Today we celebrate the feast of Christ the King, and you may have had an inkling of that as we sang our opening hymn! Crown him Lord of all, this is indeed a powerful and joyful statement to affirm that Christ is our King. The passage of Revelation we have just heard goes even a little further, not just our king, Jesus is the ruler of the kings of the earth, and later in Revelation he is called King of kings and Lord of lords” (17:14; 19:16). Revelation has indeed a certain quality of “Jesus is the knight in shiny armor”, and as we discussed about it in our Bible study we also have shared that we may not all relate to that. We don’t necessarily see Jesus as a conqueror, certainly not as a Caesar, and in these times where we hear so much about Christian nationalism, we may actually not be very comfortable with the feast. We can certainly love Jesus and love our country, it does not mean we believe Christians should rule over all the people, dictating their own laws and preventing others from having their say in the public space. Interestingly, that’s why St Augustine already claimed: As we live in the “century”, this time between Jesus’s first and second coming, politics is about doing the best we can, where we are and with what we know, we don’t take God’s seat. Interestingly, this is also what’s going on in this passage of John where Jesus is facing Pilate, the emperor’s representative in Judea. Certainly Jesus has not claim to Pilate’s seat, his kingdom, he says, is not from this world, and as for Pilate he does not even see Jesus as a threat. Rather he looks at him with astonishment that such a man would be brought to him and he asks: Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done?
“What have you done?”
Well, as familiar as I can be with this passage of John’s Gospel that we read every year on Good Friday and every Sunday of Christ the King in year B, these words kept haunting me this week when I was studying this text. Indeed, what has he done, that’s a very good question, what has he done that he would end up like this, as a prisoner waiting for his sentence in the praetorium, while a crowd is shouting outside to crucify him, no advocate, nobody on his side to defend him. I have always assumed that when Jesus said to Pilate: “If my kingdom were from this world my followers would be fighting [for me]” he meant he had no army on earth. But as it is in John’s Gospel, there is often a sense of irony and even, at times, cruel irony, and Jesus may be only acknowledging that nobody indeed is here to stand by him, to fight for him, maybe not with a sword, just someone to be ready to give a testimony of his innocence. Indeed, what has he done? Today is the last Sunday after the Epiphany, the last Sunday of our liturgical year where we have been reading through Mark’s and John’s Gospel and we may also ask this question to ourselves: What has he done? What did we hear about him and from him?He has taught the love of God, he has preached repentance and forgiveness, he has healed the sick and disabled, raised the dead, fed the crowds, he has confronted the religious leaders abusing their power, he has shown little children as examples of faith, he has blessed the widows, he has predicted the ruin of the temple where religion has been turned into a business. What has he done? He has lived the holy life of God, he has obeyed his Father, he has embodied the Holy Spirit, he is, as the Book of Revelation puts it before acknowledging him King, the faithful witness.What has he done? he has, in his own words, testified to the truth, or in the words of the simple people in Galilee:“He has done everything well” (Mark 7:37)
And today, he finds himself alone in the praetorium, a prisoner waiting for his sentence with no one, not a single one, to even put in a good word for him. These past weeks, I have heard more than once that in this country, you have to be ready to advocate for ourselves. And we praise people when they are able to do it. But isn’t it a terrible thing to say if you think about it, doesn’t it equal to say, you know, when things get rough, ultimately you’re on your own? This is why I think that when Jesus says his followers aren’t fighting for him, he may mean something more than the fact that he does not have an army. One after the other, the disciples have left him. He who saved everybody has no one to save him. And that’s when the tables are turned because what John is showing us is that Jesus’s judgment is a judgment on us. What has he done? He has done nothing, as even a pagan full of vanity like Pilate could notice it. Our passage is cut short, but the next verse says that: [Pilate] went out to the Jews again and told them, ‘I find no case against him‘ (v 38). It does not make Pilate innocent of course, and out of cowardice rather than conviction, we know he’ll end up condemning Jesus too. And that’s when the question is pointed back at us: “What have you done?“The question keeps echoing and indeed keeps echoing towards us. It is actually a question that echoes in the Bible, it is one of the first questions God asks humanity after the Fall, and more precisely, after the first murder of human history, when Cain, jealous of his brother Abel and angry at him, takes him to a field and kills him (Genesis 4:10). As for Jesus, it says a lot about us, doesn’t it, that the purest man who ever walked this earth ended up on his own, abandoned by his friends, mocked and condemned to a terrible death on a cross. What has he done? He has done nothing, he also has done everything, by his example “[He has been a] a sign that will be spoken against, so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed.” as the prophet Simeon put it at his birth (Luke 2:35). And so Christ’s judgment is our judgment. What have we done? We have condemned him. You know, we often ask this question in church: Why did Jesus have to die? Sometimes I am afraid the answer is only too obvious, too plain and too scary: Jesus died because people were awful to him, Jesus died because we killed him, and this is the judgment: Jesus indeed has revealed the thoughts of many hearts, and those thoughts are evil.
What have we done indeed.
Now I know that most of us, probably all of us, wouldn’t identify with this. We would never do anything as horrible as this. And yet, if we let the thoughts of our hearts echoing through us, who can say they are innocent from jealousy, anger, frustration when things don’t go our way, our contempt towards others who don’t think like us, or just plain old cowardice when things get tough, those sins Jesus associated with murder right from the beginning of his ministry: “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca, is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.” (Matthew 5:21-22)
His judgment is our judgment indeed, he testifies to the truth and from his mouth comes the truth about us. You know, we often think about the way God would judge us at the end of times, but I think we have it here. God does not judge us, we judge ourselves by refusing him, we condemn ourselves by condemning him, and from this sin the Bible tells us no one can say is exempt. We can all look back on our lives telling ourselves What I have done? Each time we have hurt, cheated or condemned one of our sister or brother, each time we have fled our obligations, each time we haven’t been a good friend, each time we haven’t showed up when it mattered the most.
And yet, it’s not the end of the story. The Book of Revelation tells us that not only Jesus is the faithful witness, he is also the first born of the dead. We have made of Christ’s resurrection good news because we think it means: Well, there’s a life after death. But it’s much more than that: Jesus gave his disciples and followers and even enemies another chance at repentance, another chance at accepting him, another chance to be forgiven and transformed. Jesus loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood says John. From sinners he made us to be a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father. Every eye will see him, even those who pierced him; and on his account all the tribes of the earth will wail. Indeed, Jesus’s kingdom is not from this world, Jesus’s kingdom is the future he opens up for us by forgiving us. And so it’s interesting because you know, as we celebrate Christ the King, we often means about all that it means to be a King, right, and generally in terms of power, the King is the one everyone has to obey, the King is the most important person of all, the King can decide whatever he needs to do. One of the thing we often forget though is that the King is the one who can spare your life. The King in Middle Ages was a little bit like the governor today if you will. Even if the court has condemned you, even if you have been found guilty and sentenced, the King could decide, completely out of his good will and with no merits whatsoever of your own, the King could choose to save you in the same way the governor can make a phone call to stop an execution. He does not have to give any motive, any explanation, he certainly does not have to prove your innocence, he simply frees you from death, he gives you grace. In this, Jesus can certainly be seen as the King of Kings Revelation claims him to be. He does what no king or ruler on earth could do or promise. What has he done? He has set us free from all guilt, all crime, all sin, not just in this life but for eternity and he makes us a new creation. As John puts it in revelation, may we live our lives basking in the peace and grace, and sharing grace rather than judgment.