The cosmic Christ
Commentary
Object:
Happy New Year! This is the last Sunday of the Christian year, and so we celebrate the ultimate doctrine of the Christian Church: the enthronement of Jesus as King of the Creation, the ruler of all the earth, the overlord to whom all rulers must answer. Next Sunday we begin Advent, and the cycle of stories begins all over again.
In our more evangelical churches, we frequently hear the question “Is Jesus the Lord of your life?” or perhaps “Have you given your life to Jesus?” In our “mainstream” (often referred to in many circles today as “main street”) churches, we are more likely to say “I’m a follower of Christ.” But in any event, we are reminded on this Sunday that Jesus is not only the meek and mild baby born in Bethlehem; he grew up to be a man who demanded justice and mercy on behalf of the poor and outcast, and who challenged those in power to live up to the demands of God’s Law. And his followers (that’s us) are invited to have courage and to be moral, not out of fear, but because we want to give our best to our king, who is forever benevolent to his subjects.
2 Samuel 23:1-7
This passage is laid out in poetry, like a psalm. Hebrew poetry does not rhyme, even in the original language. Instead, ideas are presented in two ways, with slightly different words. So in the first verse we see David referred to in several ways: as “son of Jesse”; as “the man whom God exalted” (or “raised on high” in Hebrew); as “the anointed by the God of Jacob”; and as “the favorite of the Strong One of Israel” (meaning God). [Remember that both Jacob and Israel apply to David’s ancestor, Israel being the name God gave Jacob as he was returning home from Padan-aram (see Genesis 35:9-11).] Each of these qualities of King David is a line of its own, but the stanza holds together because of the shared meaning.
The next stanza is verse 2. We are to understand that “the Lord speaks through me” is the same as “his word is upon my tongue.” He is referring to his role as psalmist, inspired by God to compose poetry that we still recite today, some 2,500 years later. To be inspired is literally to breathe in the spirit of God, and to speak what God has given us to say.
We pastors hope that this will be true for us as well as for David. This doesn’t mean that we can write or preach or teach without preparation, of course. We cannot claim too much of God’s touch in what we preach, because every sermon is preceded by prayer, research, and planning. But we also cannot claim, even to ourselves, that we are entirely free in what we preach, because we prepare with an eye on God’s desire to communicate through us to our listeners. This is what David is saying about himself as well.
The sense of the entire poem is that David, for all his personal failings, has tried to be a just king. He is reflecting on what it means that God has trusted him and raised him up, making “an everlasting covenant” that is “ordered” and “secure.” He understands that this covenant places responsibility on him to “rule... justly” in “the fear [awe] of God.” In saying this, he is saying that a good ruler -- be it royalty, a president, a government minister, or a tribal leader -- ought to lead “in the fear of God” as well. Not that our leaders should be using that to beat down their people, but living in fear of God her/himself, knowing that s/he has to answer to God for the well-being of his or her nation.
David compares the just ruler to the light of a cloudless morning as the sun rises after a rain. This is highly poetic, but a wonderful image. I’m reminded of the mornings in my youth when I would get up as soon as the sun did so I could get into my vegetable garden before the mosquitoes did. If it had rained the night before, I could see drops of rain clinging to grass, bushes, and the leaves of the plants I was working on. The air would be particularly fresh, and the slanting rays of the sun would reveal spider webs, woven between the plants, alight with the remnants of rain.
The same can be said when we have been in a bad situation and find that suddenly all of our problems have disappeared. What a relief to be freed from fear and stress! It may be that an abusive spouse has finally been sentenced, freeing a person from danger and the fear of the unpredictable temper of that spouse. It may be that we made mistakes on our taxes and have been frightened of the consequences, and now have everything settled. There is chaos in every situation that frightens us, and the end of chaos means that we can breathe again.
In verse 6, David says that “the godless are like thorns... for they cannot be picked up with the hand... one uses an iron bar or the shaft of a spear.” If you have ever bumped your hand on a thorny cactus or the shaft of a rose, you know the truth of this! And the godless are certainly like that. We have to approach cautiously, expecting violence, because the godless in our lives (no matter that they claim to be Christians) are often unpredictable in their behavior.
David’s use of this image has a double meaning, as is so often the case in poetry. The iron rod and the spear are metaphors in Hebrew for the kind of power a king has over his people, and in Revelation the same image is used [see Revelation 2:27; 12:5; and 19:15]. When King Saul held court, he would have his spear in his hand. The image here is that of the king dispensing justice in the way that God would want [see also Psalm 2:9]. The spear is a reminder that God will swiftly do away with evildoers, with the king as his agent, so that order and security can be assured.
The iron rod is used in Revelation as the weapon Christ will use against the ungodly. It is just after the scene in which the woman clothed with the sun has given birth. John says that the baby (Christ, or perhaps Christ’s church) will have a rod of iron in his hand, and will use it to break the evildoers as a potter breaks a faulty pot.
