Then there's this year's Gospel! Jesus doesn't stand with or make kingly promises to the poor, lowly, suffering, or dying. Instead, he trades words with a Roman governor who probably wishes he were back in bed and not mulling over the death penalty for this strange Jew.
We can't make a picture from Jesus' words. Instead of a vivid description of how Jesus acts as King, we get negatives and generalities: "As it is, my kingdom is not from this world ... You say that I am a king; for this I was born ... to testify to the truth" (John 18:37). But Jesus gives no details about "the truth." Is it any wonder that Pilate responds, "What is truth?" We might add, "What sort of kingship is this? What's truth got to do with it?"
Truth and a kingdom not from this world aren't easy to visualize. They don't reduce to sound bites or Kodak moments. There's nothing to grab hold of. For concrete thinkers, such words are frustrating. To see how Jesus claims kingship through his testimony to the truth, here at the end of his earthly life, let's look at what Jesus says about truth elsewhere in John's Gospel.
In the beginning, we read: "And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory: the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth" (John 1:14). Later, Jesus says to Nicodemus: "The one who comes from heaven ... testifies to what he has seen and heard ... Whoever has accepted his testimony has certified this, that God is true" (John 3:31-33).
Jesus says this to the Samaritan woman: "The hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth" (John 4:23). To the Jews who had believed in him, he said, "The one who sent me is true, and I declare to the world what I have heard from him ... If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free" (John 8:26, 32).
On the night before he faced Pilate, Jesus spoke words of assurance to his frightened disciples. "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on, you do know him and have seen him" (John 14:6-7).
In John's Gospel, truth isn't a fact, a scrap of data, or even a system of thought that explains the world. Truth is the life-giving power of God, graciously given to the world through the death and resurrection of Jesus. Truth is the love of God revealed in Jesus' words and deeds. Truth is the disclosure of God's heart to us. Truth is summarized, "God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that everyone who believes in him might not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16).
Jesus' whole identity -- his words, his works, his dying and rising, his breathing of the Spirit upon his followers, everything -- was the embodiment of that simple, confounding truth. That makes Jesus' kingship unlike any other. He doesn't act like a regular king! Most kings make laws and decrees, fight wars, make treaties, order ordinary people around, and act as the kingdom's ultimate judge, jury, and executioner. But according to John's Gospel, what Jesus does is reveal the perfect light, utter love, and endless gracious life of God to people who are blind, bound, and dead in the darkness of sin. And he offers us a way to enjoy all this with him forever. That's it. He doesn't judge, though he has the right. He doesn't throw his weight around. He doesn't offer lists of do's and don'ts. Even his deeds of power are simply "signs" meant to bring people to a new, freeing, saving relationship with his Father. That's the truth of what Jesus does and says and is. That's how he "acts out" the kingship over creation that was his from before the world's foundation. There's nothing else and no place else we can look for it.
How strange that must have seemed to Pilate! He was used to hidden agendas, mixed motives, and wheels within wheels. He knew how the world operates. He understood imperial power that dictated what subjects would do at the emperor's pleasure. He could handle truth as a weapon or a tool. He probably couldn't make head or tail out of Jesus or his claims.
It's not much easier for us. It's hard enough to absorb and proclaim those other images of Christ the King: the King hidden in the lives of the wretched, or the dying promiser of kingly blessings. How much harder it is to acclaim and adore him as the One who sheds the holy and inextinguishable light of truth in all the dark corners of our hearts and our world!
We'd rather die than reveal some parts of ourselves. Some truths are so dangerous that we deny, cover up, or run away from them. We have mixed motives, even while doing something worthwhile. We bring "baggage" and hidden agendas to conversations and relationships. Bear testimony to God? We don't even know our real selves!
So can we imagine a king who insists his power consists solely of bearing faithful testimony to the truth of God? Can we imagine anyone being so transparent to God's heart that his whole identity is summed up as bearing witness to the One who sent him? Can we imagine what might happen when that sort of kingship, that unwavering fidelity to the truth, that kind of utter transparency to God, lays claim to our lives?
Because if we name Jesus as King; if we worship him as the way and truth and life of God dwelling in our midst; if we confess that we belong to the truth because we have listened to his voice, then that's what we're going to get from him.
It's nice to talk about Christ as the King who testifies to the truth and essence of God's heart. It can be alarming to experience him up close and personal. He spoke to the Samaritan woman of worshiping God in spirit and truth -- but only after he had brought her heart's secrets into his light: "You have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!" (John 4:18). Yet she used that searing encounter as a basis for witnessing to her whole village: "Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?" (v. 29).
Jesus asked a searching question of a man paralyzed for 38 years: "Do you want to be made well?" (John 5:6). When the man gave excuses for why he'd never been healed by the pool's miraculous waters, Jesus healed him -- but promptly warned him, "See, you have been made well! Do not sin any more, so that nothing worse happens to you" (v. 14). Touched by Jesus' truth, he then began to testify to Jesus' healing power.
Nicodemus' encounter with Jesus was awkward: To an honest question, Jesus retorted, "Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?" (John 3:10). Pierced by that truth, and by the greater truth of God's love revealed in Jesus, Nicodemus later defended him and helped to bury him.
When this King brings the clarity of God's truth to some, they listen and take to heart. They testify to his truth, as he testifies to his Father's truth. They live, forever changed, forever alive in the unsparing yet unspeakably gracious light of God.
Then it was Pilate's turn. Would he listen and take to heart? Or would he cave in to the tired old versions of kingly power and truth-spinning that he'd always known? We know how Pilate responded when confronted by Jesus' kingly claim.
How will we respond to Christ our King? Will we listen? Will we take his voice to heart? Will we testify to the searching, liberating truth that is God's inmost heart revealed to us in Jesus? Will we live, forever changed, forever alive in God's unsparing yet unspeakably gracious light?
What is truth -- for us? The heart of God, revealed by his Son? Or something else? Who is King of our lives? The One who bears witness to the heart and will of God? Or someone who makes us feel good about ourselves and our little world? Here at the end of the church year, as at the end of Jesus' earthly life, those questions confront us.
God grant that we listen to our Lord's voice, and belong to his truth, and dwell in his kingdom forever. Amen.