Christ the King

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Sermon from 24 November 2024, United Protestant Church of Bordeaux – Mérignac

John 18:33-37

“I was born” and “I came.”

Today marks the last Sunday before Advent. Soon we will ask, with the Magi from the East arriving in Jerusalem: “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews?” (Matt. 2:1–2, TOB). Adventus means "coming." The word Noël, known in English as “Christmas”, originally was an adjective, denoting the day “of birth.” In French, it retains the trace of the Latin natalis, meaning “birth.” “I was born” and “I came.” This final Sunday of the liturgical year is also known in some traditions as the Sunday of Christ the King. And yet – let us be clear – this passage does not speak of kingship. Or rather, it does not speak of kingship as we know it, imagine it, or project it.

As theologian Élisabeth Parmentier recently wrote:
“The life given [by Jesus Christ], his commitment to the overlooked and his cross forever close the door on the rhetoric of power."
We must accept it: this passage does not speak of kingship as we understand it.

[That said, nothing prevents us this morning from asking: is Christ truly King here and now? What kind of kingdom is this? And how does our understanding of his kingship shape our daily lives as disciples?]

Let us return to what unfolds before our eyes this morning, as on Easter morning. The judge enters. The case of Jesus is called. And Jesus must now answer for his actions. We are in Pilate’s praetorium. We are witnessing a trial. In Greek, the word for judgement is krisis (κρίσις) – a theologically charged term. You know it: we recite it when we affirm our faith in Jesus Christ – “He will come again to judge the living and the dead.” That is krisis: from krinō, meaning to “separate,” “discern,” or “judge.”

And in our passage, there is indeed a charge – the one for which Jesus will ultimately be executed: his claim to be “King of the Jews.” Even the most inattentive among us will recall the four letters over the cross: INRI – Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum, “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.” This is no artistic or pious invention. It is biblical. It appears in all four Gospels.

And imperial justice does not waste time. Pilate goes straight to the accusation and asks the essential question: “Are you the King of the Jews?”
But who is asking? A ruler of this world. Consider what that means. He is a governor. He is Rome. He is the empire in Palestine. He is the face of the emperor – the emperor who called himself Son of God. And the early Christians knew exactly what they were doing when they called Jesus Son of God. It meant: the emperor is not God.

And Jesus made this clear too, when he said to give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar. Caesar is not God. The empire is not God. The peace of the empire, the Pax Romana, is not the peace of God.

And the interrogation quickly takes an unexpected turn. The accused addresses the most powerful man in Judea – the representative of the greatest empire on earth – and asks:

“Are you saying this on your own, or did others tell you about me?” (v. 34, adapted from NRSV).

On what basis does the accusation stand, and what will your judgement rest upon? Gossip? Hearsay? Second-hand information? Is it a conviction shaped by facts or by rumour?

You know that forum refers to both the public square and the courtroom. In a sense, Jesus is appealing to Pilate’s conscience, his inner tribunal. Against rumour, Jesus directs Pilate inward – to his own moral judgement. In verse 33, Pilate enters the praetorium. In verse 34, Jesus makes him enter his inner tribunal.

And Jesus, likely bound – the text doesn’t say so, but think of today’s accused in bulletproof glass boxes, speaking through an intercom – Jesus, in this exposed position, asks the powerful man whether he is not the one bound. Is this a judgement you have formed yourself, or one that you are being pressured to deliver?

Jesus goes straight to the heart of the powerful. And what does he ask him? “Are you free?”
It is worth remembering this, now that rumour is on the rise, now that opinion often triumphs over thought, when malicious talk in public seeks to echo within our own conscience.

Where Pilate goes straight to the charge, Christ goes to the heart – the heart, which in Hebrew (lev) is the seat of thought.

And it is from this inner person that Pilate responds: “Am I a Jew?” Ego – I – in Greek. Then he points to Jesus’s people and chief priests. Faced with this inner tribunal, Pilate deflects: this isn’t about him. This doesn’t concern the State, Caesar, or the Empire.

The Pilate of John seems to have understood that Jesus is not claiming to rival Caesar.
Indeed, Jesus never once says that he is a king. Pilate understands: this is a different kind of kingship – one that poses no threat to the empire. So, he reformulates: “What have you done?”

Everything was going so well. I told you Jesus never says he is king… and yet, here it is. He speaks of his kingship. “My kingdom is not from this world.” And more: he has servants – literally those who row beneath him (a term both military and bureaucratic in origin). These servants could fight – but they don’t. Why? Because they were not rallied for this world.

Now, I don’t know about you, but this is all rather complex – these “worlds.”
What do the Bible and the theologians tell us? That Creation is good.
That God so loved the world – yes, the world, not just “creation” – that he gave his only Son.
That we are called to bear fruit – where? In this world.
That the Kingdom of God has drawn near – where? Here, in this world.
Can we be more specific? Yes: in the days of Herod, of Caesar Augustus, of Tiberius Caesar, of Pilate.
In our own time. In our own history.

Here lies the first of three pitfalls in our text: the phrase “not of this world.”
We might wrongly think this world is bad, that God comes only to save humanity – not the world itself. As if the world were a waiting room.
That is the Gnostic view – that this world was made by a false god, and the Christ is a spiritual being with no connection to the material world.
No connection? The Jesus of John says otherwise: “I was born.”

Is there a more beautiful declaration than that?

Jesus’ words echo our confession of faith, in the Apostles’ Creed, and every Christmas: “He was born.”
And John’s Jesus adds: “I came into the world for this – to testify to the truth.”

And we know: in Scripture, truth is not about knowledge or information. It means that which is trustworthy, dependable, solid.
“I believe in God” – not a checklist of dogmas, but: I trust in God. I know he won’t collapse beneath me. I can lean on him.

Truth, ultimately, is the reality of God. So this world matters to God – so much so that he came to live the human condition, with all its weakness, humiliation, anguish, and death – for this world.
He was born. He came for this (v. 37).
No – this world is not a waiting room.

“I was born, and I came to bear witness to the truth.”
So, who is this king who bears witness to the truth?

What does it mean that Christ is king?

This feast of Christ the King, as celebrated in some churches today, is not the triumph of the Messiah in glory. It could be. We have texts about the Messiah in glory. But that is not the passage offered today by our shared lectionary.
What we have is an accused man, subject to rumour, at the mercy of a petty ruler.
This is not quite the risen, exalted Christ.

From the beginning, Christians have worshipped a crucified Messiah – a God who embraced vulnerability to the end.

Jesus is king in that he is the revealer (John 1:18) – the one who shows us God.
He testifies to God’s reality – so different from the gods we invent, so different from the kings we demand (cf. 1 Sam. 8).

We could say it this way: as readers, we are invited to understand kingship from the perspective of the Son – “the Father’s pre-existent envoy,” as John’s Gospel presents him – and not from what we imagine kingship to be.

So what do we see of Christ the King?

• The accused reclaims the role of judge – and how does he judge? By calling Pilate to his inner tribunal, to his conscience and reason;

• He appeals to freedom – even in the powerful. He reminds the mighty how bound they are too – and that the message of a liberating God is also for them;

• He is a king not of this world – and yet ruling over this world.

Here lies the second danger: imagining that “Christ’s spiritual reign” is merely symbolic or insubstantial. As if we had to wait for his return to see its effect. No.

To speak of Christ’s spiritual reign is to say he has real power over this world.
We cannot reduce Jesus to a vague spiritual symbol, detached from any historical or visible impact. That would lead to a disembodied faith, divorced from the world.

But we cannot reduce him – for here and now we see that Christ’s reign shapes how believers live, working for justice, peace, and reconciliation in this world.

So the final pitfall? “Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”
We now know why Christ came: to bear witness to the truth. And as Jean Zumstein reminds us, truth means “what is trustworthy, what can be relied upon.”

This world is good.
Christ did not come to extract us from it, like in a science fiction tale.
The Word is sown in this world to bear fruit.

So I ask again: why would Christ refuse that his servants fight for him in this world?
Are we not his people? Do we not have fruit to bear?

The final danger might be a certain kind of activism. Wanting to defend Christ using the world’s means of power. Forgetting that Jesus rejected that path – and commanded the opposite.

Above all, we must not forget: Christ does reign – over this world, and over our lives. He calls us to belong to the truth.

Let us listen to his voice (v. 37), here and now.

This is the good news that reaches us, even from this praetorium on Easter morning, as it does every morning of the world: Jesus Christ does not reign from afar like a distant king.
He is present – here and now – in our lives, through our actions and our choices for justice, love, and truth.
His kingdom is already transforming this world, and we are invited to take part.

Amen