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If No Sound
Rethink Jesus©
November 22, 2009
2 Samuel 23:1-7
Psalm 132:1-12 (UMH 849)
Revelation
1:4b-8
John
18:33-37
Amy DeWitte
What do you think of
when you think of Christ? We talk about Jesus all the time, and we pray in his
name, we have pictures that represent him, and stained glass windows with images
of him. In this place, we can’t help but be confronted by Jesus. And we have
all kinds of thoughts about him, things we think we know about him,
characteristics we attribute to him. There have been lots of books written
about him. In a way, though, Jesus is real to each us in the ways we picture
him, in the things that immediately come to mind when we think of him. So what
do you think of when you think of Jesus? Maybe you think about the way he might
have looked. Maybe you picture him the way a famous painting makes him look –
the last supper, Jesus laughing, Jesus standing at the door knocking. Or maybe
you picture him doing things, the things that the Bible tells us he did –
healing people, or feeding people, or calling the children together to teach
them, or turning over tables in the Temple. Or maybe you think about the things
he said and taught – “The kingdom of God is like a mustard seed,” “Blessed are
the meek, for they will inherit the earth,” “You are the salt of the earth…you
are the light of the world,” “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what
they are doing.”
We have all these
different ways of thinking about Jesus, and each one of us may focus on some
different aspect of Jesus’ life. If any number of us were asked to describe
Jesus, we might all have different answers based on the characteristics we
usually think about. One of you might describe the way he is a good teacher.
One of you might describe the way he showed who he was through signs and
miracles. Maybe you would focus on his death on the cross; maybe you would tell
about the way he rose from the dead. It’s amazing to me how little and how much
we know about Jesus from these few books of the Bible. It’s amazing to me that
he was so mysterious that we can describe him in all these different ways and
still not really understand the way he was both God and human at the same time.
Jesus was this incredibly nuanced person, and it takes us all of these different
ways to describe him, so that we don’t try to stick him into any one narrow
category, so that we don’t diminish the breadth of who he is and was, so that we
can see the big picture.
It’s days like today
in the Christian calendar that help us to see that big picture. Today is Christ
the King Sunday, a day that we celebrate and recognize the kingship of Christ
and the reign of God. I wonder how many of us usually think of Christ as a king
when we picture him? How often do we think about how powerful and majestic
Christ is sitting on the throne of heaven at the right hand of God? I’d be
willing to bet that that’s not what we usually think of when we picture him.
And that’s ok, because we have all of these other images of Christ that remind
us of the whole scope of who he is. But today is a day when we do remember that
Jesus is Lord of Lords and King of Kings. Maybe today can also be the day when
we consider the way Christ should be king of our lives, as well as the whole
universe.
This idea of kings and
kingdoms may be a hard thing for us to wrap our minds around, just because in
America we don’t have a king that rules over the whole land and makes all the
decisions for everybody. Maybe you do have some image that you associate with
kings and kingdoms. Crowns and jewels and big castles, perhaps. But we don’t
really have that kind of king in America. As a matter of fact, that’s what our
ancestors in the Revolutionary war fought so hard against. We like to be free
to rule our own lives and make our own decisions. We like to think that
everybody can be his or her own king or queen, that everybody can have his own
castle, her own jewels.
But the Scriptures
show us a completely different view of kingdom. They turn all our ideas about
who should rule our lives upside down. The Scriptures remind us that Christ is
king over the whole universe and that our lives should constantly be bowed
before him. Revelation describes Jesus as the faithful witness. Though we
cannot possibly completely understand who God is, in Jesus we see the face of
God. In Jesus we see that God is just and forgiving and that God provides for
us and teaches us. Anytime we conjure up those images of Jesus, anytime we
think about what he did and said, we know a little more of who God is. Jesus has
the power to reveal God to us because he is God.
Revelation says that
God is the One who was and is and is to come. From the beginning of creation to
the end of time – and beyond, our God reigns. Through the Son, by the power of
the Holy Spirit, God created everything that we know, everything that we see,
created the earth and the sky and the sea, darkness and light, the animals and
humanity. The Son of God was there, before everything we know existed. The
Scripture says that all the thrones, dominions, rulers and powers were created
through him and for him. All the kingdoms, all the governments, all the
powerful people of the world have nothing on our Jesus. Christ has infinitely
more power and control and dominion than any of them.
So why, then, do we
read the story of Christ trial before Pilate on this Christ the King Sunday?
