Christ Pantocretor

Transcript

The Gospel According to John, chapter 18. The gospel according to John, chapter 18. Now, you may remember that in year B, which is the year that we've been in now for all of this liturgical year, is Mark, right? So the gospel that we focus on is the Gospel of Mark, but we end with the Gospel of John. And so notice these words here found in John 18.

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And when you have found that, go ahead and stand with me for our gospel reading this morning.

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Notice these words here, John 18, and then we'll pick up. With verse 33, 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?

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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.

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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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Jesus, thank you for these words this morning that came from your voice. May we hear the truth today and respond accordingly. We pray in your name. Amen. You can be seated.

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Well, hey, it is Christ the King Sunday, or as some call it, the Solemnity of Christ or another is Christ King of the Universe Sunday. And you can kind of tell around here because people have dressed up, and this is one thing we ask you to do is, hey, let's dress it up. Let's kick it up a notch, because this is the last Sunday of the liturgical year. And it is the Sunday where we recognize where our readings all point to Christ the King. And, you know, it's kind of very appropriate in this.

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In this way, because a king would typically come last in the procession. You know what I mean? In other words, if you've got even, like, the Queen of England, right, she doesn't come first. You have all the bands and you have all the parading, and you have all the other dignitaries and all the honorifics and all the, you know, honorariums or whatever, all of that come before the king. And then finally, finally, after all that pomp, right, all that glory, comes the glorious one, the King.

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And here in our year, our year is notice. It processes through from Christ in the Manger, think about it. Really, really. Even before that period of time, it really begins with the prophets, doesn't it? With the prophecies of one who will come to save his people.

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And then we get to Christmas, and then we move from there to Epiphany and on and on, processing through the year. And we've been working through all of these passages together, worshiping Sunday after Sunday. And now finally we come to the end, so to speak, of one year and we're moving and we'll be transitioning to a new year. But before we do, the church wants to say, whoa, whoa, whoa. Let's make sure that we recognize the king.

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Yes, the one who came and lived and died and rose and will come again. That king. And so we dress up for the King. And in fact today in our prayer room, which by the way, any of you are welcome to join us in prayer at 9:30 in my office. Anybody?

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Okay, just throwing that out there for you. And it's always a great time. And I didn't get to meet with my group this week because they normally help me prepare my sermon, to be honest with you. We go over the text that I'm going to be preaching on and we hash it out a little bit over lunch at Eggs Up Grill. And so we didn't get to do that this week, however.

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And so Jack had just a wonderful word that the Lord gave to him. He said, you know, I don't really dress up much, but he said, when I do dress up, I've dressed up for funerals primarily, right? But he said, you know, and it hit me today that we're dressed up too, because one has died and yet lives forevermore by his death. He destroyed death. That's what his death did.

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So he said, there's no grave to go to, to look at this one. Instead, he is seated high above on his throne at the Father's right hand. And what a king this is. In other words, the way we kind of sum it up quite nicely in the church is Christ has died. Christ has risen.

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Christ will come again. Say that with me. Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.

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Yes, this is the king that we're talking about. And notice all the readings today. How beautiful are these readings. Powerful are these readings directing us to the King of Kings? Notice in Daniel is a vision of Christ as the son of man coming before the ancient one of days.

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I mean, the language here is just powerful. It's as high up as one can get in theology. We call it a high Christology you can't get any higher than some of the words today that are directed toward Jesus. And here he is receiving from the Father, a total. Hear this.

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A total universal. Notice this. And everlasting kingship over all people, not just some, over all peoples. And the psalm reading today, the psalm reading also is about the King. Notice it begins this way.

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The Lord, Yahweh is king. You can't get any clearer than that, right? Yahweh is king. And notice he's from of old, everlasting to everlasting. And then the prophecy in Revelation, right at the beginning of Revelation.

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You really can't start a book, I don't think any better than the way Revelation begins. Now, trust me, once you get deeper into Revelation, it gets crazy, okay? It gets confusing. All of us argue about what it means, but at the beginning, notice this. And God loves to do this.

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God loves to do this in the Bible as well. He wants to be very clear at the beginning. Then we can get into the hairier stuff later. But he wants to be very clear. And who's he clear about?

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The king of kings, Jesus. Notice, notice the prophecy of Revelation calls Jesus the king of kings. Not just the greatest king, not just a ruler of kings, but he rules all kings. He has made us then into a kingdom. Notice, in other words, his kingdom is made of, guess what?

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Not of abstract power, just kind of hanging out there potentially. But rather his kingdom is people. His kingdom is us. And he's transferred us, the scripture says, from the kingdom of darkness into a kingdom of light, because he is the light of the world. I also noticed in that revelation reading that actually talks about Christ as being prophet, priest and king.

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I never noticed this before, but it says Jesus Christ, the faithful witness. What did prophets do? They witnessed to the truth. They received a truth and then witnessed to that truth. That's what a prophet does, is speak the truth.

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Well, Christ comes as the premier prophet. Then it says he's the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead. What is that ministry, but his priestly ministry, right, where he lays down his life for the sheep and then. And the ruler of the kings of the earth. Well, there you go.

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There's the regal part, the kingly portion. So he is prophet, priest and king all in one person. And then notice what he says. I am the alpha and the mega, the A and the Z, so to speak. Who is, who was and who is to come?

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The Almighty. Now again, we sum it up, don't we? Christ has died. Notice who was right. Christ is risen.

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Notice who is. And Christ will come again. Who is to come? The Almighty One. And so here we are with this great confession, with this great day of Christ the King.

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And yet. And yet, I bet if I could really just hear some inner thoughts on this matter. I bet we really have an issue with kings. And not only kings, but I think we have an issue as Americans, correct me if I'm wrong here on kings and kingdoms, don't we? Like, America sort of was founded, was it not, on the idea of shrugging off the king and a kingdom rule and mindset.

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And I bet today that still hangs around in us, so that when we hear king, when we hear kingdom, we think to ourselves, maybe quietly, but nevertheless, we then said, isn't this outdated? Like, shouldn't we update this language, right, of king and kingdom thing? I mean, that's of times past. None of us probably have lived under a king, right? You'd have to live in England.

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And even there, it's a mock version. Like, they have actually given their power over to parliament, right? And to a prime minister, okay? So their actual governmental power, they're just a relic of something in the past. And I bet.

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I bet if we were just being frank, you know, and being real, that when we hear king, when we hear kingdom, we really don't get it, okay? Cause we voted for democracy, we had people die for it, right? A democratic republic, right? And so I get it, I get it. Hey, I'm pro American too, as far as.

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I think that's a great political system, especially the kings of this world, as opposed to that, okay? The dictators of this world. I get it, okay? However. However, there is a reason why the Bible does not call Jesus the president.

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There's a reason why the Bible does not call Jesus a prime minister or a mayor or a governor, because those offices come and go, don't they? But kingship lasts. It has to. The whole family has to die off. And this family, we're told, will never die off.

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In fact, you can't kill God. So there you go, not happening. All right? There's a reason we don't get to vote on God. We don't get to vote on his edicts, his commands, his law.

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We don't get to group together and say, the majority speaks. And here's what the majority says. Because quite often, as we learn in our own lives, let's be honest, the herd is often wrong. And the herd operates almost always on coercion and fear. This is the way so many kings before Christ held their power, didn't they, because, you know, come to find out with us humans, if you push us and you make us suffer or you instill fear in us through violence, when we see that, we often just go along with it, don't we?

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Now, there's some people, there's some saints among us who have stood up and said no. And it costs them their life. Jesus being premier of them all, he shows the way, and the way involves a cross because the world will always be against the way of this king. We get power and how it works, but not this kind of power. Not a suffering servant, not the power of the cross, not the power of self giving love.

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That power disrupts us. In fact, we've never seen anything like it until Christ came in glory and his coming in glory was here on a cross. His throne was this cross. His crown was pressed in his head as a ring of thorns.

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No, we don't really get the whole king thing very well, but that's okay. Maybe that's a good starting point for us to understand the kingship of Christ because it is so different from the kings of this world.

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Now, there's enough, according to the Bible, there's enough according to revelation, according to faith, that there's some common ground here that we can analogically speak of. Remember these distinctions. In other words, God is. Jesus is not a king equivalent to the kings of this world. We're saying no, no, no, no, no.