This is what the Law of God is all about. It isn’t just that God gives us rules to live by, with threats if we deviate from them; the Law brings order out of chaos. We can live in safety as long as that Law is obeyed and enforced. The opposite of order is anarchy: people running through the streets, attacking the police with bricks, breaking the windows of stores, looting and destroying whatever they can access. It may be that a government has behaved badly and needs changing, but the breaking up of any form of government in favor of something new is inherently chaotic. We may rejoice when a Berlin Wall comes down, when an oppressive regime topples or an unjust despot is dethroned; but for those living through those times, the chaos is not a welcome thing.
David himself had lived through such times. He had seen his own son rise up against him in a civil war, had lost that very son to the violence he had perpetrated. But at the end of his life, his son Solomon was sitting on the throne of Israel and the kingdom had been united. David is reflecting on the power of God and the promise that if his people were loyal to God, this kingdom would last forever.
Revelation 1:4b-8
“Grace to you and peace.” This is the standard greeting Paul used in his letters to the various churches. But what is grace? Baker’s Theological Dictionary says that it is “the unmerited favor of God toward man” [sic]. It goes on to say that “This assumes the notion of God as a watchful master or king, with the one who is finding favor a servant, an employee, or perhaps a soldier.” This brings up the question “What kind of an employee am I?” Are you the kind of employee who is always looking to do your best work at all times? Or do you look for a way to avoid the hard jobs, to shirk doing what doesn’t come under your job description?
Many years ago I was at an event for Christian educators and a man was complaining about a situation in his church. They had started having youth events in their fellowship hall that involved hiring local bands as part of the entertainment. “I have to go out in the alley behind the church during every single event and pick up soda cans, cigarette butts, and even beer cans!” he griped. “These guys in these bands just treat the alley like a garbage can! And I have to do it the same night, or the older members of the congregation will have hissy fits! I’ve about had it with this problem. I have better things to do than pick up their trash.”
“Really?” someone in the group asked. “What do you have to do that’s more important than seeing that your teens and their friends are coming to think of church as a fun place to be on Saturday night? Seems to me that if that trash might make the elders think of closing you down, you don’t have anything more important to do.”
It’s human nature to want to think of ourselves as important. It’s probably human nature to see certain jobs -- like picking up trash in an alley -- as “beneath us.” But we Christians are called to exceed our human nature, and to work as though Christ were standing right behind us, watching how we do our job. We have all had the experience of waiting in a store for employees to get done with whatever story one of them is telling so they will get around to waiting on us. But if we, in turn, make others wait while we finish our computer game before we get to work on something, we’re no better. How many times would we say, “Just a minute, Jesus, and I’ll be right with you”?
In John’s vision, we see the Trinity in all its majesty, as he describes each of the three personas of God.
First, there is the A and Z (the meaning of Alpha and Omega, the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet) -- the Almighty, sitting on a throne like an earthly king. This is the God who judges us and all creation, who is beyond anything we can make up in our minds. And yet, the greeting that opens the vision says “Grace to you and peace.” This is the God from whom we may expect not just judgement, but grace and mercy as well.
Which brings us back to that word: grace. God bends down to us, holds out a hand to us, and promises us that he will not hurt us. This is the God that Jesus calls “Father.” And we are not to think of a hard-handed, demanding, and critical father when we hear that word. We are to think of a father who picks us up and cuddles us when we are hurt; who patiently runs behind us as we learn to balance a bicycle, keeping a hand out to catch us if we fall; who reads us a bedtime story and tucks us in at night; who kisses our scraped knee when we come crying. This God is frightening in majesty, but with us, his children, is kind.
There are seven spirits before the throne. It helps, in reading this, to cross-reference Isaiah 11 where there is a listing of seven spirits of God, which are: a spirit of wisdom and understanding; a spirit of counsel and might; a spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord; and a spirit of righteousness. John repeatedly references the Old Testament, and since Jesus himself often quoted Isaiah, we can be free to believe he is the source for these spirits.
That John can see these spirits is a conundrum, since the Greek word pneuma means “wind” or “breath” as well as “spirit,” by which the Greeks meant the invisible soul of a person. When a person was moved to create something, they (and we) say they were inspired, that is, they had breathed in the breath of God. When a person dies, we say they have expired, they have breathed out their last breath. Before the Creation begins in Genesis, the spirit of God is moving over the waters, and the things created come from God speaking a word: Light! Stars! Life! And the Word in the first chapter of the gospel of John was present at the beginning, and was the means by which God created, and was of the very essence of God. Yet spirit by its very nature is invisible. But then this is a vision, and in visions all kinds of things happen that don’t make perfect sense in ways we see every day.
The number of the spirits, seven, is of course a magical number. It applies to God, to the things of God. Whenever John uses the number seven he is again and again driving home the idea that the future is in God’s hands, and that God is in control of his own even when the world is in chaos. In fact, John uses this number 36 times in Revelation: there are seven spirits, seven churches, seven lampstands, seven stars, seven angels with seven bowls that contain seven plagues. The Roman empire was making war on Christians, and the Jews in Jerusalem had made being Christian a blasphemy, so the new believers were looking for places they could go to be free to worship God as they felt moved to. John encourages them to remember that God is ultimately in charge, no matter how awful the world seems to be.
