Jeremiah 23.1-6; Colossians 1.11-20; John 18.33-37
“My kingdom is not from this world,” Jesus says to Pilate. Yet in faith we believe that Jesus’ kingdom is meant for this world. All through the gospels, Jesus describes his life and ministry by saying, “the Kingdom of God is at hand.” In Jesus, this kingdom was not merely an expectation for the future but was actually happening when and where he was present. And to show what this kingdom is like, Jesus told parables.
The kingdom is like a mustard seed that grows; God chooses the small, the hidden, the humble; the kingdom of God is not spread by force but through daily faithfulness, unnoticed acts of love, and the steady work of the Spirit in ordinary lives. To show what this kingdom is like, Jesus told the story of a runaway son who squandered the family fortune yet was forgiven and welcomed home by his father; in Jesus, God’s mercy is greater than our failures, not earned but freely given. And the kingdom of God is like a feast, Jesus said. Out of sheer joy and delight, the host invites people who feel unworthy, over-looked, unloved; the kingdom is not a reward for the accomplished but a gift for the hungry. “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for the kingdom of heaven is theirs.”
Jesus’ kingdom is not from this world—does not reflect the values of this world—but this kingdom is certainly for this world and the people in it.
Now to say that this sort of kingdom was unexpected, even in Jesus’ day, is an understatement. Pontius Pilate, regional representative of the Roman Emperor, asks Jesus in today’s gospel, “Are you the King of the Jews?” Today’s reading comes from the story of Jesus’ passion, the events leading to his crucifixion. The setting is Good Friday morning. To Pilate’s eyes, the person in custody and standing before him hardly looks regal or royal; if people associate kings with greed and glitter, or the power and splendor of empire, Pilate’s question is perfectly reasonable.
Yet Christ’s kingship is not revealed in power, but weakness; not from a throne, but a cross; not through domination, but self-giving love. When Jesus says, “My kingdom is not from this world,” he is saying that you won’t find it in a particular location but rather a vocation, a distinctive way of life that comes from him; his ministry and teaching; his life, death, and resurrection meant for this world. The New Testament letter of Romans says, “The kingdom of God is steadfast love and faithfulness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.”
This faithfulness, peace, and joy is the very opposite of what we hear about in today’s first reading. Jeremiah cries out against “the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep.” Now the prophet isn’t talking about farmhands tending flocks in the hills and valleys of ancient Israel; he is talking about kings. Throughout the Old Testament, ‘shepherd’ was an image for the kings of Israel and Judah. David was a shepherd when God called him to be king; and from that time on, kings were spoken of as shepherds.
This is especially true in books of history, the prophets, and the psalms. Psalm 72 praises the king-shepherds who lead and serve the way God desires. Leaders serve to defend the needy, deliver the poor from their distress, lift up the lowly, and tend the flock. This is God’s vocation for kings and for all people in power. Jeremiah’s anguish in today’s first reading is because just the opposite is happenings: leaders of the nation are misleading the people, scattering and fragmenting them, pulling people in apart instead of bringing them together. All of it stands under the judgment of God. Pontius Pilate and leaders like him who occupy places of power “lord it over others,” as Jesus says in another place. But God, says Jeremiah, will raise up a king who will deal wisely so that people will flourish once again. God will come and be the king. “I myself will bring my people back into my fold.”
Today on the church calendar is Christ the King Sunday. This is the end of the church year and the culmination of the life of Jesus Christ. Everything from his birth, ministry, death, resurrection, and ascension leads to this point of Christ as “King of kings and Lord of lords.”
Christ the King Sunday is one of the newer celebrations in the church year, just 100 years old today. (Happy Anniversary!) In 1925, the Bishop of Rome, Pius XI, added this feast to the church calendar. In the turbulent years after World War I, totalitarian ideologies were rising across Europe: fascism in Italy; communism in Russia; nascent nationalist movements elsewhere. Pius perceived that these systems sought to claim ultimate allegiance in people’s lives in order to shape and claim authority over every aspect of life.
