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| Order Of Worship (Liturgy) Hymn 66 Psalm 5:3-5 (after the law of God) Psalm 99:1,2 Hymn 44 Hymn 45 Scripture readings: Matthew 18:1-6; Matthew 20:1-16 Text: John 18:33-40 |
Beloved congregation of Christ,
Brené Brown has this great short animation about the difference between empathy and sympathy. Someone falls into a deep dark pit. The person showing sympathy stands at the edge of the pit looking down and offers them a sandwich. The person showing empathy finds a ladder and climbs down into the pit and gives the suffering person a hug. Empathy is what the world needs more of, what we need more of.
Have you ever heard of a king doing any such thing? I tried to look for historical examples of royalty who humbled themselves and got down to the level of their suffering subjects, and I can tell you there’s not a lot out there. It is incredibly rare for a king or a queen to climb down into the pit with one of their suffering subjects to comfort them.
Yet that’s what our heavenly King has done. God has climbed down into our pit. He has done that in the person of our Lord Jesus. Our heavenly King has stepped down to us, he’s brought us rescue, and shown us love and comfort. We have a King who knows what it’s like in the pit.
In our passage for this morning from John, we find Pontius Pilate and Jesus going back forth. One thing that comes up several times is the idea that Jesus is a King. You might think royalty would be majestic and impressive. But here the King is in the pit and he’s sinking lower and lower. As we see him doing that, as we see our King suffering, we learn yet more about who he is. Even at this late stage in his earthly sojourn, God is still disclosing more about our King. So I preach to you God’s Word from John 18:33-40, Who is your King?
In our passage we’ll see:
- Affirmation of Christ’s kingship
- Indifference to Christ’s kingship
- Rejection of Christ’s kingship
Our passage finds Jesus on the morning of Good Friday at the headquarters of the Roman governor in Jerusalem. He has been brought there by the Jewish religious leaders. They want to get a death sentence for Jesus, and the only way they can get that is through the cooperation of Pontius Pilate. All of this was in God’s providence. Without the Romans in the picture, there would have been no cross and Christ wouldn’t have borne our accursedness suspended between heaven and earth.
Before he makes up his mind, Pilate wants to interrogate Jesus for himself. So he has him brought into the headquarters and the questions begin. The first one is “Are you the King of the Jews?” Obviously the Jewish religious leaders have informed him of their issue with Jesus. Jesus has made himself out to be the Messiah, the Christ, the Anointed One prophesied in the Old Testament. But Pilate is Roman and doesn’t know the Bible. He’s not familiar with concepts like Messiah. So the Jewish religious leaders simplify it for him and tell him Jesus was claiming to be a king. That idea is included with Messiahship, but it also has the added benefit of meaning that Jesus is a threat to the Romans. The Romans would never tolerate people going around announcing themselves to be a king. That would threaten the political order because Tiberius Caesar was the Roman Emperor and only he was allowed to appoint kings in various parts of the Empire. There already was a King Herod in Judea and so another person pronouncing himself king would be considered an act of treason or revolt.
What follows Pilate’s question is a back and forth with Jesus. Jesus gets Pilate to acknowledge that the question about his being king doesn’t actually come from himself, but from the Jewish religious leaders. Pilate then wants to know what Christ did to provoke them. Elsewhere, in Matthew 27, we learn that Pilate knew that the Jewish religious leaders had delivered Jesus up because of their envy. So when he says, “What have you done?” he means, “What have you done to make them so envious of you?”
That question leads Jesus to begin speaking about his kingdom and what it’s like. He says something about his kingdom that’s so important for us to grasp. If we don’t get what he’s saying here, we get so much wrong about him.
He says his kingdom is not of this world. As we heard in our readings from Matthew 18 and Matthew 20, his kingdom is the kingdom of heaven, not the kingdom of earth. His kingdom doesn’t originate from this world and isn’t based on what this world values. Christ’s kingdom relates to this world in which we live, but it doesn’t have a worldly character.