At last, we see Jesus Christ. He is not Jesus of Nazareth here, not a Mediterranean wandering preacher. He is the risen Christ, “the firstborn of the dead.” He is “the ruler of the kings of the earth” -- not just the “King of the Jews” that the priests wanted gone and Herod had feared, he has come into his own, seated at the right hand of God in glory. He is “the faithful witness” whose life and testimony came from God when he was here on earth. And finally, we have been freed from our separation from God “by his blood.” And that phrase needs a bit of discussion.
In Jesus’ case, there is also the matter of him being flogged and having a crown of thorns pressed into his scalp. By the time Pilate presented him to the crowd, with a robe tossed over his shoulders in a mockery of his claimed kingship, Jesus was a bloody mess. All of this blood and all of this suffering certainly presents a context for saying we have been “washed... by his blood.”
However, there is another meaning to blood in this context: blood carries the life of all living creatures, including humans. This is why Jewish dietary laws strictly forbade the eating of blood. Kosher slaughter laws require the animal to be bled before being eaten. To eat the blood is to eat the life. So we could say that to be washed in the blood of Christ is to be freed from our sins by his life rather than his death. This certainly goes with the complete change of life that early Christians experienced. In being “made into a kingdom” with Christ as king, they had a new ruler, one who was greater than the emperor (Caesar) of the vast Roman empire. With the ascension of Caesar Augustus, it became the doctrine of the empire that Augustus was a god on earth, and in order to prove one’s allegiance men had to go to the Roman temples and make an offering of incense to Caesar, just as one might to the pantheon of gods. It was their refusal to do this, more than anything, that made early Christians pariahs in their own countries. It is this same understanding that makes Jehovah’s Witnesses refuse to say the pledge of allegiance or salute the flag in our own country.
But Jesus has not only made us a separate kingdom, we have all been made “priests serving his God and Father.” This phrase is one of those statements that separates Catholics and Protestants. In the Catholic and Orthodox Churches, priests alone can bless -- or even handle -- the elements of communion. In Protestantism we emphasize “the priesthood of all believers,” which means that we don’t forbid lay members handling the communion elements (though some Protestant denominations do require that the bread and wine [or juice] be blessed by an ordained person). Moreover, the laity in Protestant churches have a say in how the congregation will be run, even discussing how we interpret the Bible. This is all included in the idea of the “priesthood of all believers.”
At the end of this passage, we get the benediction “to him be glory and dominion forever and ever.” This does not apply to God in this context. It is intended to say how lofty the Christ is, and to raise our hearts to him.
This is followed by a promise that Christ will soon be visible to everyone on earth, rather than remain hidden as he is now. This follows logically from the declaration that he is “ruler of the kings of earth.” How can he rule over those who have never seen him?
Today, we Americans have a government that is at a distance from us ordinary citizens, just as Rome was distant from the far corners of the empire. We don’t see the president or the members of Congress in person; we have no idea what is going on in other parts of our own country. Yes, we see them on television, but what does that prove? (Think of the number of people who believe that the moonwalk was done in a TV studio.) In the Roman empire (and many modern countries) soldiers on the street serve as a police force, and as proof that the power and might of the government is firmly in place. It was the presence of the Roman legions that emphasized Judea’s captivity to a foreign power.
That is the other reason it is important that we realize that we are citizens of a kingdom not of this earth. Our status as priests of this kingdom means that we are visible signs of that kingdom. We must be, as priests of the kingdom of Christ, different from the average American citizen. We must be holy, as holy as we expect priests to be. Not “holier than thou.” That’s been done, and it’s not a good thing for Christ’s followers to be. We should be different in manner, kinder to others than the average person. We should be humble, as humble as Jesus was in his earthly life, caring for those who may only know Christ in the two minutes we are interacting with them.
It’s easy to become discouraged in our faith when it seems that the world doesn’t see how we can transform life. It is in this setting that John includes a hymn (v. 7) to cheer us up: Every eye will see him, even those who pierced him; and on his account all the tribes of the earth will wail.
This is the promise John makes to us by his vision.
John 18:33-37
This passage contains two lines that are in the oldest manuscript of any portion of the New Testament, vv. 31-33 and 37-38.1 It is a sign of the popularity of John’s writing, not just today but among the ancient fathers of the Church. Augustine2 said that John’s gospel is like “an eagle hovering among Christ’s sayings of the more sublime order and in no way descending to earth but on rare occasions.” Which is to say that it’s completely different in tone, language, and intent than the other three (synoptic) gospels. While the others set out to tell the story of Jesus, John’s is “the spiritual gospel.” 3 The gospel gained this reputation partly because it has some of the finest Greek in the New Testament, and the emphasis is on the divinity of Christ rather than the humanity of Jesus of Nazareth. No one comes to John to track down the historical Jesus.
John’s is the last of the gospels to be written, and there has been much discussion and debate down the centuries about who wrote it, since the apostle John would have had to have lived for 100 years if he had written it. Nevertheless, 2nd-century commentators assumed that it was written by the apostle John, working in a group with the other apostles to write down what they all remembered. However, the comments of Pilate that “Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me” are not part of that ancient fragment mentioned above.