Why are we lifting up that moment when Christ was meeting his earthly demise on
a day when we celebrate God’s power? Well, I think at least part of the reason
is that the Bible wants us to rethink the way we usually think about power.
There’s a commercial that I think was really powerful a couple of years ago for
cars made by Saturn. It’s a commercial trying to get people to like American
cars again, and it’s really fascinating to me. Rethink strength, the words will
flash across the screen, and it will show a picture of a huge body builder, and
then the image changes to a picture of Lance Armstrong, who has battled cancer,
finishing a bike race. Rethink beauty, it says on the screen, and it shows a
supermodel, and then the images changes to a woman holding a newborn baby.
Rethink interactive, the screen says, and it shows the image of a kid playing
video games, and then changes to a family playing basketball together. And then
it says Rethink American and shows a picture of brand new Saturn. But I wish
what it really said was, “Brought to you by the people of the United Methodist
Church. I wish that was our commercial, because I think what we do as a church,
what the Bible helps us do, is rethink the way we’ve always thought about
everything.
We read about Jesus
being condemned to death on the same day that we think about Jesus as the King
of all creation, because Jesus shows us a new picture of what kingship is.
Where the Jews were expecting a Messiah who could and would come to topple the
constructs of power, whether it was the corruption of the temple, or the
hypocrisy of the religious authorities or the occupation of the Romans, Jesus’
authority was way beyond any of that. He gives them a new idea of who the
long-awaited Messiah was. He gave them a new idea of what a kingdom was. While
the Jews were caught up in issues of jurisdiction and what they could do with
this blasphemous man who hadn’t actually done anything else wrong, they passed
him off to another authority. Pilate didn’t quite know what to make of him
either. You see, Pilate had been put in charge on behalf of the Roman
government and here before him stood a man who might upset his authority. Would
this Jesus undermine him? What power did he actually have? “Are you the king of
the Jews?” he asked Jesus. “What are you getting at?” Jesus wants to know. “Is
that your question, or did somebody else put you up to that?”
“Well, I’m not a Jew,
am I?” Pilate retorted. It’s your people who handed you over to me. What have
you done?”
instead of answering
that directly, Jesus reverted to the previous question: “My kingdom is not of
this world. If my kingdom were of this world, if it were really in danger
right now, my friends and followers would be fighting to keep me out of this
predicament. But my kingdom is not from here.”
“So wait,” Pilate,
befuddled, asks again, “What does that mean? Are you a king, or aren’t you?”
"You say that I am a king. For this I was born,
and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who
belongs to the truth listens to my voice."
I don’t think Pilate was grasping much of what Jesus was saying.
Jesus was complicating everything he knew about political jurisdictions, about
kingdoms, about reality, even about truth. Jesus said, “I came to testify to
the truth,” and Pilate could only ask, “What is truth?” He had to rethink all
of that.
I think we need to
rethink some things too. Rethink power. For Jesus power doesn’t mean the
ability to make corporate decisions; it’s not about the force of weapons, and
it’s not about getting people to do what you want them to do. For Jesus, power
is the authority to cast out demons, to heal the sick, and to forgive people of
our sins.
Rethink love. For
Jesus, love isn’t about what you can get out of someone. It’s not about the way
they please you or give you gifts. Jesus said greater love has no one but this,
that he lay down his life for his friends. And that’s exactly what Jesus did
for his friends, his brothers, his sisters, for us.
Rethink kingdom. For
Jesus kingship isn’t about fame or riches; it’s not about crowns and jewels and
big castles. For Jesus the kingdom of God is the place where hearts and minds
are turned to the will of God. Being king is kneeling down to wash the feet of
his friends. Being king is about being merciful and just.
Jesus
turns upside down the way we think about pretty much everything, and I think
it’s important that we let him do that. I think it’s important that more and
more we remember all of these different images of Jesus, what he did and what he
said, and we allow them to take hold of the way we think about the world and our
lives. I think it’s important that we allow Jesus to more and more rule our
hearts and our minds, not in a coercive, forceful way, but in a way that
transforms us to love as Jesus loves and be merciful as Jesus is merciful and
humble as Jesus is humble. God’s kingdom is here, and it’s a kingdom of love
and forgiveness and righteousness, and we have the choice either to rule our own
lives or to submit to that wonderful kingdom of God. On this Christ the King
Sunday, which will you choose?
Copyright © 2009 Amy DeWitte. All Rights Reserved. No portion of
this writing may be reproduced in any form without specific, written
permission of the author.
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