Christ’s kingdom is spiritual in nature, focussed on spiritual realities and concerns. His kingdom is about the hearts of human beings. So it’s about what human beings think, love, and desire. When Christ is acknowledged as king in the heart of a man or woman, their thoughts, loves, and desires begin to line up with what he thinks, loves, and desires as their king.
The contrast between Christ’s kingdom and earthly kingdoms is also shown in how it reacts to pressure and hostility. Christ has been under attack. He has been conspired against and betrayed. Jesus was taken into custody by armed men at night. An earthly king would have gotten his back up and he would have called his soldiers in to defend him and fight back. But not King Jesus. Because his kingdom is heavenly and spiritual, there can be no physical violence. Yes, Peter tried to take up the sword. Remember, he sliced off the ear of Malchus, the servant of the High Priest. But he didn’t do that because his King told him to. In fact, King Jesus rebuked Peter for taking this violent action and he healed Malchus. When the kingdom of Jesus advances, it’s not because of earthly power and strength, it’s not through physical violence or coercion. It’s through the power of the Holy Spirit working together with the power of the gospel.
What this showed to Pontius Pilate was that the kingdom of Christ didn’t represent a real threat to the Roman Empire. The kingdom of Christ wasn’t about overthrowing the Roman Empire in a revolutionary fashion. It was about changing hearts, not changing regimes. Now of course, when enough hearts are changed, politics gets affected too, and that eventually happened in the Roman Empire as well. And it’s also true that the Roman Empire comes to perceive Christianity as a threat. Christians refuse to worship Caesar as a god and they refuse to renounce Christ as Lord. However, they never take up arms against Caesar. There’s never a Christian movement to overthrow Caesar by armed force or physical violence. Christ’s kingdom comes by preaching and persuasion, by evangelism, through the work of the Holy Spirit in people’s hearts.
At some level, Pilate seems to understand this. He understands that Jesus doesn’t represent an immediate danger to the interests of the Roman Empire. That’s what leads him to say later on that he can’t find any guilt in Jesus. He not only says that once, he says it three times.
In verse 37, Pilate latches on to Christ’s implying that he is a king. Jesus speaks about his kingdom, therefore he must be a king, right? And Jesus’ answer affirms it: “You say that I am a king.” Our ESV Bible translation is quite literal here and prone to misunderstanding. Jesus isn’t being ambiguous or evasive in his answer. Though it’s not as literal, I think the NIV’s rendition is clearer here. In the NIV of verse 37 Jesus says, “You are right in saying I am a king.” That’s the way it should be understood.
Jesus is King, he is the Messiah promised in the Old Testament. And it’s really important to understand what kind of King he is. He’s not like earthly Kings. In our reading from Matthew 18, we learn he’s the kind of king who values humility above all. Not only does he value humility in his subjects, he’s shown humility in his life. He was and is the Son of God, and yet he took on our human nature and became one of us. With his conception and birth, he climbed down into the pit with us to bear our griefs and sorrows. With his incarnation, he came down to earth to bear our sins and our curse. This is the truth for which he came to bear witness – that God loves us so much that he gave his only Son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.
In our reading from Matthew 20, we learn he’s the kind of king who has great generosity. Even those who come to him in the eleventh hour receive the same as those who came early in the morning. That’s phenomenal grace and generosity. Loved ones, that’s the kind of king we have in Jesus. He is lavish with his forgiveness. All you have to do is come to him and he’ll give you the gift of his perfect obedient life and his sacrifice on the cross. And you can be declared right with God.
Jesus says, “Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.” Brother, sister, listen to his voice. He calls all of us to acknowledge him as our king, the Messiah who God promised would come to bring restoration and reconciliation. Listen to the voice of Jesus and you can know that you are of the truth, you’re aligned with the truth as it is in Jesus Christ. He called himself the truth in John 14:6. If you listen to his voice, turn to him with faith, you can be sure that you are “of him.” He is yours and you are his. Trust in this King revealed here in God’s Word for your entire salvation.