The conversation between Jesus and Pilate comes in the middle of John’s description of Jesus’ trial. Jesus has already been to Caiaphas, the high priest, and after that hearing he has been taken to Pilate for execution (v. 31) because they cannot impose the death penalty. Pilate did not want to be bothered early in the morning, and told them to judge him according to their own law. What follows seems like a game of cat-and-mouse.
Pilate opens with “Are you the king of the Jews?”
Jesus’ rejoinder is “Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?” In other words, if Pilate is going to judge Jesus’ case, he needs witnesses. Where are those witnesses? They are outside, of course, avoiding entering into the Gentile headquarters. If they come inside they will have to ritually cleanse themselves for several days, and that would make them miss the Passover. But Pilate doesn’t bite the lure to get these priests to defile themselves by coming in and making their case.
Pilate’s response is that he’s no Jew. The Romans looked down on this nation they ruled, especially since the Jews absolutely denied that the Romans had any right to be there and resisted every effort the Romans made to get them to assimilate into the empire. Meanwhile, the Jews also looked down on the Romans, who were in their view brutish. But John’s view of Pilate is that while he despises the Jews in general, he has some curiosity about Jesus and why the authorities have turned him over to Rome.
“What have you done?” Pilate demands.
Jesus responds that “My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting.” He thus differentiates himself from the various messiahs that had popped up all over Judea, Samaria, and Galilee in the previous decade. They intended to overthrow the Romans and restore the kingdom of Israel. This is not Jesus’ intention, and his disciples are not armed to make war.
This really should have been the end of the matter. The charge of the elders was treason, but Jesus has denied the charge and been quite clear that he is not seeking political power. There were only two reasons for a man to be crucified: that he was a bandit wrecking havoc on travelers and stealing their goods, or that he was fronting an armed rebellion. Jesus is doing neither. Yet he continues to talk about his kingdom. Pilate seems confused, as we might also be if we didn’t know this story so well.
“So you are a king?”
And still Jesus seems to hedge. “You say that I am a king.”
But Pilate has not said this of his own accord. He is asking if the charges of the Jewish authorities are true. But Jesus will not accommodate him. He does not say again that he is a king but redefines his role: “for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.” The Jews would have understood him to be saying that he is a prophet. This is the function of prophets -- to remind the people of the truth. But Pilate is not, as he has already pointed out, a Jew.
For purposes of discussing only the kingship of Christ, verse 38 has been lopped off this passage. But Pilate’s response in that verse has rung down the ages: “What is truth?”
What Pilate has done is to discard Jesus’ self-designation.
Still, we need to know that what the Jews saw as the basis for truth was qualitatively and arguably different from the Roman and Greek philosophers’ basis for truth. This one verse really deserves its own sermon, which is probably why the World Council of Churches of Christ did not include it in the lectionary for today. Anyone who wants to delve into the depths of those differences could start online with the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, and begin with any of the several articles they have available on what constitutes truth in various schools.
Christians today still face this question. We talk about Jesus as being both human and divine. The Book of Revelation declares Jesus to be “the King over all kings.” Yet there is nothing concrete about these claims. Jesus has not yet come back so clearly that every eye has seen him. God did not even show his face to his own prophets. Visionaries say that God is Light, and the face is lost in that light. Every standard the modern scientific world has for “proving” Jesus’ status and the reality of God is missing. All we have to go on is our own experience, which is so ephemeral that the moment after we experience the Presence of God it has dissipated. We cannot even find the words to explain what it is like to be in God’s presence to those who are willing to believe us, let alone those who are not so inclined.
Therefore, when we try to talk about Jesus and his death, the resolution of our fractured souls and our separation from God, we fall back into language that is incomprehensible to the secular world. How shall we talk about our faith -- that word that we all too often fall back on when pressed -- with those who do not share even the basics of our belief system? How can we express in words our trust that somehow Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection have overcome our tendency to feel isolated and alone in the world, cut off from any understanding of God and God’s Love for us?
Jesus’ claim of kingship that has no relation to this world’s lust for power and position makes him a very different sort of person from any we have ever known. He preached a very different God as well... One who loves us, even -- or maybe especially -- those who have been abandoned by society: dressed in rags; selling all they have (even their own bodies) to stay alive another day; blind, lame, sick, having spent all they had to pay the doctor and hospital bills; without even a penny for the annual Temple tax. He certainly did not preach a revolution based on war, but rather a revolution based on how we treat one another -- a revolution that said “When a Roman soldier forces you to carry his pack for a mile” (which was allowed, but only one mile), “volunteer to carry it another mile.” It was and is a subtle way to overthrow the world and its constant striving for more. It was a revolution in which the boundaries were leaned against rather than torn down, in which we deny our own lusts in order to see all people as equal to ourselves, as needy of love and kindness as we wish we could receive from others.
It is a revolution that redefines what is true. And this is how the feast of Christ the King both ends our Christian year and prepares us for the coming of the baby born in Bethlehem.
