Hespeler, 24 November 2019 © Scott McAndless – Christ the King Jeremiah 23:1-6, Psalm 46, Colossians 1:11-20, Luke 23:33-43



“This is the king of the Jews?” The Gospel of Luke
tells us that these were the words that were posted on the wood of the
cross upon which Jesus was crucified. And, since crucifixion was all
about public display and warning others not to threaten the stability of
the Roman Empire, it is plain enough why that sign was posted there. It
was the charge upon which Jesus had been convicted. Pontius Pilate had
sentenced him with the crime of sedition, insurrection and of
threatening the sovereignty of the Roman Empire.







And yet I cannot help but wonder if,
when Pilate ordered that those words be printed, he maybe didn’t say it like
that, as a serious and solemn charge. I think that what he said was, “This
is the king of the Jews?” as in, “Is this the best you can do? It this
really what you call a king?” For Jesus had none of the trappings of a king. He
did not wear a diadem or a royal robe. He had a motley crew of fishermen and
tax collectors (all of whom seemed to desert him when the going got rough)
rather than royal retainers and trained bodyguards. And, though he spoke with such
authority, he had absolutely no earthly power to back it up. He wasn’t a king;
he was a joke, a farce, a minor annoyance at best. So did Pilate declare, or at
least so he tried to convince himself.



But we know different, don’t we? We
declare Jesus to be our prophet, our priest and our king. Today is the Sunday
of the year devoted to his kingly power and position. But, if Jesus is king, he
is a king unlike any others that we have ever seen in this world. So what does
it mean, on a day like this, to claim Jesus as our king?



I find that there is a certain
reluctance these days to talk about Jesus as a king. In many churches, the last
Sunday before the start of Advent is not called “Christ the King Sunday”
anymore, but rather “Reign of Christ Sunday.” I understand why people do that,
of course. The word king is archaic; as modern people who have had no
experience of an effective ruling monarch (Queen Elizabeth, after all, is explicitly
banned from exercising any political power), we aren’t quite sure how to relate
to the notion of a king.



But I actually think that there are some
good reasons to hold on to the original language. Jesus lived, after all, for
his whole life within an actual kingdom. He lived in the Kingdom of Galilee and
the Peraea. (Actually it was technically a tetrarchy and its ruler, Herod Antipas,
was technically a tetrarch and not a king, but that was actually something that
made no practical difference to the people who lived under Herod’s rule.) That
meant that every single time that Jesus used the phrase, the kingdom of God or
the kingdom of heaven, and suggested (as he did all the time) that there were
people living in the reality of such a kingdom, he was essentially denying the
very real political reality that surrounded him. He was denying that he lived
under the jurisdiction of King Herod Antipas. And if Jesus was, in any sense, a
king, he was clearly a king who stood in sharp contrast to King Herod and
everything that he stood for.



So actually, if you want to understand
what it means to call Jesus your king and to belong to his kingdom, you have to
look at the kingdom of Herod and understand it. You have to see what kind of
contrast Jesus was trying to set up. For example, the kingdom of Herod was set
up on one principle above all others: exploitation. Galilee contained a unique
resource, the Sea of Galilee, the largest freshwater lake anywhere in the
ancient Mediterranean world. Did you know that King Herod Antipas attempted to
dominate the fish trade by controlling that lake?