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| What is Truth by Nikolai Nikolaevich |
So Pilate entered the Judgement Hall again and called Jesus
and said to him, “Are you the King of the Jews?”
Jesus answered, “Do you say this of your own accord, or did
others say it to you about me?”
Pilate answered, “Am I a Jew? Your own nation and the chief
priests have delivered you over to me. What have you done?”
Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my
kingdom were of this world, my servants would fight, that I might not be
delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.”
Then Pilate said to him, “So you are a king?” Jesus
answered, “You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this
purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who
is of the truth listens to my voice.”
This reading gives us one of the most famous moments in the
Bible. Jesus stands before Pilate and defines his Kingdom, and so, what is
unique about the Christian Faith. It may seem familiar, from repeated exposure,
but when we look closely, it is astonishing how it still challenges our
politics and our spiritual assumptions. Jesus is on trial for his life, he knows
that. We cannot forget the terrible emotion of this moment: Christ's agony in
the garden of gethsemane, the profound betrayal by Judas, one of his twelve
chosen disciples; Peter panicking and denying Jesus three times by the
courtyard fire; Christ standing alone before Pilate. I wonder if each of us can
remember moments when it felt like our whole life hung in the balance, though
hopefully not as literally, as for Jesus in this moment. But still Jesus
remains calm, though he must have been wracked by emotion, he even challenges
the mighty Pilate, not to insult or criticise him, but to be clear about what
Pilate is asking.
"Do you say this of your own accord, or did others say
it about me?".
If Pilate speaks for himself he is asking if Jesus is a King
by Roman Eyes, a political leader; or if others have said this, then it is the
Judean leaders, who would be saying he claims to be God's Messiah. Either way,
Jesus does not deny his Kingship, he cannot because he is the King, but he does
not affirm it either. That would leave Pilate no choice, given how he
understands it, but to have Jesus killed.
There is a very deliberate choice in Jesus' actions during
his trial and execution. He will not deny who he is to save himself, but neither
will he give his accusers an excuse to kill him. They must make that choice,
that an innocent man must die to keep the peace. Little do they know how futile
that action is. At the same time, on the cross, Jesus speaks out calling on the
Father to forgive those who killed him. No bitterness, or hatred, must spoil or
mar this sacrifice, as God himself goes to the Cross on behalf of Mankind.
This death is not the evil deed of a few men, but it is the
inevitable result of a world infected by Sin. At the start of the Bible, the book
of Genesis describes how Adam & Eve's sin, of taking the fruit, descends
rapidly into the terrible crime of Cain murdering Abel. The lesson here is that
always the large sins come out of the small ones. Mistrust, dishonesty,
self-obsession, greed, thoughtlessness, fear: these combine and in larger doses
can prove fatal. At the root of every great evil in the world, we find people
infected by these smaller, personal sins. The Love of God shown in Jesus
Christ, his challenge to the powers and laws of this world, was an irresistible
force that met the immovable object, the world's fear and determination to hold
onto its own power.
We should not assume Pilate, or the Jewish leaders were
particularly bad people. On the Jewish side, they had terrible responsibilities;
on the Roman side, they were just doing their duty. They represent the
blindness of bureaucracy, the inertia of a system of government that does not
care about one individual, but sees only a problem to be solved by any means
available, and is prepared to destroy a person to solve it.
In John chapter 11, the High Priest expresses his fear, that
if lots of people turn to Jesus and believe he is a King then the Romans will
destroy Jerusalem and the Jewish nation with it. And he's not wrong, that is
exactly what the Romans would do. That is what the Romans did do in 70AD, 40
years after Jesus' death and resurrection. But what the Jewish Leaders miss is
that they have other options. They don't talk to Jesus to realise he has no
wish to politically challenge the Romans. He will lead no army: his challenge
is moral, it is spiritual. And that means it can be universal: It applies to
Kings and Shepherds, to Queens and little girls, to you and me.
The High Priest uses a remarkable phrase, "Do you not
realize that it is better that one man should die for the people, than that the
whole nation should perish"? He means that Jesus should be killed, to
prevent the risk that the Romans will destroy Jerusalem and the Jewish Nation.
And we condemn him for it, but doesn't it sound so much like our own Christian
confession? We believe Jesus died for all mankind, rather than we should each
suffer for our sins.
So what is the difference? The difference is about choice -
Christ chose to give himself as a sacrifice for all mankind. He made clear to
the Disciples that he knew what would happen. It is very easy to require other
people to makes sacrifices, it is very hard to make sacrifices ourselves. The
High Priest was prepared to sacrifice an innocent man to save the nation, Jesus
was prepared to sacrifice himself to save mankind.
You might ask, why does that matter? Either way, a man dies.
But it matters a great deal, because each of us is responsible for our own
choices. Even if Jesus makes no political challenge to Rome, it's probable that
the Romans would have killed him eventually, because he was becoming a
nuisance. That is just how the Romans did things. But the Jewish leaders did
not have to be involved, Pilate did not have to be involved. Sin is everywhere,
but we make our own choices, and we can refuse to be part of it, as long as
there is breath in our bodies. Each of us can be justly condemned only for our
own choices, and that is a relief and a burden, because there are usually more
choices than we imagine.