1 Clement of Alexandria, quoted in Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, New Testament, Vol. Iva, “Introduction to John,” p. xxii
2 Augustine, Harmony of the Gospels
3 Clement of Alexandria, op. cit., p. xxiv
In our more evangelical churches, we frequently hear the question “Is Jesus the Lord of your life?” or perhaps “Have you given your life to Jesus?” In our “mainstream” (often referred to in many circles today as “main street”) churches, we are more likely to say “I’m a follower of Christ.” But in any event, we are reminded on this Sunday that Jesus is not only the meek and mild baby born in Bethlehem; he grew up to be a man who demanded justice and mercy on behalf of the poor and outcast, and who challenged those in power to live up to the demands of God’s Law. And his followers (that’s us) are invited to have courage and to be moral, not out of fear, but because we want to give our best to our king, who is forever benevolent to his subjects.
2 Samuel 23:1-7
This passage is laid out in poetry, like a psalm. Hebrew poetry does not rhyme, even in the original language. Instead, ideas are presented in two ways, with slightly different words. So in the first verse we see David referred to in several ways: as “son of Jesse”; as “the man whom God exalted” (or “raised on high” in Hebrew); as “the anointed by the God of Jacob”; and as “the favorite of the Strong One of Israel” (meaning God). [Remember that both Jacob and Israel apply to David’s ancestor, Israel being the name God gave Jacob as he was returning home from Padan-aram (see Genesis 35:9-11).] Each of these qualities of King David is a line of its own, but the stanza holds together because of the shared meaning.
The next stanza is verse 2. We are to understand that “the Lord speaks through me” is the same as “his word is upon my tongue.” He is referring to his role as psalmist, inspired by God to compose poetry that we still recite today, some 2,500 years later. To be inspired is literally to breathe in the spirit of God, and to speak what God has given us to say.
We pastors hope that this will be true for us as well as for David. This doesn’t mean that we can write or preach or teach without preparation, of course. We cannot claim too much of God’s touch in what we preach, because every sermon is preceded by prayer, research, and planning. But we also cannot claim, even to ourselves, that we are entirely free in what we preach, because we prepare with an eye on God’s desire to communicate through us to our listeners. This is what David is saying about himself as well.
The sense of the entire poem is that David, for all his personal failings, has tried to be a just king. He is reflecting on what it means that God has trusted him and raised him up, making “an everlasting covenant” that is “ordered” and “secure.” He understands that this covenant places responsibility on him to “rule... justly” in “the fear [awe] of God.” In saying this, he is saying that a good ruler -- be it royalty, a president, a government minister, or a tribal leader -- ought to lead “in the fear of God” as well. Not that our leaders should be using that to beat down their people, but living in fear of God her/himself, knowing that s/he has to answer to God for the well-being of his or her nation.
David compares the just ruler to the light of a cloudless morning as the sun rises after a rain. This is highly poetic, but a wonderful image. I’m reminded of the mornings in my youth when I would get up as soon as the sun did so I could get into my vegetable garden before the mosquitoes did. If it had rained the night before, I could see drops of rain clinging to grass, bushes, and the leaves of the plants I was working on. The air would be particularly fresh, and the slanting rays of the sun would reveal spider webs, woven between the plants, alight with the remnants of rain.
The same can be said when we have been in a bad situation and find that suddenly all of our problems have disappeared. What a relief to be freed from fear and stress! It may be that an abusive spouse has finally been sentenced, freeing a person from danger and the fear of the unpredictable temper of that spouse. It may be that we made mistakes on our taxes and have been frightened of the consequences, and now have everything settled. There is chaos in every situation that frightens us, and the end of chaos means that we can breathe again.
In verse 6, David says that “the godless are like thorns... for they cannot be picked up with the hand... one uses an iron bar or the shaft of a spear.” If you have ever bumped your hand on a thorny cactus or the shaft of a rose, you know the truth of this! And the godless are certainly like that. We have to approach cautiously, expecting violence, because the godless in our lives (no matter that they claim to be Christians) are often unpredictable in their behavior.
David’s use of this image has a double meaning, as is so often the case in poetry. The iron rod and the spear are metaphors in Hebrew for the kind of power a king has over his people, and in Revelation the same image is used [see Revelation 2:27; 12:5; and 19:15]. When King Saul held court, he would have his spear in his hand. The image here is that of the king dispensing justice in the way that God would want [see also Psalm 2:9]. The spear is a reminder that God will swiftly do away with evildoers, with the king as his agent, so that order and security can be assured.
The iron rod is used in Revelation as the weapon Christ will use against the ungodly. It is just after the scene in which the woman clothed with the sun has given birth. John says that the baby (Christ, or perhaps Christ’s church) will have a rod of iron in his hand, and will use it to break the evildoers as a potter breaks a faulty pot.
This is what the Law of God is all about. It isn’t just that God gives us rules to live by, with threats if we deviate from them; the Law brings order out of chaos. We can live in safety as long as that Law is obeyed and enforced. The opposite of order is anarchy: people running through the streets, attacking the police with bricks, breaking the windows of stores, looting and destroying whatever they can access. It may be that a government has behaved badly and needs changing, but the breaking up of any form of government in favor of something new is inherently chaotic. We may rejoice when a Berlin Wall comes down, when an oppressive regime topples or an unjust despot is dethroned; but for those living through those times, the chaos is not a welcome thing.
