The Solemnity of Christ the King, Sunday, November 21, 2021

John 18:33b–37

Pilate said to Jesus, “Are you the King of the Jews?” Jesus answered, “Do you say this on your own or have others told you about me?” Pilate answered, “I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests handed you over to me. What have you done?” Jesus answered, “My kingdom does not belong to this world. If my kingdom did belong to this world, my attendants would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not here.” So Pilate said to him, “Then you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say 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.”

The Apostle John was fascinated with the way his Master spoke, particularly in how he used ordinary human words as signs of divine realities.  This fascination led him to include in his Gospel episodes which the other Evangelists, taken with other aspects of the Lord’s life and preaching, did not.  For example, John writes of the Miracle at Cana and the Lord’s conversation with Nicodemus, in which Jesus uses the words “wine” and “birth” to mean much more than commonly understood.

In the Gospel reading for the Mass in honor of Christ the King, Jesus and Pilate wrangle over the meaning of “king”.  Pilate looks this man from Nazareth over and asks, “Are you the King of the Jews?”  Now, when Pilate was given the accusation against Jesus, Pilate understood “Jews” as the inhabitants of Judea, not in terms of members of a religion.  The Lord’s answer strikes us as curious, and It must have astonished Pilate, who was used to prisoners quailing pathetically before him: “Do you say this on your own or have others told you about me?”  Jesus is asking him what he thinks the term he has used means.  Is it what he thinks it means or what the Sanhedrin thinks it means?  For the Sanhedrin, the question is a religious one, and Pilate would not care less about it.  If it is a political question, Pilate would be interested.  At the time, there was no king of the Judeans.  The last one had been Herod the Great.  Was this man, then, a descendent of Herod the Great?  It should be pointed out that the Lord never claimed to be the “king of the Jews” or Judeans in any way; neither did the Pharisees or high priests ever accuse him of making such a claim, until now.

“I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests handed you over to me. What have you done?”  Pilate is saying that he is not a Judean, but a Roman,  and does not consort with Judeans.  They, however have handed him over for judgment.  But it is not a crime if Jesus is truly a descendent of Herod the Great.  What, then, has Jesus done?  He has not raised up any armies against the Romans.  Indeed, he is not known to Pilate st all.  The Lord answers Pilate with an assertion, more than an answer: “My kingdom does not belong to this world.”  His assertion, though, comes in the form of a paradox, as far as the Roman is concerned.  Jesus continues: “If my kingdom did belong to this world, my attendants would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews.”  Jesus confirms that he is a king, but not one that is a threat to Rome or anyone else “of this world”.  Jesus also reveals that he could not be the king of the Judeans because his followers would be fighting against them at this moment.  Perhaps Pilate stood silently here, considering what sort of man this was.  But by his own words, he represented no threat to Rome.  If he did, the Judeans would not have handed him over for judgment.  They would be rallying to his side.  Then Jesus said again, “But as it is, my kingdom is not here.”  

“Then you are a king?”  Pilate is intrigued now.  He sounds more like Nicodemus in John 3:9, when Jesus has spoken of the need to be reborn — another seeming paradox: “How can these things be done?”  Jesus replies “You say I am a king.”  He says, This is your word.  But when I say “king” it means something different than when you say “king”:  “Amen, amen, I say to thee that we speak what we know” (John 3, 11).  Pilate can only think of political kings, while the Lord is claiming to be something more.  The word “king” is merely a sign of the divine reality.  Jesus explains, “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.”  Others are “brought into this world; but the true King comes into it of his own accord and teaches the truth about the world.  His rule transcends space and time.  It threatens only the wicked.  His followers do fight for him, but it is an internal fight against temptations and fallen human nature.  

The world seeks to enslave us in the coils and chains of its politics and lies.  Let us look beyond all of us to the only One who has a rightful claim on us, the King of the Universe, Jesus Christ.