It’s been nearly two hundred fifty years since we had a king.  Maybe you have an interest in the British royal family, one of the best soap operas.  Will Charles ever be king?  Will Andrew do hard time?  Will Edward ever get his Broadway break?  What horribly embarrassing, sizzling Megan and Harry tell-all is now in the works?  What chic hat will Kate be sporting next?  How will Diana yet again return from the grave to haunt and rule the family?  It reminds me of nothing so much as the myths of the ancient Greek gods: immorality, infidelity, murder, betrayal, all clothed with the most dazzling glory man can manufacture.

In the times of Jesus, everyone had a king.  Well, nearly.  Many of the Greeks had done away with kings long before, though Alexander had something to say about that.  The Romans had done away with kings, technically, though Caesar was an indistinguishable equivalent.  People understood about kings.  They knew what a king was, what he could do, what king meant.

God’s Word provides glimpses of another world, God’s Truth: things that are difficult for us to conceive, this side of eternity, things that, fully to understand, we would need God’s mind, which we do not have.  When we encounter God’s Word, we encounter the limits of our own understanding, the limits of our categories and experiences, our language and concepts—God’s Word reveals to us the limits of all the building blocks for what we call knowledge.  The poet T. S. Eliot was onto something when he built upon novelist D. H. Lawrence’s quote: God is that which laughs at all our knowing.  Our knowing—from our side of the knowing relationship.  From the other side we are known, and held, and loved.  Our God, unlimited, receives us with all our limitations—and how many, how formidable, and how persistent our limitations!  Fear not, beloved: God loves you and will not cast you away.  Christ and your faith in Christ is the assurance of this heart-filling truth, this radiant covenant.

Pilate knows about kings: he deals with them regularly.  He’s being told that this Jesus is, or claims to be, or someone regards him as, the king of the Jews.  Is he?  Who knows?  Does Jesus know?  Pilate wants to know.  Judgment requires that he know.  Can there be justice without knowledge?  So Pilate asks.  What will Jesus say?  Who will he claim to be?

Pilate thinks Jesus is not very helpful.  Well, why should he be?  Another sullen, silent prisoner on the way to death.  He’s not even begging or bargaining for his life; Pilate thinks this man acts arrogantly enough, just aloof enough, that he could just be a king—some sort of personage, anyway.

King.  It’s as if Jesus weighs the term, the idea, the image, compares human knowledge with what he knows, with who he is.  King—“Is that your own idea,” Jesus asked, “or did others talk to you about me?” (18:34).  You, Pilate, have your image and understanding of a king; others have their image and understanding.  What does a king do?  How does a king speak?  What does a king look like?  What is the truth?  It’s as if Jesus were asking Pilate where he got the idea that Jesus is the king of the Jews.  How did that notion enter Pilate’s mind?

Well, people are acclaiming Jesus as the Messiah.  But Messiah does not mean king, beloved.  We know what it means: anointed, appointed, consecrated Savior.  Well, kings were anointed, true—and Jesus has been teaching all along that the Messiah is more than, other than, different from a king as conceived by the hearts and minds of men.  The prophets did not speak of a king, they spoke of David.  David was king, yes.  He was also acclaimed as prophet and even priest.  The Son of David has been anointed, here and always—but his consecration is unlike that of anyone you or I would ever call a king.

Pilate responds with the heart and mind of a man, a man of power, the Emperor’s agent, Caesar’s power in Judea.  So many kings, princes, potentates, tetrarchs—all subject to Rome.  Pilate was not interested in the niceties and distinctions of Jewish religion, their stories and hopes.  He was interested in knowing enough to govern them, keep them paying taxes, keep them controlled and quiet.  Pilate understood about governing people and keeping the peace; only, what peace did he keep, within himself?  How does a man get peace in his heart?  Pilate wasn’t the only man who wondered.

“Your own people and chief priests handed you over to me.  What is it you have done?” (18:35).  As much as to say, have you noticed, your regality, that your people don’t want you?  Why?  What have you done, that your own people want me to sign your death warrant?  What terrible thing have you done?  Kings have been executed before; their executioners always came up with the justifiable cause.  Beloved, what is Christ’s crime?  He came.  He spoke.

