“Do you solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?”
These are the words the bailiff asks the witness who has been summoned to testify in a court of law. The witness raises his right hand and replies: “I do solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God.”
In our Gospel lesson for this Lord’s Day, on which we observe Christ the King, Jesus has been summoned before Pilate in a court of law. Pilate is the governor in Judea, deputized by Rome to keep the peace in the province. The Jewish leaders have sought to convince Pilate that Jesus represents a threat to this peace. Our lesson does not tell us why. When we turn to Luke, however, we find a statement. “We found this man misleading our nation and forbidding us to give tribute to Caesar, and saying that he himself is Christ, a king” (23:2). The crime of sedition implied in this statement would have been of interest to the Roman authorities. Or so the Jewish leaders thought. Therefore, they handed Jesus over to Pilate in the hope that he would condemn Jesus and sentence him to death.
So Jesus is on trial. Or is he? The scene is ambiguous, the dialogue is layered, and the characters are complex. This is the narrator’s art, which is on display in John’s Gospel from beginning to end. In this case, we don’t really know who is on trial. Is it really Jesus? Or is it rather Pilate? Or perhaps it is both in different senses? Or maybe it is even we too who are on trial.
Let us clarify what we mean. Consider Pilate’s question: “Are you king of the Jews?” Does he really want to know? Or is he merely interested in seeing if there is any basis for the charge against Jesus? In his reply, Jesus appears to give him the benefit of the doubt. He wants to know whether Pilate came to this realization on his own. If he did, then he has the opportunity to testify. That is ironic, because Pilate believes that he is giving Jesus this opportunity! Wait a minute! Who is on trial here!
Parenthetically, a custom in the church in which I grew up, Oakwood Christian Reformed Church in Belding, is to stand before the elders and give public witness to one’s faith in Jesus Christ. We called it making public profession of faith. This followed a course of formal study of the Heidelberg Catechism, which, incidentally, is one of the confessions adopted by the Presbyterian Church, USA, of which this congregation is a part.
One testifies in public in the presence of many witnesses. This practice has biblical precedent. In 1 Timothy 6, the Apostle Paul tells his young protégé Timothy to lay hold of the eternal life to which he was called when he made his profession of faith in the presence of many witnesses. Paul then appeals to the example of Jesus before Pilate, which, at first glance, seems odd. But the point that Paul seems to be making is that Jesus professed himself to be Christ, the King of the Jews, before Pilate.
But Pilate does not profess Jesus as king. He forfeits the opportunity Jesus gives him. He denies he has any part in the Jewish people, whose king Jesus is. “The Jewish leaders did not hand me over to you. Rather, they handed you over to me.” We can imagine that this is going through the mind of Pilate.
Pilate here attempts to re-assert his authority over Jesus. In language in vogue a generation ago we may say of Pilate that he wants to regain the upper hand. Alternatively, in language more current, we may say that he wants to reframe the interaction. The powerful do not like it when they do not control the interaction. After all, this is how they impose their will on others. We can imagine that Pilate poses his second question to Jesus more forcefully, more insistently, irritated at Jesus and resentful at the Jewish leaders for forcing him into this role, which, if we know the rest of the story, he definitely does not want to play. “What have you done?”
One commentator notes the irony in the question. Pilate asks it evidently because he is interested in finding a basis for a charge against Jesus. He is only doing his job. But it recalls for us, the readers, the whole of the gospel story. Luke summarizes it for us in Acts 10: “Jesus of Nazareth, anointed by God with the Holy Spirit and with power, went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him.”
What had he done? It was just that simple. He went about doing good. You may remember a time in your childhood when your parents thought you were up to no good. They confronted you, learned that their suspicions were unfounded, and then left you alone. But not before you said to them: “Look! This is what I’m doing. Is there a crime against that?”
Well, Jesus does not reply with same petulance to the Roman governor. The only way he can respond to the governor’s question is to say: “My kingdom is not of this world.” And then he goes on to explain that if it were, his own attendants would have prevented the Jewish leaders from handing him over to Pilate.
His kingdom is not of this world. Does our first lesson help us to understand what he means here? “Look, he is coming on the clouds, and every eye will see him.” Does this mean that he is no earthly king, but merely a heavenly one? Does it follow then that who he is as king has no relevance to this world, but only to the one to come?
Some believe this. But it is not sound theology. It is not what our tradition teaches us. According to Reformed theology, Christ’s reign is now hidden. But at the end of history his reign will be manifest for all to see. In either case, he remains himself, that is, king. How can it be otherwise? He is the Alpha and Omega, the one who was, who is, and who is to come. Or to express it alternatively: he is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Heb. 13:8).
