An Out of This World Kingdom

Rebecca Sheridan
Sunday, November 24, 2024
John 18:33-37

    If you have kids or grandkids of a certain age, you may relate to this parenting problem – how to explain what is real and what is not real.  Unicorns, we’re pretty sure, are not real, but narwhals, which look like underwater unicorns, are in fact real.  Axolotls, which do not look like real sea creatures in fact are, but the Loch Ness monster probably is not real.  Kings and princesses are kind of real if you’re talking about King Charles and Princess Kate, but many of the fairy tales about royalty are made up.  
Playful imagination which blends fantasy with reality is a real developmental stage of childhood and fun for adults to participate in also.  As we grow older, though, of course we want to know that there are some things that we can count on that are real and true.  This definitely pertains to our faith.  Some people leave organized religion because they believe it to be fantasy and fairy tales.   They have sadly lost the faith.  As Christians, we try to hold together the  mystery of faith that some things cannot be proven or explained in a scientific way – faith is different from science,  but at the same time our faith is true and holds to basic truths.  This is in fact very difficult for not just children but also for adults to grasp. 
    When it comes to Christ the King Sunday, we may struggle as American Christians to relate to this image of Jesus as King.  We don’t have kings; our minds may jump immediately to fairy tales we learned growing up, and we have been top-down ruler averse since the Revolutionary War, right?  Think of the musical Hamilton as a good representation of how we feel about earthly kings.  So some Christians have tried to describe this Sunday in other ways – the Reign or Sovereignty of Christ; Eternity Sunday; the Sunday of the Fulfillment; or simply, the Last Sunday of the Church Year.  All of these names get at what we are trying to pull together here before we move into Advent and our preparations to welcome Christ the newborn King at Christmas:  somehow, Jesus is our ultimate and eternal ruler of the entire universe.   His coming is the fulfillment of all human and divine aspirations; the goal of human history.  And he will come again to judge the living and the dead, which is scary for people who are not ready, but a welcome thought for people of faith saved by Jesus’ grace.  We believe these statements about Jesus to be true.
    Even as adults as we wrestle with the themes of the second coming of Christ and Christ’s eternal rule over heaven and earth, we wonder along with children, “What is real?”  Our gospel,  a snippet of Christ’s trial with Pilate before his crucifixion, points us to the reality of Jesus’ rule.  “My kingdom is not from this world,” Jesus tells Pilate.  Jesus is a different kind of king not like the rulers of this world.  Jesus is pointing to an ultimate, other-worldly reality beyond what Pilate and we can see right here right now.  This reality is described in our readings from Daniel and Revelation today: “His dominion is an everlasting dominion that shall not pass away, and his kingship is one that shall never be destroyed.”  This is what faith is – to believe in what we cannot see.  To believe that eternity is real, and that Christ’s ultimate victory over sin, death and the devil is real.  And then as we celebrated with Debbie her baptism, that through the promises of the baptism we belong to this everlasting kingdom that has no end.  Christ’s promises to us through our baptism are also real!
    Jesus’ rule over our lives is real. In the gospel for today, he points us to the reality of the cross.  “For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth,” Jesus says.  The truth is that suffering, evil, and death are all real.  The story of Jesus may seem like fairytales until you’re in the doctor’s examining room hearing the words you didn’t want to hear for the first time.  Or finding yourself alone and lost without a purpose.  Or struggling to overcome an addiction or deal with a situation that you can’t handle by yourself.  The powers of this world that belong to people like Pilate are real.  War and violence are real.  Jesus willingly looks all of those powers in the face – those things that strike fear into most human hearts, those things that cause even the most powerful people to tremble – and Jesus takes them all upon himself on the cross.  He dies and lives again.  He dies so that we might live – freed from those fears.
    Jesus points us to a kingdom not of this world that is not another fairytale but the truth.  The good news is that we don’t need to wait until we die to experience Christ’s living reality of love overcoming hate, life conquering death, hope vanquishing despair.  On that first Easter Sunday the first disciples of Jesus gathered in a locked room still afraid and wondering if Christ’s resurrection was real – and Christ appeared to them and empowered them with the Holy Spirit to go out and start living the Jesus’ way that very day.  Freed from the powers of this world, we can live under Christ’s leadership and guidance in our lives.  He is a different kind of king, belonging to a different kind of kingdom.  We come to receive bread and wine and water which are real, ordinary things to point us to Christ’s truth and strengthen us along the way, in faith.  May Christ our King sustain us with resurrection hope – our King will work all things out for good.  He is ultimately in control.  This is the truth.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.