That would be the right and the positive way to respond to what Jesus affirms in our text. But let’s now take a closer look at two negative ways to respond. We begin with what Pilate says in verse 38.
When Christ speaks about the truth, Pilate responds, “What is truth?” There is a Christian tradition that Pilate’s wife became a Christian. In Egyptian Coptic Christianity and Ethiopian Orthodoxy there’s also a tradition that Pilate himself later became a Christian. The historical evidence for these claims is thin at best. What we do know from the Bible is how Pilate responded to Jesus on that Good Friday morning and it wasn’t a good look.
“What is truth?” isn’t a real question. It’s not as if Pilate was genuinely interested in philosophical or theological questions about the nature of truth. “What is truth?” is the verbal equivalent of shrugging your shoulders. It’s an expression of indifference. It’s as if Pilate is saying, “You’re talking about truth? Who cares about truth anyway?”
I can’t help but think that Pilate would have felt very much at home in our culture today. So many people today are indifferent about spiritual truth. They don’t really care about what Jesus has to say, unless it’s maybe something convenient taken out of context like “Judge not, lest ye be judged.” Sayings like that can be useful for shutting down people trying to judge us. But beyond that, the idea that Jesus is the King who has climbed down into our pit to rescue us? No, that’s not something worth considering. So you get a lot of indifference to spiritual truth today.
But what we have to realize is that to be indifferent is still to take a stand. To not take a position on Christ’s kingship is still to take a position. To be indifferent is still to say that you won’t acknowledge him as king and the truth he came to bear witness to, the truth of what God has done for the salvation of sinners. Brothers and sisters, we can’t be indifferent. Being indifferent puts us on the wrong side of the King. Being indifferent to his claims has enormous spiritual consequences. Being indifferent means that when death comes to knock on your door, you can’t have peace with it. Your response to Christ’s witness might not be the exact words Pilate spoke, “What is truth?” But even as a church-goer, you might be just as indifferent as him. The Holy Spirit challenges you on that here and now. Don’t be indifferent to Christ’s witness to the truth, but instead see the King who has descended into the pit with us to be our Redeemer. Acknowledge him as your King and Saviour.
So there’s indifference as one negative way to respond to Christ’s witness. The other negative way is outright rejection. That’s what we see with the Jewish crowd outside of the Roman headquarters in Jerusalem.
Pontius Pilate went out to them and announced his finding about Jesus: he was innocent. He had done nothing deserving death. So Pilate’s instinct was to release him. And he had a convenient way to do that. He had this custom of releasing a Jewish prisoner during the Passover. That practice was designed to curry favour with the Jews, soften up their attitude towards their Roman rulers. So he asked the Jewish crowd if they wanted him to release their King.
But the crowd responded with a resounding rejection of that. Instead, they wanted Barabbas. Who was this Barabbas? Our Bible translation says he was a “robber.” But if you look at verse 40, you’ll see there’s a note at the bottom of the page giving an alternate translation, “insurrectionist.” Insurrection or revolution can involve robbery. In the case of Barabbas, we know from elsewhere in the Gospels that it certainly also involved murder. Barabbas was a bad guy, a violent man, a real danger to society. Jesus, on the other hand, was someone who had done a lot of good for society – he had healed the sick, raised the dead, cast out demons, confronted injustice, preached good news. Unlike Barabbas, Jesus had never done anything criminal and the closest he came to being violent was overthrowing the tables of the money-changers in the temple. He certainly never laid his hands on anyone to hurt them. Rather than murder, Jesus was all about life and granting it more abundantly. Barabbas was ugly in his character and criminal in his life; Jesus was beautiful in his character and completely virtuous in his life. You couldn’t have two people more different to one another.