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Absolutely. It's not univocal either. It's not one for one. It's not the same. Certainly not the same.

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And it's not even equivalent. He's on a higher level. So we have to speak in analogy about that. But with an analogy, there's something that participates in both. Does this make sense?

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You see how this works? That's why the language theologically about God always has to move, excuse me, to analogy. But that doesn't mean it's not real. It just means that he's so much higher than we are. He's so much greater than we are.

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It means this. He is not us. And thanks be to God, he is not. He's not contingent. He's not a compound made of body and soul that wrestles often where our body's not in align with our soul.

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You ever had that happen? Anybody ever tried to diet? Welcome to the real world, right? You learn real quick how your soul and your intentions go one way with your body another, okay? God is not like that.

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He does always what he wants to do. And what he wants to do most is represented in his death. Burial and resurrection.

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That's why the church wants us to again at the end of the year. Remember the kind of king that came for us. The kind of king that came to do war and to do battle for me, for you.

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We tend to think, unfortunately, that freedom and authority are enemies. In other words, if we're going to be free, it can't be any part of a kingdom. Now, you know, it can't be any authority, okay? But what's unique about this king and this kingdom is this. When you come under his authority, that's when you find freedom.

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That's when freedom is attained. Never on our own. It's about trusting and submitting to the king. And that sets us up now. That sets us up for our Gospel reading where we have Pilate and Jesus and this very famous scene.

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Jackson, if you'll bring up that painting. And I love this painting, it means so much to me. I actually have it on most of my binders that I teach from, in fact, because it has to do with truth. And if I'm gonna be a teacher, I should be about the truth. And this discussion climaxes on the truth.

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Yes, they. This represents two kings, one almost. I almost shuddered, in fact, when I read this again last night, late thinking to myself, these words, just hearing it in my head once, listen. Pilate entered the headquarters, again, summoned Jesus and asked him, Can I repeat that again? Summoned Jesus.

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The hubris, the pride of summoning the King of the universe. Because he thought he was king, Pilate thought he ruled that area. What he doesn't see is that the One who rules the whole universe is standing before him. Now, you remember right before our text begins here in 33, Pilate has already had Jesus scourged. So Jesus comes in a bloody mess, and he's standing before Pilate.

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And they have a philosophical, theological, highest kind of conversation one could ever have. Notice. Are you King of the Jews? Do you ask this on your own or are you listening to others? What a question.

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Now, notice here, Jesus is a bloody mess, probably almost beaten to death, okay? And yet he still takes the time not to answer a question with an answer, but rather a question with a question. Because he's still teaching. To his dying breath, he's teaching. And what is he teaching?

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He's teaching. This is the question you're asking coming from you, Pilate, or is it coming from someone else? The secondhand information? Or do you want to know who I am?

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And I think Jesus is actually revealing himself to Pilate here. I think he wants to save Pilate. I think this is an evangelistic effort to welcome Pilate into his kingdom. I really do notice what he says.

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I am not a Jew. He gets snarky. That's what we do, isn't it? If we want to divert away from answering, we get snarky, don't we? Huh?

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I'm not a Jew. What do you mean? Your own nation has put you before me. What have you done? Put you before me?

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Just think about the hubris of this moment. Think about it. Here is the king of the universe, and this dude is saying, no, no, I have power over you. Don't you understand? Like, who are you?

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Yeah, yeah. Maybe you should have questioned before you started doing all this, huh? He doesn't know. And we kind of. You know, I noticed that.

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I've always had a soft spot for Pilate. Anybody else, you know, it's like, man, he's kind of in a rock and a hard place. If you actually look at the situation. He's in a rock and a hard place, okay? Because on one hand, on one hand, he's a local ruler.

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He's the local ruler of Rome, right? He represents all of what Roman rule was all about, which is cold efficiency. They were utilitarians to the death, okay? They really were. They were all about utility.

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That's what mattered. Build, build, build, build, build, right? Make something, make it happen. You can't make it happen, you're done. Okay?

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Cold efficiency. He represents this. He represents it well. And here he is. Here he is, and he has an opportunity.

