and we
have “Christ the King” day. This is the day we celebrate the never-ending
Kingship of Jesus Christ.
Isn’t that cool? It really makes good
sense if you think about it. You can’t really celebrate the end of Jesus,
because Jesus has no end, so on the last day of the liturgical year, that’s
what we celebrate. That not only is there no end to Christ, but there is no end
to his reign. There is no end to his kingship. And that’s what we are
celebrating today.
So look, I know a lot of you are
already in the Christmas spirit. Holly was up at like 5 a.m. on Friday doing
the shopping thing. Our house is already decorated. I hung my lights again this
year. Icicle lights this time. 101.5 the River has it’s Christmas music going.
I know, we are all ready for Christmas. But I want you to put that on the back
burner today. We’re not there yet. We’ve got something else to celebrate.
Something that maybe is even greater than Christmas.
Let’s take a look at our scripture
again. Jesus has been taken to the headquarters of Pontius Pilate. He’s already
been arrested by the Jewish leaders and beaten and charged with blasphemy for
saying that he is the Son of God. So they take him to Pilate, because they
aren’t allowed to give him the death penalty. Only Pilate can do that. And we
get this great dialogue between Pilate and Jesus. Pilate asks him point blank,
Are you the King of the Jews? And Jesus’ response is basically Why do you ask?
Do you think that I am or did someone tell you that I am?
And Pilate says, look, I’m not a Jew.
I don’t really care. Your people handed you over to me because for some reason,
they want you dead. What did you do? And I love Jesus’ response to this. He
says, 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.
And Pilate says, Oh, so you are a
king? And Jesus has another great reply. He says, 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.
You know, this is one of those moments
in the Bible where I wish I could have been there. I would have loved to have
been there for Jesus’ conversation with Pilate. Let me set the stage a little
bit for you. Pilate is rich. Pilate is the governor of
But he relents and they leave Jesus
with him. Just Pilate, this rich Roman citizen, and a poor carpenter who is
being picked on by his own people. And they get into a philosophical religious
debate! How cool is that? Pilate thinks these people are scum, and probably
this guy standing before him most of all. And it turns out, this guy is pretty
smart. Crazy, maybe. But smart! Pilate had probably studied the great Greek and
Roman philosophers of his day and was well educated, and this dirty, smelly,
Jewish guy was here giving him some really intelligent answers. He probably
didn’t like that very much. But in Jesus’ answers, we can learn something about
his kingship, the kingship that we celebrate today.
First, he says, 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.
My kingdom is not from this world. We
know that, right? Christ is the King of Heaven, but we also like to think that
Christ reigns here as well. We like to think that Christ in fact is the king of
this world. But Jesus says that’s simply not the case. He said, if my kingdom
were here, my followers would be fighting to stop this. Instead, at that point
in time, the few followers he had were either running away, or denying that
they knew who he was.
So here is a question for you: is
Christ king of the world today? Hmm…we like to think so. We like to think so.
If Christ were here today being handed over to death, would we as his followers
be forming an army to stop that from happening? Or would we be running away and
denying him? Here’s maybe a better question: as Christ IS being persecuted
today, are we doing anything to stop it? As religion is taken out of our
schools, as children are being told not to pray, as Lowes is advertising their
Christmas Trees as Family Trees, as the ACLU marches on, stripping the Ten
Commandments from every building in America, are we doing anything to stop the
persecution? As Christians are being killed in
No. I don’t think we can honestly say
that Christ is the King of this world. Not yet. Someday. But not yet. But
Christ is King. Christ is King in Heaven, and we are promised that someday
Christ will be king of this world. And I’m ready to fight for that.
Well, Pilate hears Jesus say all this
and says, Oh, so you are a king then? And Jesus I think wants to say here,
“Yes, but not in a way that you could ever understand.” So instead he says, You
say that I’m a king. But I’m really here for one reason: to testify to the
truth. I’m here to tell the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth hears my
voice.
That’s such a powerful statement. And
it is followed by Pilate’s very philosophical question, “What is truth?” It’s
an open-ended question that never gets a response from Jesus, at least not one
that we know of.
That’s one of those questions I would
have loved to have heard an answer to. Can I tell you what I think Jesus would
have said? What I think his response would have been? I think Jesus would have
said, “I AM truth. Everything about me is true. My love is true. My grace is
true. My forgiveness is true. There is nothing more true, nothing more real,
than me.” And Jesus had said that earlier in his ministry, remember? He said,
“I am the way, the TRUTH, and the life.” So why didn’t he say it now? He had
such a great platform to do it. He was speaking to a Roman governor! Convince
him of who you are and the whole world can come to know you! So why didn’t he
tell Pilate that he is and was the truth?
Maybe…you know, maybe he did. Maybe he
did show Pilate what truth is. Maybe he looked Pilate in the eye with a look
that says, “I forgive you,” as Pilate handed him over to die. Maybe the way he
died was a testimony to just how true his love is. Maybe the way he died showed
how true of a king he was, willing to die for his kingdom, and the hope that
someday the world would be a part of his kingdom. Willing not only to suffer
for his kingdom, but for his followers. Remember what Jesus said? “I’m here to
testify to the truth.” I’m here to show you the truth. And here is the truth: I
love you. I want you. I’m willing to die for you. Don’t believe me? I’ll prove
it to you. Now I’m going back to my kingdom, but someday I’m going to come back
for you. And you can count on that, because I am the truth.
That’s what we are celebrating today.
Christ is King. He reigns. He is the truth. And the truth is he loves us and he
wants us. He wants so badly for this world to be a part of his kingdom. And
someday it will be. I believe that. I believe that someday this world will be
under the reign of Christ.
But until that time, what do we do?
Until that day comes, I’m going to do three things. First, I’m going to testify
to the truth. That’s why Jesus said he was here, and if I’m his follower,
that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to tell the world the truth, and the
truth is that Christ loves them and that Christ has died for them and he wants
them so badly.
Second, I’m going to fight for my
king. Because as Paul says in Philippians 3:20, our citizenship is in heaven.
And if we are citizens of heaven, then our king already is Jesus. We’re just
dislocated. We are aliens in this world. Resident aliens. Our king is Jesus,
and if he is being persecuted here, then I’m going to fight for him. You know,
God bless
How do we fight for our King here in
this earth? The same way that he fought for himself: by proving his love. By
claiming that his truth is greater than any truth there is. By showing that his
love is greater than any love there is. By standing up for him when he is being
persecuted and being willing to face any consequences for the sake of following
our King.
Third, I’m going to celebrate the
Kingship of Christ. I’m going to celebrate that Christ is king. He is Lord of
Heaven and someday he will reign over this world, too. That’s cause for
celebration, maybe even more celebration than Christmas! Maybe this should be
our big holiday! Our Savior lives! Our God reigns! What’s bigger and more of a
cause for celebration than that?
Now I know that were going to
celebrate Christmas. And that’s a good thing. Nobody is getting out of work or
school for Christ the King day. But I’d make the argument that Christmas is
such a big deal because of Christ the King day. Without Christ the King day,
Christmas means nothing. It’s just another birthday. But because Christ is the
King, the eternal king, because we know the end of the story, Christmas means
something. It’s not just another birth. It is the day that the truth came into
the world. It marks the beginning point of our King testifying to the truth. It
marks the first time that anyone could really answer Pilate’s question: what is
truth?
The truth is: Jesus loves us. Jesus
died so that he could be with us. And Jesus lives. And he reigns. Amen.
Sing
310 He Lives
Van Buren United
Pastor Dan Metzger