Christ the King John 18:33-37 Revelation 1:4b-8The last Sunday in the Church’s year is Christ the King, and as such concludes the cycle of Jesus first coming into the world as a baby and moving into his ministry and work of salvation that sees him enthroned as King of kings and Lord of lords. In today’s reading from John’s Gospel, we find him standing before Pilate. He has been handed over to Pilate by the chief priests, possibly on the hint of Jesus claiming to be king. In those days, more than now, a king was all-powerful. He (for now we focus on kings, not queens) had absolute power and ruled over people as he wished. Violence was often a means to get what he wanted. If he wasn’t on the throne through the family line, he would have got there by means of the sword. So when Pilate finds Jesus in front of him, he is wondering along those lines: either this very common looking man is deluded or he has a following that could upset the status quo with Herod as Rome’s puppet-king and threaten Pilate’s own authority. He asks Jesus: ‘Are you the King of the Jews?’ Jesus, as he does so often, answers with a question: ‘Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?’ In other words, is this your own idea or not? It is actually an important question. If Pilate had known something about Jesus through his works, he might have come to the right conclusion: yes, Jesus is a king – if not like other kings of the world, at least a king of some sort. But Pilate is going only by his own experience of kings and doesn’t know or doesn’t want to know all the ins and outs of Jewish life. For, as Jesus also says, the Kingdom that Jesus is referring to is not from the world, even though it is for the world.In the passage from Revelation, we find this confirmed, when the Apostle John writes about the second coming of Jesus Christ, ‘with the clouds; every eye will see him, even those who pierced him; and on his account all the tribes of the earth will wail.’ John calls him, ‘the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth, […] who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us to be a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever.’ Standing in front of Pilate, Jesus points out that the nature of his kingdom is different, as it is not from this world. For, if it had been from this world, his followers would have been fighting to keep him from being handed over. His final words to Pilate are a statement about truth: ‘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.’ Pilate, who sees things only through his worldly lens, only says, ‘What is truth?’ This is indeed also something that the disciples had to learn, through the resurrection. Truth is not made in a laboratory, or worked out through mathematics. It is a gift that Jesus alone brings into the world, as God’s living Word of life. Pilate only knows about political ‘truth’; the one that is forced on by the sword. But Jesus is the truth that sets people free through his death on their behalf. It is the truth of the meaning of the cross. The Truth is the person standing in front of Pilate. Nobody else can do what Jesus does: face the power of sin and evil, and destroy it. Grace and peace come from him. He alone can set us truly free. Us, Barabbas, the people of Israel, and Pilate. For Jesus is King of kings and Lord of lords. Amen.
Second Sunday before Advent Mark 13:1-8 Daniel 12:1-3‘This is but the beginning of the birth pangs.’ The last sentence in today’s reading from Mark’s gospel is where we shall have to start, in order to make sense of what has come before. Jesus’ answer to the question of the disciples about the Temple led him to speak, not in agreement to their admiration for the building, but rather of what lies beyond it. This, as in the event of Jesus clearing the Temple, is to draw people’s attention to something – or someone – much greater than the architecture. Also, as usual, Jesus uses imagery that everybody at the time would be quite familiar with, in this case the image of birth. In those days, perhaps more than in later times, the physical agony of a woman in labour was part and parcel of life. The beginning of life, and its end, were close accompaniers. We have often interpreted Jesus’ words about the destruction of the Temple and what was to happen afterwards as indicators of the end of time only, but that is not necessarily the case. As we know, the Temple itself, that magnificent structure that the disciples adored, was to be destroyed in AD70, but as Jesus also indicates, ‘the end is yet to come’. So he is referring to the near future as well as the far-off future in the distance of time. The events that he talks about are signs of the ‘beginning of the birth pangs’.Birth pains can take a while; nature has to take its course. The moment of birth is not immediate but at a pre-determined time. Before then, it has to be endured; you can’t go around it, you have to go through it. The good thing is that once the child is born, the pain is forgotten and – in most cases – the new-born is held and watched with delight. So what about the birth of a new era, as referred to by Jesus?The birth of a new age, a time when justice and peace are to be restored, had been announced by the prophets for a long time. For God was always intending to renew creation and to bring in his Kingdom of mercy and truth. The Temple – in its previous forms as well as the new structure of the day – had had a particular function: to help the people focus in the right direction. But one day that function would no longer be necessary, as all would be drawn closer to God through Jesus, the living Temple of truth, love, mercy and peace. It may be that idea that astonished the disciples most. They had grown up with the rituals of sacrifice in the Temple and could not yet see how they could ever be replaced. A new Kingdom, they might have thought, fine! But it would not be the kind of Kingdom that God had in mind. What comes in the following verses in Mark’s Gospel, is the way Jesus explains how things will be for the disciples: they will be handed over to councils, beaten for their faith and hated because of Jesus’ name. Not an easy prospect! But, as Jesus also says, ‘the one who endures to the end will be saved.’Do we like that picture? Possibly not. The disciples also would not have relished the idea of persecution, any more than a woman is looking forward to her labour pains. But the way to salvation and the final fulfilment of God’s Kingdom has to come through many a conflict. We may be tempted to panic when we hear rumours of war, natural disaster and false predictions making us afraid. But we do not need to; they are only the beginning of the birth pangs. And, at least they are the beginning. The world will go, and is already going, through a difficult time. All the more reason to hold on to faith, or, perhaps more accurately, to let our faith hold us. And continue to announce the Good News of Jesus Christ. For in the face of adversity, one person with God is always a majority. Amen.
