Sermon 11-25-2018 Christ the King John 18, Daniel 7 By Pastor Christopher Miller Last week, we focused on a vision of the end of the world, specifically the description of the resurrection from Daniel. Daniel shows up again this week with another vision of the end, but it's also not about the end. You'll see what I mean. Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14 We're skipping a couple verses in the middle, because those are referencing more of the end-of-the-world images, but what I want to focus on in the action around the thrones. The Game of Thrones doesn't have anything on this. The throne that is described for the Ancient of Days is nothing that we have ever seen on this planet. Throne on fire, and you can actually sit on it? A river of fire coming from it? No human can sit in a seat like that. That Ancient of Days can only be one person: our Father in heaven. And then, the Son of Man comes. The Son of Man comes to the Ancient of Days, and he receives authority over everything. There is nothing that is not under his sovereign power. He is, you could
say, king. This Son of Man, of course, is one and the same Jesus Christ. You saw at the beginning of the service that this is Christ the King Sunday. It's kind of New Year's Eve in the church, because the church year begins next Sunday with Advent. We end the year like we start the year, celebrating the Jesus Christ who is king over all things and all places. But one of our other Scriptures today finds Jesus is a not-so-kingly place. He is in a small room, with a local prefect, talking over his life. John 18:33-37 This is not the place you expect to see a king, and that's part of why we get a discussion of Jesus' kingship. I want to first make the point that I always make in this passage. There are those that believe that Jesus' response in verse 37, "You say that I am a king," is him dodging the question of his kingship and his nature as God, that he doesn't really ever say he's a king. That's just a problem of the English. If I were translating the sentence that Jesus says here, my translation would be more clear: "You said it, bub." He's actually agreeing with what Pilate says. He is declaring himself to be king. But he is showing himself to be a different king, because his authority is different. He says, "My kingdom is not of this world."
That's a key phrase for us. Because what do we know of kingdoms of this world? Some are good, some are bad. Some are merely symbolic, some are positively authoritarian. But they all have people in charge. This is one of the reasons that Jesus says his kingdom is not of this world. The one who is in charge is not just a mere human. He is fully God and fully man. He has no sin in him. Therefore, his kingdom is going to be administrated perfectly, with no failures and foibles. But if he is truly a king, what is he doing here, under the authority of another, about to be beaten and crucified? This leads us to the second difference between worldly kingdoms and Jesus' kingdom: Worldly kingdoms are visible. You can see the people, the places, the office buildings, the halls of government. You can see the enacting of authority in the lives of the people who are under that kingdom. Therefore, we assume that if we don't see you using power, you don't have any. But the kingdom of Jesus Christ is necessarily invisible. Jesus even says as much. The disciples would have fought back if his kingdom is from here. But they didn't. It's not that they didn't have power; it's that the things that are visible are not the most important things. Sure, Peter denies Jesus, and all the disciples run off, but Jesus knew this would happen. He knew it would look like the power was going away from him, and he would be left alone. But
he's not alone. He's not powerless. He's not helpless. In fact, this is exactly what is supposed to be happening. So why do you expect the kingdom of God to look like power and control? That's what we want the church to do. That's what we want Christian values to do. We expect that because that's what we see from every kingdom of this world. There's a phrase I've taken to saying quite often, and I include myself in the upcoming "you". What part of "My kingdom is not of this world" don't you understand? His kingdom is necessarily going to be different than anything that you have seen. In fact, his kingdom looks exactly like this: the cross. It doesn't look like prestige. It doesn't look like fame. It doesn't look like power. It looks like God emptying himself to deliver you from this world and yourself. And there we need to hit one more difference between kingdoms of Earth and the kingdom of Jesus. Jesus' kingdom may not be of this world, but his kingdom enters this world. It is not a distant thing. He doesn't rule over a tiny piece of the galaxy you've never heard of. He rules here. He lives here. He comes to you here. Revelation shows us the image. Revelation 1:4b-8 The only way any of the kingdom of God becomes visible is by having to look at the end. But in this case, the end shows the present.
He comes into this world. He is the beginning and the end. He encompasses and rules over all things. And he uses his glorious power, hidden under perceived weakness. He uses that power to connect himself to death, specifically, your death. And as we are connected to a death like his, we are certainly united to a resurrection like his. That's what Jesus has done with his authority. That's what Jesus does with his kingdom. That's what Jesus does with his life: give it to you. AMEN.