Hey everybody…
I’ll get back to blogging regularly eventually… To my readers, I’m sorry. I’ve been very busy lately. I still plan on working on that vlog and will do so as soon as I can.
But in other news- Sunday was Christ the King Sunday at church. This is the last Sunday of the Christian year, the week before the beginning of Advent which starts the Christian calendar. The scripture reading was from John 18:33-38 (I only remember this because I had to read it to the congregation yesterday in church). In it, Jesus is before Pilate and Pilate asks him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” Jesus answered his question with another question, “Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?” Pilate asked yet another question, “I am not a Jew, am I?” and continued “Your own nation and your chief priests handed you over to me. What have you done?” And Jesus answered him, “My Kingdom is not of this world. If it was from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my Kingdom is not from here.”
Pilate then asked, “So you are a king?”
Jesus responded, “You say that I am a king.” For this I was born, and for this I came into this world – To testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to my truth listens to my voice.”
Pilate asked Jesus, “What is truth?”
I like how the story stops with this question. It’s a lingering question that all of us, especially in this scientific age, ask frequently. What is truth?
I particularly like it because the truth didn’t matter much to Pilate. He had no idea what Jesus meant when he said these things. He had no idea what it meant for Jesus to be a king. And really, he didn’t care. Pilate knew that the Jews had their own truth and the Romans had their own truth- It meant nothing to Pilate for Jesus to be a king of anything.
What is truth? I need to ask this question more often. When I think of a king, I think of wealth, extravagance, separation from the common people, perhaps snobbery… but when I look at Jesus, I see the exact opposite of all these things- and yet, he’s entitled to it all. Is this what a true king is?
I have a rule about Christmas music. I won’t start listening to it until Thanksgiving day. It drives my wife crazy that I don’t wait until advent-and theologically, she is right- but I have a lot of Christmas spirit! Anyway, yesterday, I was listening to the radio and listened to “The Little Drummer Boy”. I was struck by the humility of the song. Imagine looking into a feeding trough in a barn filled with animals and seeing a baby- that’s supposedly a king. What humble beginnings. It takes a lot to actually bend your knee to such a sight- and yet- this is what Jesus spent his entire life doing- treating the poor and the lowly as royalty, himself, taking the form of a servant. The implications of this truth are vast.
This is the Gospel of our Lord- that God humbled God’s self and came down in the form of a human being- not to be worshiped, not to be praised, but to serve others as he taught us to praise the humble. He humbled himself to the point of death for our sake in order to lift us up. He rose again on the third day and now sits at his rightful place, at the right hand of the Father. He lived a life of humility, died the death of a criminal, and rose again in glory. There was no dignity in his life… not on the outside anyway. To find the dignity, one would need to follow his teachings to see what his kingdom was all about– This is the truth that Pilate knew nothing about. And this is the truth about the God we worship. We worship a God that lifts up the humble, mends the broken, and makes all things new. Our God is a God of service.
I expect Christ to come again. But unlike many others, I don’t expect Jesus to come mounted on a horse in the clouds, sword in hand, to destroy all the wicked of the earth. He’s shown us that this is not what his Kingdom is. He’s shown us to not anticipate the usual. I think he will come in a very unexpected way. Maybe a bum on the side of the street? Maybe as an average everyday person trying to pay his bills? Maybe he’ll come as a refuge, kicked out of his country… I don’t know, but maybe humility is the true definition of glory.
Everyone wants to change the world, but not many actually do. It’s no lie that Jesus had the biggest impact on the world. All he did was practice what he preached and a movement grew out of it. The movement became corrupt, but there are big things in store for the world. Christ’s impact is not finished yet. He’s given the reigns to the Church… and the Church is in a process of pruning. What will come out of it will be glorious. That is the truth.
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