3 Strikes And You're Out

Rev. Brian Weinberger

RCL Year B • Sermon • Submitted 5 years ago

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Today is Christ the King Sunday and the last Sunday of the current church year. I just thought I’d share what I think is some interesting information, and that is that this holy day has only been around in widespread form since 1969 when many denominations around our nation adopted the Revised Common Lectionary of readings. The RCL is what we use each week to get our readings.

Over the last couple of weeks, I am not sure exactly when, I was talking with someone who was looking ahead at the readings and asked me why it was that we were reading a text that we normally would read around the end of Lent and Palm Sunday. It was a great question to ask and I simply explained to them it was Christ the King Sunday and in this text that does usually appear when we talk about Jesus death comes the question about Jesus being the King of the Jews.

I have always found this conversations between Pilate and Jesus a very fascinating one. The reason being is that even though we have this lengthly court scene between Pilate and Jesus and they are talking for a good part of it, I feel that the two of them are having completely different conversations at the same time. Perhaps they aren’t completely different conversations but it is definitely a conversation that Pilate is not prepared for and one that he doesn’t have a lot of knowledge about.

It would be like me trying to have a conversation with someone about classic cars. I know what classic cars are, in fact, I used to own a 1965 Mustang as my first car. I, could share my experience with having owned a classic car and at the time that I owned the car I could have shared with you some details about the car and the engine that had been put into it, but I had not worked on the car much at all, other than changing the oil, so to have a conversation with someone who did know everything about cars and Mustangs would have been talking way over my head and probably would have been frustrated with me. Perhaps there were some people who were frustrated with me when they talked to me about my car because they did know so much more than I did.

This is kind of what I imagine the conversation betwen Pilate and Jesus being like. Two people have the same conversation but with one person not really knowing what the subject matter is really about. In our text today Pilate admits wholeheartedly that he doesn’t know about what it is that he is holding Jesus on trial for.

Pilate wants to know if he is King of the Jews, but he doesn’t know what that means. He admits that when Jesus, instead of answering the question about being King of the Jews, asks him if he is asking the question because he wants to know for his own sake or if he is being put on trial because of what others told him about him.

The reason why this is so important is because the court system back then wasn’t like the court system today. Back then, Pilate as the ruler of Judea would be the judge and jury and then he would send him off to the executioner.

The other important part of this interaction based on this first question is that if Pilate really believed he was a king there would not be a court hearing. King’s were always kings unless they they died of disease or old age OR they were conquered by another nation, and at that point they would have been executed. There was never a trial for someone who was a king.

So Pilate’s first question, in baseball terms is a strike. Pilate completely misses and misunderstands what it is for Jesus to be king. If we take a look at the rest of the questions Pilate has for Jesus we see that there are 3 questions and they are all wrong questions to ask of Jesus, so I see Pilate striking out when trying to put Jesus on trial. This is also the reason why I believe they are having different conversations.

The second question that Pilate asks is, ‘what have you done?’ In this question Pilate assumes that as a wanna-be king he has done something that has upset the order of things. If Jesus answers the question by saying he was disturbing the peace or inciting violence, or trying to overthrow the government then Pilate can charge him with an actual crime. However Jesus responds by telling Pilate that he doesn’t have a kingdom here and that if he did then his followers would be trying to violently break into the Pilate’s palace and rescue him from the hands of the government. As Pilate can tell there is actually not a single person who has come forward to try to stand up for this king or try to rescue him from capture. Jesus explains to him that is the case because the kingdom that he has been talking about during his ministry is not a kingdom that has palaces or armies, but it is one from a different place that is not on this world.

Pilate then, utterly confused in my mind, then wants to know, if all of this is true, then is he really a king? I think we can also combine his question about truth here because we don’t get an answer after he asks it and because Jesus already discusses the topic of truth.

Jesus answers the question about being a king by telling Pilate the reason he was born, and that reason is that he came to testify to the truth and that everyone who belongs to the truth listens to his voice. We see elsewhere in John’s gospel () where Jesus talks about truth and how truth will set people free.

So Pilate has his third strike by once again asking an incorrect question about Jesus. He doesn’t understand, and he doesn’t understand because he doesn’t know anything, really, about Jesus and his purpose for being on the earth.

The whole point of Jesus life and ministry is to tell people about the truth of God and that is that God loves this world so much. We see this in John’s gospel, the most quoted verse in the Bible probably. tell us that God so loved the world that he gave his son so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life.

This is the truth that Jesus is talking about. Everyone who believes, everyone who has faith that Jesus is the messiah will have everlasting life with him in heaven. A messiah that is not truly from this world. A king that doesn’t need an army, but spreads his kingdom through love and grace.

As we celebrate this Christ the King holy day we do truly celebrate Christ as our king, but not an earthly one. We celebrate Chris as king over the whole world, as king in heaven, and as king of our hearts. We celebrate the one who came into this world, not to conquer it, but to share the truth of the gospel. The truth being that the one and only God of heaven and earth loves you so much that he did the most incredible act of love by sacrificing Christ on the cross so that we would no longer have to worry about death, or sin, or anything else. Christ is king and we are so blessed to have him rule in our hearts.