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A reminder about Vitamin Sunday this Sunday: If you are able, please bring a donation of prenatal vitamins, adult multivitamins, low-dose aspirin (81mg), powder baby formula, eye drops, or ear drops to church this Sunday.
Finally, this blog will be a weekly post about the sermon text for the upcoming Sunday. It will officially begin next week but I am including a few thoughts for this Sunday.
The sermon text for this Sunday is John 18:28-40. Traditionally that last Sunday before Advent is known as "Christ the King Sunday," or as "Reign of Christ Sunday." And that belief, that Jesus is King is central to the Christian faith. In Jesus, we believe, God reconciled the world to himself and brought everything under his Lordship. But this text doesn't present Jesus in all his majesty and glory, it presents King Jesus on a trial we all know he will lose.
This text is one of contrasts. First there are the Jews who are desperately waiting for the Messiah to come, yet they bring Jesus - THE Messiah - before Pilate so he can be crucified. Then there is Jesus, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, on trial by Pilate who functions like an earthly king. Then, in John 19:15 the Jewish leaders (who detest Roman rule!) align themselves with the Romans against Jesus when they proclaim, "We have no king but Caesar!" Jesus' crime: claiming he was King when the only "king" was Caesar. Jesus' punishment: death. It was an ingenious plan by the Jewish leaders.
But not even Pilate, who believed Jesus to be innocent, could see that Jesus was a king. Pilate asked Jesus (literally), "You?! Are you king of the Jews?" as if to imply that Jesus in no way resembled what a king should look like. And Jesus answers must have seemed cryptic to Pilate. "You say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me." (v. 37)
"What is truth?" Pilate asked before again telling the Jewish mob that Jesus was innocent. The mob would have none of it, called for Barabbas to be released, and had Jesus sentenced for a cruel crucifixion. Jesus would be dead and his "corruption" halted, they thought.
However, the truth is that through this trial, through his crucifixion by the Jewish leaders and later resurrection, Jesus Christ became our eternal King. It was Jesus' disciples who turned the world on its head with their teaching of a crucified and risen Saviour, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
Jesus is King. Praise the Lord.