And these choices are important. Again and again, Christ
speaks in parables, he answers a question with a question, because he wants to
leave us with choices. He does not want to give us a rule to follow like a
machine, he wants to give us a challenge to rise to. That requires us to use
our own mind and our own heart to take the step and make the right choice. God
made us, he knows what we can accomplish but he doesn't want to beat us over
the head with it! He wants to encourage us along, like an inspirational teacher
or an Olympic trainer, drawing new depths out of their student.
This is what his Kingdom is about. In parable after parable
Jesus describes the Kingdom of God, as a mustard seed that grows and provides
shade for birds and beasts, as a coin we search the whole house for and
celebrate when we find it, as a beautiful treasure worth selling everything we
have to buy, as an employer who pays a day's wages even for a single hour of
work. The Kingdom of God is about an overflowing of God's grace and creative
power that can burn away the evil we are trapped in, if we let go of our fear
and need for control and let it. And every flower that blooms, and every
beautiful thing we make, and every time the sun shines out from behind a cloud,
and every heart we touch, testifies to the Kingdom of God that is growing
around us.
It is about honesty, even in the face of dishonesty; about
kindness, even in the face of ingratitude; about forgiveness, even for those
who do not deserve it. Because these things do not come from our own resources
of grace and energy but from God's overflowing resources. And that well has no
bottom, it will never run dry. That is why Christ can tell us to "Turn the
other cheek, and go the extra mile, and give to the one who asks from you",
it's the same reason Christ could go to the Cross in calm and confidence,
asking the Father to forgive the people who murdered him. Because the
bitterness of this world is limited, but God draws from infinite resources, and
pours them out on the world and on us, through the gift of the Holy Spirit, and
the example and sacrifice of Christ.
When Christ says "my Kingdom is not of this
World", or when he says "give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, give
to God what belongs to God" he is not saying that his Kingdom has no
practical impact on this world. Far from it. He is challenging us to realise
that God's power is filling and transforming the world, and everything must be
reimagined and reshaped by that awesome reality. He is saying God's power
operates everywhere, but in a way that is totally different to human law.
We are hopefully used to thinking that we are stewards of
God's World. This means we are deputies, we have a responsibility given to us
to take care of the World, but remembering always that truly and utterly is
belongs to God who created it. I think we should extend this metaphor to own
bodies, our own lives as well. And to all the institutions of our World. I
recently bought a house and after several months of messing around
with lawyers and others it is now my possession, according to all the laws of
Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and most other countries in the world would
accept that ownership. But that is all rubbish! It belongs to God, and in
everything I do I must act in light of his ownership and purpose. The same with
my money and my body and my time, and my heart.
Christ's Kingdom is a spiritual kingdom: It does not seek to
write its own laws, issue its own passports, collect its own taxes, lock up its
criminals, fight its wars; it doesn't want to make priests into politicians or
judges. Though there have been times when Christians have tried all those
things, generally with disastrous results. If it did those things it would
inevitably be limited. Maybe it would work, for a while, in one place. But as
time changed, and technology changed, as peoples and borders changed, it would
become out-of-date and corrupt and destructive.
Different times and places, and peoples and cultures, and
levels of technology will have different laws and customs and forms of
politics, that suit them. But the Kingdom of God overshadows them all. Christ
does not seek to dictate a law and a constitution, because such things are
temporary, but God is eternal. Rather in every circumstance, we must fill our
political and social institutions with the meaning that comes from God, by
making sure in every choice we are working his purposes out, year by year: his
purposes of creation and forgiveness and generosity. His Kingdom is a kingdom
of the heart, and it is just as relevant whether you live in a Monarchy or a
Republic, whatever party you vote for, whatever government you live under.
Because Christ's Kingdom is a spiritual kingdom it is
universal, it is relevant to people of every time and place and culture,
because it speaks to what is most fundamental about being human, our
relationship to the God who created us; not only us, but the whole Universe
around us. Because God's kingdom is spiritual it can exist in one loving heart,
even where nobody else recognises its authority. It can grow in every family
who believe, in every act of love, in every faithful heart; and it can grow
until it transforms communities and nations and the whole world. Because
Christ's Kingdom is Spiritual, Christ is always its King, the only person who
deserves to be a King.
No other King knows you as an individual and now teaches and
encourages you; No other King has gone ahead of you to sacrifice and death, and
now calls you home. No other Kingdom includes people of every tribe and nation,
every country and culture, united by the same hope and faith and love, by their
same individual relationship with that King. No other Kingdom exists without
walls or borders, but invites everyone in; No other Kingdom has endured for two
thousand years, and will endure until "there is no more death or mourning
or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away". Because
this Kingdom is not of this world, it can transform this whole world, and unite
all mankind. Politics cannot save us, because it cannot transform the heart.
But the Kingdom of God transforms the heart, and the whole world into the
bargain.
Amen.
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