Loveday Alexander
Bible readings: Daniel 7.9-14 // Revelation 1.4-8 // John 18.33-37
Jesus said: “My kingdom is not from this world.
If it were, my followers would fight …
No, my kingdom is not from this world.”
“So — you are a king?” said Pilate.
John 18.36-37
In this story we see Jesus standing before Pilate: an iconic encounter that has come to symbolise the contradictions of power.
Two men: one has absolute power over the other, power of life and death. Pilate has all the legal authority, the political authority, the military might.
The other has nothing — beaten, mocked, humiliated. In a few hours he will be dead, with a jeering placard over his head: “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews”.
But Jesus is the one we worship today. Jesus is the one who has inspired countless followers down the ages — and on this feast of Christ the King, Jesus is the one we acclaim as King — while Pilate is just a footnote in history.
So where is this kingdom that Jesus claims? It’s “not from this world”, he said. Sometimes we translate that, “not of this world”. But if it isn’t from — or of — this world, where is it?
Today is the last Sunday of the Kingdom season, which brings the church’s year full circle and turns our thoughts to the coming of Advent and getting ready for Christmas. And in our worship over the past few weeks, we’ve been exploring the meaning of the kingdom in many different ways — offering many different answers to that question.
We often think of God’s kingdom as being in heaven — and we’ve explored the heavenly dimension of the Kingdom at All Saints and All Souls, rejoicing in our fellowship with the communion of saints and the blessed souls at rest, drawing strength and courage from the Christian hope that we will one day be reunited with our loved ones in the glorious fullness of God’s presence. That’s one aspect of the kingdom that gives us hope.
Then comes Remembrance Sunday, which broadens the horizons of our hope and brings it down to earth. This year was an especially poignant commemoration of the Armistice in 1918, with its longing for an end to all wars and its hopes for a better world of peace. We join with the prophets — and with all humanity — in crying out for a time “when wars shall be no more — when lust, oppression, crime shall flee thy face before”. A time “when the earth shall be filled with the glory of God as the waters cover the sea”. Surely that’s what Jesus meant by the kingdom, when he taught us to pray: “Thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven” — isn’t it? The kingdom isn’t just about escaping the world — it’s about transforming the world.
Then last week we heard about St Elizabeth of Hungary and the work of the Mothers’ Union. They reminded us how that prayer can begin to be answered here and now, not sitting around waiting for the prophetic future but getting on with it in quiet acts of practical charity — loving our neighbours, working together to make the world a better place. “You in your small corner, and I in mine” (in the words of the old hymn). Surely that’s where we catch a glimpse of the kingdom — and can even do our bit to bring it nearer?
So the kingdom is in heaven — it’s in the future — it’s in the here and now. But what’s the connection? What holds together the kingdom “up there”, the kingdom “over yonder”, and the kingdom “here and now”?
When I take my grandsons to Styal Mill, the bit they like best is the big wheel at the bottom, drawing water from the river and powering the whole mill. But how does the power get from the slowly-turning wheel at the heart of the mill to the busy clacking of the looms and spinning jennies up above? The answer is the vertical shaft — an amazing piece of engineering — that takes that motive power, turns it through 90degrees, and transmits it up to power the whole mill.
So — what’s the vertical shaft that links the kingdom of heaven with our troubled world on earth? How can we talk about the kingdom of God being present when the world so obviously isn’t how God intended it to be?
That’s where our Bible reading from the Book of Daniel comes in (Daniel 7.9-14). Daniel is a powerful statement of the kingship of God as an eternal and unshakable fact: “His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and his dominion endures from generation to generation”. “God is still on the throne” is the message of Daniel — more clearly than in any other book of the Bible (except the Psalms).
You’d expect this great message of confidence to come from a time when everything is going well for God’s people — when they’re prosperous and successful. But in fact, things couldn’t be worse: their city was captured, their king was a prisoner, the Temple was in ruins, and their people were in exile. Holding onto a belief in the kingship of God — a belief that ultimately all human power-systems are accountable to God, and will be held to account — in a world where there’s no obvious sign of it — that’s the challenge of Daniel.
And that’s the background to the mysterious words of Daniel’s vision in our reading: “Thrones were set up, and the Ancient of Days took his throne, and the books were opened”. This is the vision of God on the throne of the universe, of a righteous judge far above all fallible human power-structures.
It’s the vision that speaks of a longing for truth, in a world of fake news; of a longing for justice, in a world that seems either corrupt or uncaring, that cries out to God (because no-one else will listen), “How long, O Lord, how long?”
I was privileged a few weeks ago to hear a talk from Bishop James Jones, who chaired the Hillsborough inquiry. He showed us his battered copy of the Gospel of Luke, where Jesus tells the parable of the unjust judge and the poor widow who couldn’t get justice, — and how those families stood up and cheered because she wouldn’t give up. (Luke 18.1-8)
Daniel’s vision says: there is such a thing as truth, there is such a thing as justice —because there is a God. These things matter, because they matter to God.
But there’s another figure in Daniel’s vision — a human figure, a “Son of Man”, who comes with the clouds of heaven and is presented before the throne of God. And when Daniel asks what this means, he is told that the Son of Man represents the suffering people of God, coming into the kingdom that God has promised them before the foundation of the earth.
And now we can start to see how this ancient vision ties in with Jesus’ conversation with Pilate. The “Son of Man” — the one who shares our humanity — is the title Jesus uses of himself — the title that links him with the suffering people of God. And the victory that brings him into his kingdom is a different kind of victory from the great world empires of Daniel’s vision, playing out a kind of nightmare “Game of Thrones” in which each one is more destructive than the last.
It’s the victory of the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world by taking it on himself …. of the Good Shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep ….. of the Man of Sorrows, despised and rejected of men, who has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.
Who is this Son of Man? He is the pioneer of our salvation, the one who “for a little while” was made lower than the angels, crowned with glory and honour because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone (Hebrews 2.9-10). He is Jesus, our great High Priest, suffering and tempted just as we are, who “lifts our humanity to the heights of his throne” (Hebrews 3.17). He is Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who “for the joy that was set before him endured the Cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12.1-2).
He is Christ, our King — whose victory and Kingship we celebrate this Sunday and every Sunday, as he gives himself to us in bread and wine. So to him who loves us, and freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us to be a kingdom and priests serving his (and our) God and Father, to him be glory for ever and ever! Amen.