Texts: I Samuel 8:10-22a; John 18:33-37
Signs are up in yards, ads are airing, and it’s not just the Girl Scouts going door to door trying to sell you something. Election season is upon us.
While it may have seemed like we’ve been about to have an election the last year and a half or so, now is truly the time for you to go out and register to vote – if you haven’t already – and to spend some quality time educating yourself on the issues and where each candidate stands.
You can pretty much guarantee not another day will pass without someone talking to you about November 4th. Our two candidates will be spending the next sixty or so days explaining to us why he is the answer to our problems, why he is the strong and wise leader we want to follow, why he deserves our backing, our allegiance, and our vote.
We have spent the summer learning about and learning from kings and queens of the bible. While these kings and queens and their stories can’t tell us who to vote for, they certainly can and do whisper to us wisdom and guidance we can take not just to the polls – but to every moment and every decision we encounter.
The royalty we have came from various backgrounds and had different paths to follow and fates to meet, but it is a truth universally acknowledged (in our biblical text, at least) that the kings and queens are most successful when they place God first and foremost. When God’s word, God’s glory, God’s kingdom are the epicenter of will and work, leaders are more likely to see peace, justice, and righteousness.
How fitting it is, then, that the last king in our series is the king of kings, the lord of lords, the alpha and the omega.
Jesus is unlike any of the kings and queens we have heard about thus far; he is unlike any king or queen we will ever hear about. When we say Jesus is king, we know – unlike poor Pilate – that we aren’t talking about someone who sits on a literal throne, or someone who delicately waves to devoted subjects from a balcony, or even someone who is concerned about the welfare and power of one particular nation. We know that when we use this human construct to explain the divine, some things will be clearer than others.
What is clear about Christ as king is that Christ is what we all would want for our earthly leader – and the opposite of what Samuel tells the Israelites that they are in for if they get themselves a king. While Samuel’s king will think only of his own power, his own needs, Christ as king looks to his glory and our good. While Samuel’s king takes your sons and daughters that he wants, Christ as king calls us to him, calls us to be his people rather than forcibly enlist us. While Samuel’s king tried to build up the kingdom in order that all may remember his name across the ages, Christ as king points not to himself, but to his kingdom.
When Pilate questions Jesus about being a king, Jesus does not speak about his power or his might – instead he speaks of his kingdom. “For this I was born,” Christ says “and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth.” Christ’s kingdom is one where all listen to his truth and live that truth. Christ’s kingship is about making God known to the world in word and in deed.
Jesus makes it clear – his kingdom is not of this world – for God is not of this world. But as God is in this world, so too is Christ’s kingdom.
Jesus’ power and kingdom are not symbolized by thrones or scepters; he has no huge convention of jubilant followers shouting out his name as he is crowned our new heir apparent; he does not have the world power or influence one might expect of a man called king.
Jesus the king is the innocent man sentenced to the death penalty, left hanging on a cross on the outskirts of town. That is our king, our ruler, our Lord. The one who slowly suffocating to death, mourned by only a few of those who once shouted his name in praise.
To proclaim Jesus as king is to pledge allegiance above all else – all other gods, all other human leaders – to this man on a cross. To proclaim Jesus as king is to proclaim God in word and deed even if it leads you to your own cross of sorts.
Some of our kings and queens of the Bible understood this. Though they had worldly kingdoms to lead, and though many of them came before Christ, some of this kings and queens knew that they first and foremost had to proclaim God’s word and live as God’s truth directed. Though she may have never mentioned God, Esther understood this. Though he may have strayed a time or two, David understood this. Though he was younger than even our youngest leadership candidates, Josiah understood this.
You and I aren’t destined to be royalty, but we are called to be a part of Christ’s kingdom. We are called by Jesus the king to live for his glory and our good – to live as though his kingdom had come here and now.
Jesus’ kingdom is one in which we look out at the broken world and do not shrug and say, “well, that’s how it is.” We dare to risk to challenge the status quo, to shout aloud the promise of justice for all, to offer ourselves vulnerable for righteousness sake. We may not be powerful kings and queens, but in Christ’s truth, we can move mountains as the members of the kingdom have done the long years past.
We have examples of kings and queens of the Bible to inspire us, but we also have the lives of those saints across the ages have fought for Christ’s kingdom, have dared to believe.
Those saints of ages past have looked at the world and saw not what was, but what could be. They lived with an institutional prejudice against people of African decent, bore the wounds of small humiliations and the larger injustices inflicted upon God’s children because of the color of their skin. They witnessed and experienced the burdens of this false kingdom, and yet dreamed of another way of living. They rose up and spoke out and marched together in peace so that years later an African-American man might stand and accept a major party’s nomination for President.
Those saints saw women limited not by their abilities or their interests, but by their forced position in life. Those saints gathered petitions, rallied together, and even “acted up” so that women could have the right to vote, to own property, and the right to pursue whatever career they felt called to – from doctor to chemist to homemaker to entrepreneur to a vice-presidential nominee.
Those saints watched children dying from curable diseases, from the lack of safe water, and the absence of food and swore that such things need not be. They donated money, offered their talents as medical personal and agricultural experts, wrote their congress men and women, started groups like the Presbyterian Hunger Program, Bread for the World, and more. They dared to believe and they keep daring to hope that we can indeed feed the hungry, give water to the thirsty, and clothe the naked.
Jesus tells Pilate that if he were a king like the ones the Roman had known before, his followers would fight to keep him here. But he is not. He is a king whose kingdom is like nothing Pilate has known, like nothing we might know apart from the grace of God. And as his followers, we do not fight to keep him physically in this world, but we do fight to bring his kingdom to this world. We are the saints today – with many wrongs to set right and many places where God’s light needs to shine. Through the Spirit of the Living God, we fight injustice, work hard, pray fervently, so that Christ’s kingdom of glory and good will be here, where we live and worship.
We have a momentous event coming up in our own nation. This election has gathered more interest and excitement and hope than any many of us have ever seen. Who our next president will be is a question we’ll be asking and debating until November 4th. While we may become passionate about one candidate or another, in one way, perhaps it does not matter who will win. For no matter who wins, we have a leader beyond polls and elections, beyond terms and human failings. We know where our true guidance lies, we know where our true hope and help comes from, and we know who is first and foremost in our hearts and minds. It is Jesus Christ, our rock, our shepherd, our king. Amen.
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