David himself had lived through such times. He had seen his own son rise up against him in a civil war, had lost that very son to the violence he had perpetrated. But at the end of his life, his son Solomon was sitting on the throne of Israel and the kingdom had been united. David is reflecting on the power of God and the promise that if his people were loyal to God, this kingdom would last forever.
Revelation 1:4b-8
“Grace to you and peace.” This is the standard greeting Paul used in his letters to the various churches. But what is grace? Baker’s Theological Dictionary says that it is “the unmerited favor of God toward man” [sic]. It goes on to say that “This assumes the notion of God as a watchful master or king, with the one who is finding favor a servant, an employee, or perhaps a soldier.” This brings up the question “What kind of an employee am I?” Are you the kind of employee who is always looking to do your best work at all times? Or do you look for a way to avoid the hard jobs, to shirk doing what doesn’t come under your job description?
Many years ago I was at an event for Christian educators and a man was complaining about a situation in his church. They had started having youth events in their fellowship hall that involved hiring local bands as part of the entertainment. “I have to go out in the alley behind the church during every single event and pick up soda cans, cigarette butts, and even beer cans!” he griped. “These guys in these bands just treat the alley like a garbage can! And I have to do it the same night, or the older members of the congregation will have hissy fits! I’ve about had it with this problem. I have better things to do than pick up their trash.”
“Really?” someone in the group asked. “What do you have to do that’s more important than seeing that your teens and their friends are coming to think of church as a fun place to be on Saturday night? Seems to me that if that trash might make the elders think of closing you down, you don’t have anything more important to do.”
It’s human nature to want to think of ourselves as important. It’s probably human nature to see certain jobs -- like picking up trash in an alley -- as “beneath us.” But we Christians are called to exceed our human nature, and to work as though Christ were standing right behind us, watching how we do our job. We have all had the experience of waiting in a store for employees to get done with whatever story one of them is telling so they will get around to waiting on us. But if we, in turn, make others wait while we finish our computer game before we get to work on something, we’re no better. How many times would we say, “Just a minute, Jesus, and I’ll be right with you”?
In John’s vision, we see the Trinity in all its majesty, as he describes each of the three personas of God.
First, there is the A and Z (the meaning of Alpha and Omega, the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet) -- the Almighty, sitting on a throne like an earthly king. This is the God who judges us and all creation, who is beyond anything we can make up in our minds. And yet, the greeting that opens the vision says “Grace to you and peace.” This is the God from whom we may expect not just judgement, but grace and mercy as well.
Which brings us back to that word: grace. God bends down to us, holds out a hand to us, and promises us that he will not hurt us. This is the God that Jesus calls “Father.” And we are not to think of a hard-handed, demanding, and critical father when we hear that word. We are to think of a father who picks us up and cuddles us when we are hurt; who patiently runs behind us as we learn to balance a bicycle, keeping a hand out to catch us if we fall; who reads us a bedtime story and tucks us in at night; who kisses our scraped knee when we come crying. This God is frightening in majesty, but with us, his children, is kind.
There are seven spirits before the throne. It helps, in reading this, to cross-reference Isaiah 11 where there is a listing of seven spirits of God, which are: a spirit of wisdom and understanding; a spirit of counsel and might; a spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord; and a spirit of righteousness. John repeatedly references the Old Testament, and since Jesus himself often quoted Isaiah, we can be free to believe he is the source for these spirits.
That John can see these spirits is a conundrum, since the Greek word pneuma means “wind” or “breath” as well as “spirit,” by which the Greeks meant the invisible soul of a person. When a person was moved to create something, they (and we) say they were inspired, that is, they had breathed in the breath of God. When a person dies, we say they have expired, they have breathed out their last breath. Before the Creation begins in Genesis, the spirit of God is moving over the waters, and the things created come from God speaking a word: Light! Stars! Life! And the Word in the first chapter of the gospel of John was present at the beginning, and was the means by which God created, and was of the very essence of God. Yet spirit by its very nature is invisible. But then this is a vision, and in visions all kinds of things happen that don’t make perfect sense in ways we see every day.
The number of the spirits, seven, is of course a magical number. It applies to God, to the things of God. Whenever John uses the number seven he is again and again driving home the idea that the future is in God’s hands, and that God is in control of his own even when the world is in chaos. In fact, John uses this number 36 times in Revelation: there are seven spirits, seven churches, seven lampstands, seven stars, seven angels with seven bowls that contain seven plagues. The Roman empire was making war on Christians, and the Jews in Jerusalem had made being Christian a blasphemy, so the new believers were looking for places they could go to be free to worship God as they felt moved to. John encourages them to remember that God is ultimately in charge, no matter how awful the world seems to be.