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And we're kind of. I'm always torn when I read it because I think, man, what would I have done, Right? What would you have done? You don't. How do you know this dude, Right?

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Like, you don't know this guy. So as far as legally speaking, you remember, Pilate three times says, this man is not guilty. I find him not guilty. So that is on the books by a judge. Not guilty.

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And yet he compromises and condemns to death a not guilty innocent man that he knew was not guilty. He had proclaimed him not guilty. He tries every which way to you remember? Washing his hands, even washing. Listen, this is on y'all.

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But it's not. It's not. Guess whose name gets put into the very creed that has been said for 2000 years now every single Sunday. Whose name is it? It's not the Jews.

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It's Pilate. He suffered under Pontius Pilate. Why is he remembered? Why do we need to remember him? Because he's us.

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That's why he's us. We feel a little bit for Pilate because we know that's us really left to our own. That's us left to our own. We know sometimes what to do and we compromise. And, you know, it's fear really that motivates Pilate, isn't it?

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The Jews had point blank told him, listen, we serve no king but Caesar. Think about that. We serve no king but Caesar. Who do you serve? Pilate.

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That's literally what they told him. The highest religious leaders. We serve no king but Pilate but Caesar. What about you, Pilate? Because their point was this.

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We will revolt. And to put it in stark terms, and your butt will be gone soon. Because the Romans, if they find out another revolt has happened here in Jerusalem, they're going to be fed up with you. And you're already in the ruling in the armpit of the kingdom. Nobody wants to be here.

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And so if you want to be promoted, I suggest you kill this man. And he does. He goes along with it. He oversees the death of the Son of God, the king of kings and Lord of lords. But before he does, Jesus point blank tells him, he says, what have you done?

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And notice Jesus answer, my kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were, my people would be fighting for me not to be handed over. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here. And thus it is not a violent kingdom. Nonviolence.

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Nobody's fighting for me. And that's on purpose. There's a different fight that's happening, but it is not with the weapons of man.

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And then notice what Pilate's response, this is crazy to me. Pilate says, so you are a king. I think he says this for a couple reasons. One is, well, he just talked about a kingdom, right? You can't have a kingdom without a king.

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And so are you implying that you are this king? And in fact, I actually think in reading this again and reading some commentary on it, I actually come to the conclusion, I think, okay, don't hold me to this, but I really think this is going on. Jesus knew Pilate's heart. And Pilate, I think, actually believes Jesus is some sort of king. He doesn't really understand it all, but I think this is why he puts the sign on the cross, you remember, in three different languages.

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Jesus, King of the Jews, three different languages. And you remember what happens religious leaders. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Take that down. He said, I've done what I've done.

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You remember this? I think Jesus sees his heart. I think. I think Pilate was close to the kingdom. But he was too tied to the kingdom of man to let it go, to transfer over into the kingdom of light.

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He was so attached to the darkness, so used to being in the cave of sin, that the light repelled him, even though he recognized it in a moment. And this teaches us a lesson, and that is this. It's not enough to recognize the light. We must walk in it. We must enter his kingdom and come under his rule in obedience and faith.

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So, King. So Jesus and Pilate represent two kings, but also two kingdoms, don't they? And Jesus came. Now, think about this. Jesus came to rescue us from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light.

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And what we realize. What we realize is this.

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Well, let me put it this way. Have you ever been watching a movie and like, this one character they have, you know, they'll do this to you in movies, they'll do this. They'll have this one character that is doing the right thing, but everybody's against them, and they're mistreating them and, like, lying about them, and they're getting away with it, and they're moving up in life. The enemies, you know, the bad people, bad guys, and the good guys going down. I mean, his life is awful.

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Blakely, I didn't watch the whole show, but she was watching, like, this Claws, you know, movie last night, and I just recognized this same sort of thing that, oh, I don't even know his name, but he was being treated wrongly, right? And like, you're thinking, who's going to fix this, man? Like, we all notice there's something in us almost built within us by grace, we could say that recognizes that injustice has to be dealt with, right? Like you, you know, and then sometimes I watch these action movies where, if I could put it this way, like, these people are being. They're really bad guys.