You’d think it would be rational and reasonable for them to want Jesus walking about freely on their streets instead of Barabbas. But they’re not acting rationally and reasonably. That’s the nature of sin. Sin is irrational and unreasonable. That’s why they cry out for the harmful and dangerous Barabbas to be released and for the harmless and helpful Jesus to be crucified.
There’s something else here. The name Barabbas is Aramaic and it literally means “son of the father.” There is even some evidence that his first name was also Jesus. So we have the crowd calling out for the release of the “son of the father.” But the true Son of the Father, the true Son of God, they want him put to death. Again, it makes no sense.
The senselessness of this is heightened when we consider the identity of the people saying this. They’re Jewish. They’re God’s covenant people. Yet they’re rejecting God’s Messiah and wanting him executed by the Romans on an accursed cross. These are the people who should have embraced him and acknowledged him as Christ and King. In years past they rejected God’s kingship and they paid the price with exile to Assyria and Babylon. But clearly they haven’t learned and they continue this irrational and sinful pattern of rejection.
Earlier in his ministry Christ had warned them that rejecting him was a worse sin than that of Sodom and Gomorrah. For covenant people to reject the King God has sent down into the pit of this world for salvation, that’s an abominable wickedness. When you hear the Jewish crowd shouting, “Not this man, but Barabbas!” you have to see that what they’re doing is worse than the notorious sins committed in Sodom and Gomorrah, sins which are still committed and even celebrated today. Covenant apostasy is at the top of the list of abominations in God’s sight.
So it remains to this day. Today we’re God’s covenant people. Those of us who are members here, we’ve all been baptized as a sign and seal of God’s covenant. He has come to us with this special relationship we call the covenant. In this relationship, he calls us to acknowledge Christ as King and place our trust in him. If we reject him like the Jews did in our passage, it will be more tolerable on the Day of Judgment for the people of Sodom and Gomorrah than for us. You wouldn’t say, “Not this man, but Barabbas!” But you could say, “Not this man for my King. Not Jesus. Instead, I will be king of my life. I will call my own shots. I will determine my ways and how I live. I will save myself, earn my own way. I don’t need Jesus.” That’s the same kind of sin we see in verse 40. It’s sin, it’s wicked, and it needs to be repented of. Don’t reject Jesus as your King and Saviour, as the Christ you need.
Instead, see him here as bearing your rejection. If someone doesn’t have Christ as their Saviour and King, they are rejected by God and remain under his wrath. But for everyone who believes in him, Christ bore rejection in their place. This is part of his suffering for us. He took the rejection we deserve. Look to him in faith and you’ll never be rejected by God. Instead, with faith be encouraged to know you’re “accepted in the Beloved.”
Loved ones, our King Jesus is unlike any other king in this world. He’s unique in his love for us. He’s unique in what he’s done for us. Every other king will let you down. Even if you make yourself king of your own life, you’ll let yourself down. But King Jesus does not ever disappoint. He rules with love, grace, and power in our lives. Our King came down to our mess and darkness in order to pull us up into his order and light. He came down to our misery in order to pull us up to his joy. King Jesus came down to our warfare in order to pull us up to his peace. Who is your King? Jesus, the one who does all this for us. He’s the one to trust and acknowledge always. AMEN.
PRAYER
King Jesus,
We worship you for leaving behind your heavenly majesty and descending down into our pit. We praise you for being our King, the one who loved us so much that you came and bore our sin and misery. You were rejected so we could be accepted, and for that we love you and adore you. Lord, please help us with your Holy Spirit to always acknowledge you as our King. Help us not to be indifferent towards you or even worse, to reject you. Please continue to work faith in our hearts and strengthen our faith. With your Holy Spirit, help all our children and young people to believe in you as their King and Saviour too. We thank you for what you did for us and we pray for your help in living for your glory.
* As a matter of courtesy please advise Dr. Wes Bredenhof, if you plan to use this sermon in a worship service. Thank-you.
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