Establishing the feast of Christ the King was the church’s pastoral and theological counterclaim. Christ alone is the true sovereign of a kingdom founded on steadfast love and faithfulness, peace and joy. From its beginning, Christ the King Sunday called Christians to resist political absolutism by placing loyalty to Christ above any earthly power. Over time, this feast became a proclamation of hope, a reminder that the cross is the royal act where and when false kings—violence, hatred, sin, death—are confronted and defeated by the self-giving love of God in Christ the King. Jesus’ kingdom is not from this world, does not reflect the values of this world, but it certainly is a kingdom for this world.
In today’s reading from Colossians, St Paul says, “God has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of the beloved Son.” Notice the past tense. “God has rescued us.” It has happened. We belong to God’s reign and realm even now as we live in our world. Jesus Christ breathes hope in a world of chaos, love into cold hearts and lives, and courage that come not from us but from God. “In Christ, all things hold together,” Paul says. “In Christ, all things hold together.” Even when we think that things might be falling apart, all things hold together in Christ. Each time we prayer the Lord’s Prayer with its petition, “Thy kingdom come…on earth as it is in heaven,” we are asking for the reign and realm of Jesus’ forgiveness and healing, love and peace—the kingdom that grows not by force but through daily faithfulness and unnoticed acts of love.
And as we pray for God’s Kingdom to come on earth, we should expect that it will include this earth, this dust, our very lives; we should expect God to change us. The book of Revelation praises Jesus Christ as the one who “loves us…and made us to be a kingdom.” In Jesus Christ we see a kingdom that is not so much a location as it is a vocation, God’s calling in our lives to be people of the kingdom; a distinctive way of life that comes from Jesus himself meant for us and for this world. And if it is true that Christ is King—because it is true—how different could the world look, and each of our lives look, if it were clear at every point and place that Christ was King in the way we lived?
Imagine a world where bitterness and fragmentation gave away to the vision of the prophet Isaiah: “The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat…They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain.” Pray for this kingdom to come and be known among us. If this same kingdom filled every dimension of your life, what would change for you? The New Testament letter of James has examples. “You must be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger.” All through his letter, James invites us to show our faith through works of “gentleness born of wisdom” in what we say and do. James sums up life in the kingdom and says, “You do well if you really fulfill the royal law according to scripture, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” Pray for this kingdom to come, and for it to be celebrated and lived out in our lives.
At the beginning of worship our Opening Collect prayed, “Grant that all peoples of the earth, divided and enslaved by sin, may be freed and brought together under Christ’s most gracious rule.” This kingdom—and the distinctive way of life that goes with it—does not originate from, or get its values from, us or the world around us. No, this is God’s work among us, gathering us under the gracious and sovereign reign of Christ the King and, through the Holy Spirit, giving us the resolve and courage to make Christ known wherever we are.
It can be as simple as using the Giving Tree to make sure someone has a gift this Christmas or offering a supportive word to someone at coffee hour. It could be letting go of the need to be right for the sake of a relationship, of forgiving and asking forgiveness. It could be inviting someone that you know will be alone on Thursday to a seat at your table. This vocation of citizens of the Kingdom of God is the work of the Holy Spirit among us as to live the life James describes: “peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full or mercy, no partiality or hypocrisy.” These are not values of or from the world, but they are certainly values for the world, a way of life that the world so deeply needs.
Christ the King leads us through the division, darkness, and demands of the sort of rulers lamented by Jeremiah. Jesus gathers us in a kingdom where human life can flourish through forgiveness and peace, giving courage and renewed hope. Pilate, and rulers of every generation who are like him, may not recognize Jesus Christ for who he is—the truth of who he is. But in Jesus Christ, “God has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of the beloved Son.”
To confess Christ the King means that we do not collapse under the weight of the world’s chaos but are held secure in the One who is constant. To follow Christ the King means rethinking our lives in the light of Jesus’ life and embracing a way of life that the world may call foolish, but that God calls holy. It also means that, to accomplish this vocation and holy calling as citizens of God’s kingdom, we need the blessing heard at the beginning of today’s reading from Colossians. “May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from Christ’s glorious power, and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light.”
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