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And you're just thinking, where's the good guy to come in there and just knock some heads, you know, If I could put it this way, blow them away, you know, you just like, light them all up. Let's go. Let's get rid of these people, you know, and we expect that. And when it happens, finally, we're almost satisfied. Because if the movie were to end with injustice and evil winning, who would want to watch that?

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It doesn't really resonate with us. There's a reason why, I'm convinced, growing up playing GI Joe and Cobra, there's a reason why Cobra never really won. Any wins they had were only temporary because the good guy always wins. Can I repeat that again, the good guy always wins. Let's go for it again.

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The good guy always wins. Why? Because Christ is the good guy. The thing that we find out in the story, if we read it carefully and read it honestly, is that we're the bad guy. We're actually not the good guys.

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And we must transfer kingdoms.

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The very thing that gets us upset is the very thing that runs right through us. And he has to save us, he has to redeem us, he has to sanctify us and bring us into that kingdom of light. And that is exactly what Christ has come to do, is to destroy the works of the devil. And all of those works are at work in us before we meet Christ and he wants to destroy them. That's why actually in the liturgy of baptism, we ask people, do you renounce Satan and his kingdom?

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You think, wow, what a. That's a pretty strong. Like, was that person really serving Satan? Has anybody ever asked that? See, because that's the underlying assumption in that question of baptism.

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Do you renounce Satan and his works? We say yes, because all of us have participated in that kingdom of darkness. And if we don't think we have, we're lying to ourself. And our Father is a father of what lies. Not of truth.

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Not of truth, not of truth.

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So Jesus is Lord. Iesous Kyrios. That's in the Greek. Jesus is Lord. Say that with me.

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Jesus is Lord. That was the very first confession of the Church. Very simple. I know our confessions have gotten longer, you know, with Apostles Creed and the Nicene Creed and so on and so forth. But if you boil it all down, Jesus is Lord.

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And that was diametrically opposed to any other Lord who was, namely, Caesar. One common thing in Rome in the first century was to say Caesar is Lord. And that was almost a measurement of your loyalty to Rome. Caesar is Lord. So to say Jesus is Lord.

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There can only be one Lord. And the Romans understood it, and so did the Christians. That's why within the first three and four centuries of the Church, there were so many martyrs, because they understood that there were two kingdoms opposing one another. And it's nice, I'll be honest with you, it is very nice to live in America where we still have some semblance of a Christian worldview that somewhat still hangs in there, the vestiges, so to speak, within the Bible Belt, where if you were to say you're a person of faith, you're not castigated and snided at. But let me tell you, that is changing quickly.

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In America, you can simply look at the statistics of the nuns and everybody. No, I don't mean nuns as in women who have given themselves to celibacy in the Catholic Church, but rather N o n E s that would claim, I don't believe in anything. Right. And your belief in a God that is king and we can't vote on, and we can't go majority with that, opposes my own individual kingship. That's what's really coming out of our mouth when we say that.

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Because the reality is this. From the beginning, Adam was put in charge of the garden as king. They were to be vice regents, Adam and Eve, vice regents over things. This is why, by the way, Adam names the animal. When you name something, you're ordering it.

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He's the first scientist, he's the first philosopher, all right? He's ordering categorically the various animals. He's practicing his kingship and then, of course, misuses it. And so this thing of kingship extends all the way to us. He said it's not just about Jesus being king, but he has welcomed us to be a nation.

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Remember, a priesthood of a kingdom, right? So in other words, priest in his kingdom. We just read it today, A kinghood, a kingdom, sorry, of priests to our God. In other words, we also have our own areas of rulership, don't we? And it actually begins with the self.

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What we would call the self, the soul. Me. I am in charge of me. And this is what law is based on, isn't it? Is that you actually are in charge of you.

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If you're not in charge of you, then there's nothing to punish, okay? There's no culpability to be had. This is why we even say to one another, sometimes, say, man, you really seem to be not yourself today. Isn't that an interesting thing to say? Like not yourself today.

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And yet it's true, isn't it? Sometimes we surprise ourself with the things that we do, which is why we need Christ's lordship every single moment. And here's the good news. Here's the good news. Jesus is Lord is a subversive confession.