At last, we see Jesus Christ. He is not Jesus of Nazareth here, not a Mediterranean wandering preacher. He is the risen Christ, “the firstborn of the dead.” He is “the ruler of the kings of the earth” -- not just the “King of the Jews” that the priests wanted gone and Herod had feared, he has come into his own, seated at the right hand of God in glory. He is “the faithful witness” whose life and testimony came from God when he was here on earth. And finally, we have been freed from our separation from God “by his blood.” And that phrase needs a bit of discussion.
In Jesus’ case, there is also the matter of him being flogged and having a crown of thorns pressed into his scalp. By the time Pilate presented him to the crowd, with a robe tossed over his shoulders in a mockery of his claimed kingship, Jesus was a bloody mess. All of this blood and all of this suffering certainly presents a context for saying we have been “washed... by his blood.”
However, there is another meaning to blood in this context: blood carries the life of all living creatures, including humans. This is why Jewish dietary laws strictly forbade the eating of blood. Kosher slaughter laws require the animal to be bled before being eaten. To eat the blood is to eat the life. So we could say that to be washed in the blood of Christ is to be freed from our sins by his life rather than his death. This certainly goes with the complete change of life that early Christians experienced. In being “made into a kingdom” with Christ as king, they had a new ruler, one who was greater than the emperor (Caesar) of the vast Roman empire. With the ascension of Caesar Augustus, it became the doctrine of the empire that Augustus was a god on earth, and in order to prove one’s allegiance men had to go to the Roman temples and make an offering of incense to Caesar, just as one might to the pantheon of gods. It was their refusal to do this, more than anything, that made early Christians pariahs in their own countries. It is this same understanding that makes Jehovah’s Witnesses refuse to say the pledge of allegiance or salute the flag in our own country.
But Jesus has not only made us a separate kingdom, we have all been made “priests serving his God and Father.” This phrase is one of those statements that separates Catholics and Protestants. In the Catholic and Orthodox Churches, priests alone can bless -- or even handle -- the elements of communion. In Protestantism we emphasize “the priesthood of all believers,” which means that we don’t forbid lay members handling the communion elements (though some Protestant denominations do require that the bread and wine [or juice] be blessed by an ordained person). Moreover, the laity in Protestant churches have a say in how the congregation will be run, even discussing how we interpret the Bible. This is all included in the idea of the “priesthood of all believers.”
At the end of this passage, we get the benediction “to him be glory and dominion forever and ever.” This does not apply to God in this context. It is intended to say how lofty the Christ is, and to raise our hearts to him.
This is followed by a promise that Christ will soon be visible to everyone on earth, rather than remain hidden as he is now. This follows logically from the declaration that he is “ruler of the kings of earth.” How can he rule over those who have never seen him?
Today, we Americans have a government that is at a distance from us ordinary citizens, just as Rome was distant from the far corners of the empire. We don’t see the president or the members of Congress in person; we have no idea what is going on in other parts of our own country. Yes, we see them on television, but what does that prove? (Think of the number of people who believe that the moonwalk was done in a TV studio.) In the Roman empire (and many modern countries) soldiers on the street serve as a police force, and as proof that the power and might of the government is firmly in place. It was the presence of the Roman legions that emphasized Judea’s captivity to a foreign power.
That is the other reason it is important that we realize that we are citizens of a kingdom not of this earth. Our status as priests of this kingdom means that we are visible signs of that kingdom. We must be, as priests of the kingdom of Christ, different from the average American citizen. We must be holy, as holy as we expect priests to be. Not “holier than thou.” That’s been done, and it’s not a good thing for Christ’s followers to be. We should be different in manner, kinder to others than the average person. We should be humble, as humble as Jesus was in his earthly life, caring for those who may only know Christ in the two minutes we are interacting with them.
It’s easy to become discouraged in our faith when it seems that the world doesn’t see how we can transform life. It is in this setting that John includes a hymn (v. 7) to cheer us up: Every eye will see him, even those who pierced him; and on his account all the tribes of the earth will wail.
This is the promise John makes to us by his vision.
John 18:33-37
This passage contains two lines that are in the oldest manuscript of any portion of the New Testament, vv. 31-33 and 37-38.1 It is a sign of the popularity of John’s writing, not just today but among the ancient fathers of the Church. Augustine2 said that John’s gospel is like “an eagle hovering among Christ’s sayings of the more sublime order and in no way descending to earth but on rare occasions.” Which is to say that it’s completely different in tone, language, and intent than the other three (synoptic) gospels. While the others set out to tell the story of Jesus, John’s is “the spiritual gospel.” 3 The gospel gained this reputation partly because it has some of the finest Greek in the New Testament, and the emphasis is on the divinity of Christ rather than the humanity of Jesus of Nazareth. No one comes to John to track down the historical Jesus.
John’s is the last of the gospels to be written, and there has been much discussion and debate down the centuries about who wrote it, since the apostle John would have had to have lived for 100 years if he had written it. Nevertheless, 2nd-century commentators assumed that it was written by the apostle John, working in a group with the other apostles to write down what they all remembered. However, the comments of Pilate that “Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me” are not part of that ancient fragment mentioned above.
