Christ the King | 11/24/24 | John 18:33-37 | Ryan Mills |

³³Pilate entered the headquarters again, summoned Jesus, and asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” ³⁴Jesus answered, “Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?” ³⁵Pilate replied, “I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done?” ³⁶Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.” ³⁷Pilate asked him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “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.”

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, + and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Well Happy Thanksgiving, and welcome on this Christ the King Sunday. Last year to change up the schedule I attended a Thanksgiving Service at my wife’s church, and somehow got put in charge of helping watch someone else’s kids in the nursery. The kids were playing with a toy castle that came with toy knights and lords and ladies and even a toy king in a crown, with his own little throne, with trumpets that sounded whenever you put him onto his chair. The kids were busily playing, so I didn’t pay much attention when one of them kept yelling, “He’s the King, He’s the King!” I looked over, expecting to see the toy king on his throne. But instead, there on the throne they had put a little Playskool baby Jesus, wrapped in swaddling clothes, laying in a manger bed. “He’s the King, he’s the King,” they yelled, “Jesus is the King!”

Today we celebrate what we confess every week in our Creeds, that our King who was born for us in a manger, who died for us on a Cross, and who rose again for us on the third day will also “come again to judge the living and the dead, and of his Kingdom there will be no end.”

The prophet Daniel tells us today what he saw in his vision of the King coming again, that he saw one like the Son of Man coming with the clouds of heaven. He came to the Ancient One, to the Father, and to his Son was given dominion and glory and kingship, so that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him. And his kingship shall never be destroyed.

The Son of Man is Jesus Christ and it’s his kingship that lasts forever, that will never go away, because his kingship is founded on his self-giving love, his dying once for us all, and his rising on the third day so that you might have eternal life. Think about how many of this world’s rulers and kingdoms were expected to last forever: the empires of Greece or Rome, the British, the Germans that were to last a thousand years, all the ancient rulers that now gather dust somewhere in the Peabody Museum. Or think about the rulers of our culture, telling you what you need to look like, what you need to buy, how you need to be in order to really count! Or what about we ourselves, how we sort of assume we’ll last forever, “I’m king of my own life, the ruler of my own domain, and I don’t need you or anybody else, thank you very much!” Or what about the most cruel ruler of all, death itself, which says that when it’s over for you, when it’s over for those you love, then game over, it’s over forever. All these powers, all these petty kings, they all lie to us, they all make false claims to own us, they all loom over us, and yet they’re all an illusion, ultimately nothing, these emperors have no clothes, for they’ve been overthrown, vacated, their power broken once and for all by the blood of Jesus, the King and our Savior. So on this Christ the King Sunday we have to confess again today that it’s not our politics or our passports that unite us, it’s not how we look or the stuff we buy that makes us worthy, it’s not our years that ultimately measure our lives, it’s not even outfoxing death that will make us live—it’s the fact that Jesus Christ is King forever, and that he is your King forever. Daniel says that he saw on that great day that “all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him.” Christ’s Kingdom unites us, unites us across different races, different colors, unites us across different languages, different politics, unites us across different zip codes and incomes, even across different times and places, we are united with God’s people of past present and future, united as one, because Christ is King of the Universe, and Daniel says that’s the future, that’s what’s coming. And if he’ll be King when we reach the end, then maybe we ought to begin to live that future now, to live that unity, to live that hope, for he is your King, he is our King, even right now here this morning.

In our gospel lesson this morning Jesus is locked up in the Roman headquarters, the praetorium, being questioned by the Governor Pontius Pilate. He’s been arrested on the charges that Jesus called himself a king. And this would be treason, right? Make yourself a king wrongly, and you deserve death! Pilate upon seeing Jesus asks, maybe a little sarcastically, “Are you the king of the Jews?” “Really? You? Sure you are!” Jesus doesn’t always look like a king to our eyes: born in a manger, dying on a Cross, his Kingdom doesn’t look like what we expect. Neither does his kingdom here–as it comes to us in his forgiving Word and Sacrament, as we find it in fellowship with each other, as we come to trust in him in the power of the Holy Spirit, as we gather as sinners to listen and to receive his Word, and as we go out to love and serve everybody in his Name—his Kingdom doesn’t look like too much of a kingdom at first, but his is the only Kingdom that will last forever! So Jesus corrects the Governor today, “No, you misunderstand; my kingdom is not of this world.” Not one more dusty kingdom to end up in a museum, but a Kingdom that lives and reigns forever, not one more kingdom that divides us, but one that unites us across every barrier by faith in him, not one more Kingdom that pushes us down and pushes us around, but one that raises us up to sit with the King and sends us out to serve, his Kingdom is an everlasting Kingdom, because Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

Then Jesus speaks to all of us this morning, speaking to us each individually, as a parent speaks to a child, as a grandparent tells a tale to a grandchild: “For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Every one of you, every single one of you who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”

Our King comes to make you a child, a son, a daughter of the Truth. To make you royalty with him to serve him, to make you a prince of his Kingdom, a Queen among his people. The child’s imagination of lords and ladies and knights and princes serving the King comes true today—for Jesus the King has made you his own, rescued you, raised you up, to belong to him and serve him forever. Today he calls you to believe and trust in his voice, to trust that he is the King of your life, and has made you to belong to him forever.

You are his, he who loves you, he who was crucified for you under a sign that said, “This is the King of the Jews.” He will come again, and every eye shall see him. He has made us here in this congregation to be an outpost of his kingdom, priests serving God and our neighbor, children of the Truth, princes and princesses who are honored children of the one true King. So come now, come and taste of that final royal feast of victory that comes to us even now. And then shout it out with your life, and give thanks: “He’s the King, He’s the King, Jesus is the King, forever.”

And the Peace of God that passes all understanding guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Amen.

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The Rev. Dr. Ryan Mills

New Haven, Connecticut