Are you a king?
Each of the four Gospels offers us a unique perspective of Jesus’s life and teaching. The books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John have different themes, emphasize different details about Jesus’s story. I’ve learned to pay particular attention to the things they agree on, the points they all feel the need to make. And I noticed that all four Gospels agree that when Jesus was crucified, a sign was placed on his cross to describe his crime. The sign said: “The king of the Jews.”
The king of the Jews. It’s a political title, a claim of power. For the Roman government in Jerusalem, anyone who claimed such a title would automatically be seen as a rebel and as a threat.
We just heard a passage from the Gospel of John that talks about Jesus’s kingship. It’s Good Friday. Jesus has been arrested and appears before Pilate. In Pilate’s eyes, any claim of royal authority would be proof of guilt. And so Pilate asks him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” Jesus answers, “My kingdom is not from this world.” Pilate replies, “So you are a king?”
Pilate doesn’t understand Jesus’s answer. And we too often fall into the same trap Pilate did: thinking that if Jesus is a king, he must be a king in the mold of the rulers and kings and tyrants we know.
Jesus’s power isn’t less than the power of an earthly king. But it is different. Jesus says “My kingdom is not from this world.” People sometimes read this passage as if Jesus were king of a neighboring territory and only just paying a visit to this one. But that’s not quite right. Jesus’s power comes from a different source—not a different place. Jesus’s power has a different character. Jesus’s power is here and now, but his crown is a crown of thorns. He has no home, no wealth, no power as most of the world understands power.
Jesus’s power is a power found in self-sacrifice, love, and humility. He says, “For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth.” Jesus doesn’t ask his followers to use violence to save him from Pilate. Instead, he allows the powers of this world to kill him. That alone should be a clue that Jesus is a different king of king.
I recently saw the new movie about Dietrich Bonhoeffer. If you’re not familiar with him, Bonhoeffer was a theologian and a Lutheran pastor in Germany during the Second World War. He was arrested and executed by the Nazi government just a few weeks before the end of the war.
I have mixed feelings about the movie that’s out right now. It’s a complicated movie about a complicated man, and it gets a lot of the historical detail wrong. My biggest criticism is that it overstates Bonhoeffer’s comfort with the use of violence in a good cause. Bonhoeffer did work with an organization that tried to assassinate Hitler, and Bonhoeffer probably knew about those plans, but the real Bonhoeffer never saw the use of violence as anything other than a sin. He was actually executed for his involvement in efforts to help Jews escape Germany. In its search for drama, the movie turns Bonhoeffer into something he wasn’t. Bonhoeffer was certainly a hero, but not in the swashbuckling way that Hollywood normally uses that word.
But, even with its weaknesses, the movie tells a powerful story about faith and power and how they interact. It’s the story of a man. But more importantly for us, I think, it’s the story of the church in a time when the church got things very wrong.
Maybe church leaders didn’t want to take sides. Maybe they wanted to stay out of politics, stay above the fray. Maybe they wanted to hold onto their privileged places in society. Whatever their reasoning, most of the German church of Bonhoeffer’s time went along with the Nazi government.
The history of that time gives us a useful lens through which to consider Jesus’s power—and the power the church claims in Jesus’s name. History reminds us that it’s a mistake to stay silent in the face of injustice. But it also warns us that not all forms of power are open to us if Jesus is to be our model.
There’s a lot of talk these days about Christian nationalism. Many people seem eager to claim political power in the name of Jesus. There aren’t many things I call heresy, but Christian nationalism is one of them. The people advocating for Christian nationalism dream of a kingdom that seeks wealth, wields power, embraces violence, a kingdom that condemns and persecutes those who are different. That’s a kingdom of this world. That’s not the kingdom of Christ.
Jesus refused power as most of us understand power. He didn’t become a revolutionary. He didn’t take up arms against the Roman occupying government. He didn’t seek wealth or glory. He didn’t even fight to defend himself. He occupied no palaces and commanded no armies.
After the end of the Second World War, leaders of the German church looked back on where they’d gone wrong. With the wisdom of hindsight, they said this: “we accuse ourselves for not standing to our beliefs more courageously, for not praying more faithfully, for not believing more joyously, and for not loving more ardently.”
That’s what it should look like to wield power in the Kingdom of God. To hold to our beliefs with courage. To pray ever more faithfully. To believe ever more joyously. To love ever more ardently.
The church’s power should look like Jesus’s power. It should look like love. It should look like self-sacrifice. It should look like care for the stranger, the suffering, and the excluded.
We’re the church. We’re the body of Christ in the world. We ought to exercise power in the same way he did. Not by abdicating responsibility. Not by withdrawing from the world. But also not by force or compulsion. By care, by kindness, by courage. By love.
On this Feast of Christ the King, may we know our citizenship to be first and foremost in his kingdom. And may we follow with faith and courage in his way of love.