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It is one that goes against the grain. And some of us like that. Some of us like revolution, like renewal. We don't. We're not satisfied with the status quo, right?

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Just what's given to us. We want to make it better. That's part of being a king and queen here. That's exactly what we're talking about, is wanting to make things better, order them in some way. That is Better.

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All right. Christ has come to not only make the world better, but offer a new kingdom, a new heart for us, taking away that heart of stone. And so we must acknowledge his lordship, yes, but then also accompany it with submission to his rulership and authority. And so when we. When we actually submit to God in these external ways, we're showing, if you will, proving our trust in him.

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In other words, I don't trust myself or others as much as I trust Christ and his word to us. And this is exactly why Jesus says here, my kingdom is not from this world. It's not from this world. It's coming from heaven into the world. And remember in John, world's always used in kind of two ways, one negative, one positive.

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You know what I'm talking about. The world. You know, God so loved the world that he gave his son, right? That's the world he's saving. But then also, don't be of the world, which he means.

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All that sinfulness that typically describes our world here, it's used in this similar way here. He is not of this world. His kingdom is not of this world. So we have two kingdoms, and there's only one king. So it's me or Jesus.

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It's the world or Jesus, never both. And. And yet what we find about Jesus is so surprisingly good, isn't it? He's not a king and he's not on a power trip. In fact, if you know people that have something, maybe it's money, maybe it's power, whatever, they don't often carry themselves as if they do.

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But people who don't have power, they're the ones who get a little bit of power and they become a little tyrant. Do you know what I'm talking about? You ever seen these people do, like it happens in student councils. It happens in, I don't know, civic things. HOAs, you know, little bit of power, A little bit of power, and all of a sudden we become tyrants, little despots all about ourselves and punishing.

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Oh, boy. Rule follower all of a sudden, you know, when it is imposed on another. But that is not the nature of Christ's kingdom. He is. He is so gracious.

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It is ridiculous to us how gracious he is. He chooses. He's the God who knows everything and yet chooses to forget our sins. What a God. We don't.

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We keep it in our little black book. Okay, I see how it is. Mm, mm, mm.

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Keep that for later when you mess up. It's gonna be on. God doesn't play these little games. With us, thanks be to God, he doesn't. When we come to him and lay our nasty sins before him and when we confess our sins, he is faithful.

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Think about it. And just to forgive and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. That gives us the indication right there, doesn't it? He doesn't only want to just keep forgiving us, but forgive us so that he can cleanse us again. Teaching us to love what he loves, teaching us to walk in his ways.

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And he's so patient. My life is a living example of the patience of God. He should have been done with me a long time ago. Let me just tell you. I'm being dead serious.

00:38:49

He should have given up on me. A long many people should have given up. Maybe you have given up on me, you know, but he hasn't. That's the good news. Like isn't that the God of the universe has not given up on you.

00:39:03

Has not given up on. Oh, praise be to God. He is. He's a different kind of king that has come to rescue us from the darkness and has battled for us. He's the new David, gathering all the tribes and nations.

00:39:19

He's Christ, the warrior king, battling darkness with light. And he's the surprising, suffering king of glory. And he's coming again to make all wrongs right, to wipe every tear away. No more death, no more suffering.

00:39:46

And with that we say, thy kingdom come, O Lord. Thy will be done, Lord. So today, have you transferred into the kingdom of light?

00:40:04

Have you heard the truth? Because everyone who belongs to the truth, Jesus says, listens to my voice. You know what the very next verse is? We didn't read it. Pilate looks at Jesus and says, what is truth?

00:40:24

And walks away from the truth. Truth is not abstract. Truth is a person that stood before him and that is here today before us. And he's not going to coerce you. Grab your arm and.

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Okay. All right. Uncle, Uncle. You know, no, no, no. He's not through coercion, not through violence.

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It's through his beautiful love for us, displayed most of all in his love for us before we were ever even born. That he died for us, that he continually makes intercession for us. So go to him today, acknowledge his kingship today, and then submit to the king and enter his kingdom and find life and light, and then go out as light bearers. In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.

Total Duration 00:41:24