The truth is that if his kingdom is not of this world, it is nevertheless in this world. With the arrival of Jesus Christ in this world, which we anticipate during the upcoming Advent season, his kingdom has also arrived. After all, there can be no king without a kingdom. Even as we wait for his reign to be manifest for all, we already see a sign of it in the church. British theologian Lesslie Newbigin in fact refers to the church as a sign and foretaste of the Kingdom of God. The church functions in these ways through acts of love, kindness, and justice. When we provide 60 pumpkin pies for the Thanksgiving holidays to Head Start families; when we provide clothing to the poor; when we send kids to Camp Greenwood, we as the church are pointing to the kingdom of God. When we joyfully share together a community meal to which we invite others from the neighborhood, we as the church are a foretaste of the kingdom of God. As the church, we never cease to pray: “thy kingdom come on earth, as it is in heaven.”
When we live and work and pray together like this as the church, we gain deeper insight into who Jesus is as king, or, to be more precise, who he is as our king. He exercises his rule over us, his church, by gathering us, guiding us, guarding us, nourishing us, and building us up.
Spiritual writer Anselm Grun makes the insightful remark that in his kingship Jesus brings the poles of power and gentleness together. He has divine power; indeed, he is so powerful that even the demons have to retreat whenever he speaks a word. But he also orders the world and its people in gentleness. A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out. He treats people gently; he heals their wounded hearts; he surrounds them with his gentleness so that they have no reason to reject and condemn themselves.
This kind of power stands in contrast to the power that Pilate represents, the power of the Roman empire. That power runs over and oppresses others. That is the power of this world, from which Jesus must separate himself. His kingdom and worldly power have nothing to do with each other.
We said earlier that in a court of law the witness has to swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. This Jesus must do. Indeed, he cannot do otherwise. For as the one who came from the Father, he is full of grace and truth. He comes to bear witness to the truth, the truth that he himself is. For as he says of himself, he is the way, the truth and the life.
According to Jewish law, every matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses. Indeed, Jesus bears witness to the truth, but it is the Father who sent him who also bears witness to him. Later the author of this Gospel tells us that he has borne witness himself to what he saw, and that his testimony is true. That is why he has written things, so that those who read what he has written might believe.
“Everyone who belongs to the truth, listens to my voice.” With these words, suddenly, the author shifts his courtroom cameras from Jesus and Pilate to the readers and asks: Readers, do you belong to the truth? Do you hear the voice of Jesus? Is Jesus Christ King? And if so, have you believed and borne witness to him? In the end, we too are on trial.
Where does that leave each one of us? To say and believe and profess that Jesus is King implies, among other things, that we are his subjects. And if we are honest, we have difficulty with the idea that we should be subject to a king, regardless of how good and gentle and benevolent that king may be. Many observe that Western culture, and indeed the culture of the modern world, has long since moved into what they call the age of human autonomy. That seems obvious. We value our independence; we are self-determining. We want to be our own boss. We do what we want to do.
This is our culture’s understanding of freedom. But if we are self-willed, subject to no one, we are not for that reason free. Far from it. Instead, we become bound to our passions and needs, which keep us in subjection by the anxieties and fears that accompany them. Or else, like Pilate, we become bound to the expectations of others, to which we always have to adjust ourselves. Or else, we become bound by the hurts of the past, which constrain our behavior because of the triggers we have to be careful to avoid in our daily lives. In all these ways and more, we discover that our imagined freedom turns into its opposite.
According to Anselm Grun, the spiritual writer we mentioned earlier, a king is one who knows the depths of the human condition, the one who lives the truth and reveals it. The truth is that human beings are, among other things, weak and fallible. We have limited foresight. That is to say, we don’t always see far enough with enough clarity to know what we ought to do. We get entangled in impossible situations. We react in panic and desperation, digging deeper holes for ourselves. We act contrary to our own interests, which is the very definition of folly, according to author Barbara Tuchman in her classic The March of Folly. And so in our reckless and misguided pursuit of freedom, we become enslaved.
God in Jesus Christ invites us to subject ourselves to him and acknowledge his Son as our king. This is a subjection that paradoxically frees us. Jesus exercises his reign over our lives by liberating us, by setting us free. We are not perfect; we stumble and fall down again and again. But we have a king who looks after us now. We are his responsibility. And he is faithful to set us free again and again. And this is good news. Whoever listens to the Son and abides in his word, will know the truth and the truth will set him free. Amen.