The conversation between Jesus and Pilate comes in the middle of John’s description of Jesus’ trial. Jesus has already been to Caiaphas, the high priest, and after that hearing he has been taken to Pilate for execution (v. 31) because they cannot impose the death penalty. Pilate did not want to be bothered early in the morning, and told them to judge him according to their own law. What follows seems like a game of cat-and-mouse.
Pilate opens with “Are you the king of the Jews?”
Jesus’ rejoinder is “Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?” In other words, if Pilate is going to judge Jesus’ case, he needs witnesses. Where are those witnesses? They are outside, of course, avoiding entering into the Gentile headquarters. If they come inside they will have to ritually cleanse themselves for several days, and that would make them miss the Passover. But Pilate doesn’t bite the lure to get these priests to defile themselves by coming in and making their case.
Pilate’s response is that he’s no Jew. The Romans looked down on this nation they ruled, especially since the Jews absolutely denied that the Romans had any right to be there and resisted every effort the Romans made to get them to assimilate into the empire. Meanwhile, the Jews also looked down on the Romans, who were in their view brutish. But John’s view of Pilate is that while he despises the Jews in general, he has some curiosity about Jesus and why the authorities have turned him over to Rome.
“What have you done?” Pilate demands.
Jesus responds that “My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting.” He thus differentiates himself from the various messiahs that had popped up all over Judea, Samaria, and Galilee in the previous decade. They intended to overthrow the Romans and restore the kingdom of Israel. This is not Jesus’ intention, and his disciples are not armed to make war.
This really should have been the end of the matter. The charge of the elders was treason, but Jesus has denied the charge and been quite clear that he is not seeking political power. There were only two reasons for a man to be crucified: that he was a bandit wrecking havoc on travelers and stealing their goods, or that he was fronting an armed rebellion. Jesus is doing neither. Yet he continues to talk about his kingdom. Pilate seems confused, as we might also be if we didn’t know this story so well.
“So you are a king?”
And still Jesus seems to hedge. “You say that I am a king.”
But Pilate has not said this of his own accord. He is asking if the charges of the Jewish authorities are true. But Jesus will not accommodate him. He does not say again that he is a king but redefines his role: “for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.” The Jews would have understood him to be saying that he is a prophet. This is the function of prophets -- to remind the people of the truth. But Pilate is not, as he has already pointed out, a Jew.
For purposes of discussing only the kingship of Christ, verse 38 has been lopped off this passage. But Pilate’s response in that verse has rung down the ages: “What is truth?”
What Pilate has done is to discard Jesus’ self-designation.
Still, we need to know that what the Jews saw as the basis for truth was qualitatively and arguably different from the Roman and Greek philosophers’ basis for truth. This one verse really deserves its own sermon, which is probably why the World Council of Churches of Christ did not include it in the lectionary for today. Anyone who wants to delve into the depths of those differences could start online with the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, and begin with any of the several articles they have available on what constitutes truth in various schools.
Christians today still face this question. We talk about Jesus as being both human and divine. The Book of Revelation declares Jesus to be “the King over all kings.” Yet there is nothing concrete about these claims. Jesus has not yet come back so clearly that every eye has seen him. God did not even show his face to his own prophets. Visionaries say that God is Light, and the face is lost in that light. Every standard the modern scientific world has for “proving” Jesus’ status and the reality of God is missing. All we have to go on is our own experience, which is so ephemeral that the moment after we experience the Presence of God it has dissipated. We cannot even find the words to explain what it is like to be in God’s presence to those who are willing to believe us, let alone those who are not so inclined.
Therefore, when we try to talk about Jesus and his death, the resolution of our fractured souls and our separation from God, we fall back into language that is incomprehensible to the secular world. How shall we talk about our faith -- that word that we all too often fall back on when pressed -- with those who do not share even the basics of our belief system? How can we express in words our trust that somehow Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection have overcome our tendency to feel isolated and alone in the world, cut off from any understanding of God and God’s Love for us?
Jesus’ claim of kingship that has no relation to this world’s lust for power and position makes him a very different sort of person from any we have ever known. He preached a very different God as well... One who loves us, even -- or maybe especially -- those who have been abandoned by society: dressed in rags; selling all they have (even their own bodies) to stay alive another day; blind, lame, sick, having spent all they had to pay the doctor and hospital bills; without even a penny for the annual Temple tax. He certainly did not preach a revolution based on war, but rather a revolution based on how we treat one another -- a revolution that said “When a Roman soldier forces you to carry his pack for a mile” (which was allowed, but only one mile), “volunteer to carry it another mile.” It was and is a subtle way to overthrow the world and its constant striving for more. It was a revolution in which the boundaries were leaned against rather than torn down, in which we deny our own lusts in order to see all people as equal to ourselves, as needy of love and kindness as we wish we could receive from others.
It is a revolution that redefines what is true. And this is how the feast of Christ the King both ends our Christian year and prepares us for the coming of the baby born in Bethlehem.
1 Clement of Alexandria, quoted in Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, New Testament, Vol. Iva, “Introduction to John,” p. xxii
2 Augustine, Harmony of the Gospels
3 Clement of Alexandria, op. cit., p. xxiv