God’s Word speaks to us of things hard for us to comprehend in words we comprehend.  We walk by faith and not by sight: lean not on your own understanding.  Not our understanding—the quantifying, sign-demanding faculty of doubt—but our trust; not blind, ignorant trust, foolish trust, but the child-like trust born of faith, born of love, the love that caused us to be, the love that called us, claimed us, washed us, fed us, clothed us, and made great promises to us: promises that fill our hearts with joy and hope.  We are loved, wanted; we belong and have a future.  God’s Word speaks to us of things we do not comprehend in words we comprehend.  The Spirit speaks words of peace because the Spirit speaks the truth.  Yet they are words of peace for those only who receive the truth.

“Jesus answered, ‘My kingdom is not of this world.  If My kingdom were of this world, my servants would be fighting so that I would not be handed over to the Jews; but as it is, my kingdom is not from here’” (18:36 NASB).  Aha!  Aha!  Now Jesus is using words we understand.  Kingdom.  A kingdom has a king.  A king speaks of his kingdom.  Over the long history of Europe—though this is not unique to Europe—there have been kings, kingdoms, and fighting between and among kings.  Centuries of war, blood, violence, brutality, famine, pestilence, the infliction of human misery for the sake of human glory.  The kings of this world are in conflict, so they set their kingdoms to war against one another, with all the human devastation, desolation, that follows.  Jesus is saying his “kingdom” is not of this world.  Thank God!  Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.  “My kingdom,” Jesus says, “is from another place.”  His power is another power, his authority another authority, his glory another glory.

But Pilate has what he needs for his purposes: “You are a king, then!” (18:37).  He isn’t concerned with the testimony but the terms.  Jesus used the words.  So far as Pilate needs to be concerned, they’re speaking of the same thing.  But they are not speaking of the same thing.

Seek the Lord while he may be found; / call on him while he is near.                                                              Let the wicked forsake their ways / and the unrighteous their thoughts.                                                        Let them turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy on them,                                                                          and to our God, for he will freely pardon.

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,                                                                                                         neither are your ways my ways,” / declares the Lord.                                                                    “As the heavens are higher than the earth,                                                                                                      so are my ways higher than your ways                                                                                                            and my thoughts than your thoughts.                                                                                                             As the rain and the snow / come down from heaven,                                                                                      and do not return to it / without watering the earth                                                                                       and making it bud and flourish,                                                                                                                       so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,                                                                           so is my word that goes out from my mouth:                                                                                                 It will not return to me empty, / but will accomplish what I desire                                                                 and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.  (Is 55:6-11)

“Jesus answered, ‘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” (18:37).  A king?  Not as we conceive of it, not as people comprehend the term.  Jesus tells Pilate that Jesus was not born to be a king as other kings of the earth; he did not come to rule as men rule or fight as men fight, though he shall die as men die, yet not quite!  His very human death is also more than human, because God is doing something in this death, at this death, in this body, through this body that is unique, holy, precious.  Oh, the precious blood of Jesus!  No, Jesus was not merely born.  People are born every day, every hour.  Jesus tells us he came (18:37).  The Son already was, has always been.  Our minds grow feeble with the thought, but our hearts grow strong and joyful.

The Son who has always been came into the world for a purpose: “to testify to the truth,” as though over the centuries and generations the truth had become so distorted, was so subjected to distortion here among people, here in the soiled hands and fallen hearts of people, that there was but one way to restore, to re-establish truth, but what a way!  Truth will be revealed, made plain, not by erecting a throne on the mountain top, but by sacrificing a Son on a Cross.

“Everyone on the side of truth listens to me” (18:37).  Did you hear him?  Oh, that arrogance!  But if it’s true, it’s not arrogance at all.  But how could it be true?  If we are confused about what it is to be a king, or whether we can even speak of Jesus as a king, what can we say about truth?  Truth is no cold concurrence of our words with what we observe outside us.  Truth is the way to life.  Truth acts, intends, amends.  Truth lives.  Truth gives shape to human life, as the potter works his clay.  Purpose is at work in truth, holy purpose.  What is it to listen to truth?  People live in the belief that they are listening, and we stray, still.  People live in the belief that their beliefs are the true beliefs and that others live by false beliefs.  So we fight, shed blood, bring famine and pestilence: the fruits of our truths.  “We all have truths!  Are mine the same as yours?”

“Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.”  What is it to listen to truth?

Lord, I hear; help me to listen.  Lord, you are king and no king; you are the crown of testimony, the throne of salvation, the sword of truth.  Rule, preserve, defend us.  Bring us into all truth; save us from the falsehoods that kill.  Open the eyes of our hearts Lord.  Oh, we pray!  Let us pray.  Let us listen, lest we be another Pilate and our response to Jesus Christ be, “What is truth?” (18:38).

To the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, be honor and eternal dominion.