All Saints’ Day John 11:32-44 Revelation 21:1-6aThe book of Revelation – the final book in the Bible – is still a mystery but the hope that it proclaims is life-changing and life-giving. Let me explain. We find an extraordinary story in John’s Gospel, in the account of the raising of Lazarus. Lazarus, you will remember, was the brother of the sisters Martha and Mary, and had died, leaving his sisters, with whom he lived, in deep grief and despair. Jesus, although he is not far from their place at the time of his friend’s death, does not set out immediately to see them. Instead, he waits, and then goes to visit, and subsequently brings Lazarus back from the dead even after his burial. The strange scene of Lazarus walking out from his grave, still with bits of the grave linen on him, must have been very impressive indeed! And yet, it does raise a question: why did Jesus not prevent the death of Lazarus during his illness or go to him immediately after he had died to bring him back? Why did he wait until Lazarus had been dead for four days and buried? We can perhaps only conjecture, but with the passage from Revelation chapter 21 to accompany the Gospel reading, we may be able to find a helpful answer. The first four books in the New Testament, the Gospels according to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, all offer us the Good News (that is what Gospel means) of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who came to save humanity from their sins and to give them the hope of eternal life. These accounts, witnessed and proclaimed by a host of people, especially the disciples, all give evidence to this. And the main feature of the Gospels is that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, the One who came to save us. Save us from what, some may ask. Well, it’s what Revelation 21 also says: save us from death, as it will be no more; as mourning and crying and pain will be no more. Bad news for funeral directors? Well, joking aside, there will be a time, one day in the future, when the fulfilment of all that Jesus came to give us in his dying and rising, his teaching and everything else that he embodied for the coming of the Kingdom of God will take place. And the end of death totally, will mean that at least one profession will be out of business… That is, of course, good news really. For no matter how each culture deals with death and mourning today, be it loud or more restrained and quiet, there will be no need for it at all then. Instead, there is to be rejoicing; laughter instead of mourning; a wedding banquet instead of a wake. But what about Lazarus’ death and Jesus only appearing four days afterwards? As the sisters had said: ‘If you had been here, our brother would not have died.’ I wonder: could it be that Jesus tarried because he was making a point? And the point being that our journey to life has to go through death? Like the way Jesus was going to die in order to give us life, even after death? The passage from Revelation tells us that the new state in the renewal of creation comes when ‘the first things have passed away’ – or, in other translations, ‘when the old order of things or the former things have passed away’. Let us be clear: Jesus came to destroy death, but these things happen in God’s time, not ours. We should not hasten death, but we should treasure the time we have been given in the here and now. Because Jesus came to give us life; abundant life, to the full (John 10:10), today already, while we are on this earth. We may still struggle in this life – the Psalms are particularly honest about that. But Jesus makes the difference. When he is with us, we can make it through, as he has promised. Today, we are reminded of the saints, those Christians who lived their lives in remarkable ways, yet clinging to the hope of God in Christ, encouraging us by their example. May we then not lose hope, but live fully, gratefully, looking forward to eternal life with God, while fulfilling our purpose here and now, rejoicing. Amen.
