Biblically speaking, unless the king is God, then the king is not the thing. Think back through our written faith history: the first kings we encounter are foreign and dangerous (think Abraham disguising Sarah as his sister to curry dubious favour (Genesis 12:10-20; 20:1-18)), or factional and fractious – little kings of little tribes. When the people of God dare to ask for a king of their own, God is discouraging (1 Samuel 8:1-22). Yet the people persist in requesting a monarch, a sovereign, as though God were not all the king, queen, emperor, and sovereign one might need. When God relents and lets them have their way, the succession of kings who become adversaries of the words of God spoken by the prophets is interspersed only by the occasional success story. Even David and Solomon are mortal in their failings. By the time we reach Herod, the dye is set. The king is not the thing.

Pilate doesn’t know this. Pilate serves an emperor who thinks that he is god; who knows what Pilate thinks of that. Pilate is used to kings like Herod and his family who are happy to knuckle under to the empire in exchange for a little bit of pomp and ceremony, and the head of John the Baptizer, a little bit of vengeance. Pilate is, though, worried about the possibility of a popular king who is not obedient to the empire, since any challenge to the emperor from Pilate’s territory should end poorly for poor Pontius. His loyalty was as much to his own skin. Hence, he was known as a ruthless overseer of the land.

Jesus, true to form, is not willing to play into Pilate’s power play, nor to succumb to the competing values of political movements. He has his own value. He is the Son of God, the living king, the only sovereign worth worshipping.

One of my favourite biblical reflections on kingship and humanity is Jotham’s parable from the book of Judges (Judges 9:7-15):

The trees decided to anoint themselves a king. First, they asked the olive tree: Come be our king! But the olive tree did not want to give up its vocation to produce oil for anointing, to honour and to heal, in order to govern other trees. So they asked the fig tree. But it would not give up its vocation to feed people and animals, birds, and all with its sweet goodness, so it declined. So, too, the vine, when asked, said why would I give up wine-making in order to govern other trees? Finally, they asked the bramble. The bramble, said, if you can find shelter under me, fine, go ahead; but if you are pricked by my thorns and shut out or caught up in my briars, it will be the worse for you.

When Jesus told Pilate, my kingdom is not of this world, he was asserting his vocation, his identity, his reason for being, over against Pilate’s assumption of power.

Like the olive tree, he would continue to anoint, to honour, to heal everyone who needs him. Like the fig tree, he fed thousands with the sweetness of God’s mercy and the bread of life. Like the vine, he would continue to pour himself out for the sake of the world, and for its gladness. This was his kingship, and blessed be those who take shelter in it.

There is a call to us in all of this, isn’t there? I saw, like you did, the videos of masked, swastika-bearing people in Columbus last weekend. There weren’t many of them, but the symbols of power that they chose to carry were chilling – and rightly and swiftly repudiated by the governor and mayor. I know at least some of the effects of such imagery, or rhetoric, or actions, what it represents for individuals among us, and for our common life together. We have to take care of one another. We have to care.

But this is where the symbols of power that we carry are different. Our hope is in the Lord. Our call is to remain true to our calling, our identity as Christians: to honour actively and explicitly the image of God in each human being, to heal where we are able, to produce sweet and good fruit to feed our communities, to fill the hearts of those around us with gladness, sharing the irrepressible love of God, the undying compassion of Christ with those the most in need of it.

The power that we have, the authority that we are given to do good in the world comes not from the dubious choices of the crowd (who too often cry Barabbas), but from the giftedness with which God has endowed us. The world, like Pilate, will not always recognize it – but neither can the world take it way from us. We are unstoppable.

Because Jesus, whom even death could not keep from loving this world toward salvation – Jesus has made us his kingdom. As the writer of the Revelation puts it,

Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.
To him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us to be a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.

Featured image: Cristo avanti a Pilato/Christ before Pilate, Pietro Fontana (1762-1837), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons