A sermon based on John 18:33-37, Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14, and Revelation 1:4b-8
Don Friesen
November 22, 2009
Ottawa Mennonite Church
Seventy years ago King George VI (1895-1952) and his consort, Queen Elizabeth (1900-2002) – known to us as the Queen Mother – toured Canada aboard a specially prepared, blue, silver and gold royal train. The tour took several weeks through May and June of 1939, first moving westward, then back to Ottawa, then to Washington to meet with President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and then eastward in Canada, to complete the trip.
On the westward leg of the trip the train made an unscheduled stop at a small northern Ontario town. Word quickly spread that the royal train was at the train station, and when the mayor heard of it he hurried to the station to meet the king. He welcomed the king, introducing himself as the mayor, and when King George enquired why the mayor was not wearing his Chain of Office, the mayor replied, "Oh, I just use that on special occasions."
The Royal Tour of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth marked the first time a reigning monarch had visited our country, but the monarchy is not what it used to be, at least in that small northern town. There was a time when a king or queen would have had that knave of a mayor flogged, either for his stupidity or his impudence, but royalty no longer holds the power it once did. The King and Queen were welcomed rapturously in most other Canadian towns and cities on that tour, but even that cannot be assumed anymore. Of course, members of the royal family have had no small hand themselves in devaluing the monarchy.
I have read that Queen Elizabeth II, now in her fifty-eighth year of rule, is an exception among royalty with respect to length of reign. Some historians estimate that the average length of a monarch's reign is three-and-a-half to four years. Royalty has had a violent history throughout the centuries, cutting short the reign of many monarchs without their royal assent. Take, for example, Nicholas II of Russia (1868-1918), whose official title was Nicholas II, Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias, but whose reign was cut short when the Bolsheviks killed him, along with the Empress, their five children, their family doctor, their valet, as well as the Empress' lady-in-waiting and the family cook. Nicholas' reign was cut short, but even so he managed to implicate himself in a number of tragedies, earning the name, Nicholas the Bloody, and his reign witnessed the demise of Imperial Russia, once one of the foremost great powers of the world, but under his rule reduced to an economic and military disaster.
Machiavelli's Counsel to Kings
It's too bad that Nicholas didn't have the astute counsel of Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527), the sixteenth-century political philosopher, diplomat, musician and playwright. He was also a civil servant of the Florentine Republic during a tumultuous era in which Popes waged war, political-military alliances were prone to change without warning, and the wealthy Italian city-states' hold on power was precarious, as they fell, piecemeal, to foreign powers.
Perhaps it was the uncertain times that inspired Machiavelli to write The Prince (1513), his famous treatise on the best methods for princes to gain and hold power. Machiavelli had no patience with benevolent uses of power. He wrote that it is good ...to possess all the qualities usually held to be admirable, but that "a prince ...need not necessarily have (them)," adding, "...he should certainly appear to have them." (The Prince, page 57, George Bull, trans.) Sound familiar?
Machiavelli contended that political leadership required a degree of shrewdness. In discussing a particular practitioner of realpolitik, Machiavelli argues, not about the man's use of cruelty, but about the nature of his cruelty: "...it is a question," he writes, "of cruelty used well or badly," and it is used well when "as far as possible (it is) turned to the good of one's subjects." (Bull, page 31)
There is much more to Machiavelli – little of it edifying – and his name has become synonymous with elaborate cunning and tactical deceitfulness. It is to Machiavelli that the Medici family turned to for counsel in an effort to maintain their power. Machiavelli's advocacy of methodical use of force to preserve the status quo is a handbook for brutal regimes. However, hardly anyone in Europe was more demonized than Niccolò Machiavelli. British historian Thomas Macaulay (1800-1859) wrote: "We doubt whether any name in literary history be so generally odious as that of (Machiavelli)… Out of his surname (the English) ...coined an epithet for a knave, and out of his Christian name a synonym for the Devil." (Macaulay, "Essay On Machiavelli," 1850) Old Nick!
Pilate's Violent Path of Ascendancy
Pontius Pilate did not have the benefit of Machiavelli's handbook, but he didn't appear to need it. The Roman emperor Tiberius appointed Pontius Pilate the praefectus, or governor, over Judea in the year 26 (AD), which Pilate then proceeded to rule with an iron fist. Every aspect of the country – the military, the courts, the economy, and even the Jewish Temple – was touched by his ruthlessness. Philo (20 BC0-40 AD) the first-century Jewish historian, described him as "by nature rigid and stubbornly harsh ...of spiteful disposition and an exceeding wrathful man." Philo also cites "bribes, ...acts of violence, ...cases of spiteful treatment, ...constant murders without trial, (and) the ceaseless and most grievous brutality." (Embassy to Gaius) Pilate was Machiavelli's spiritual forebear.
Rome considered Judea one of its most difficult provinces to govern. In fact, during Pilate's ten years as a governor (26-36 AD) there were thirty-two riots! Everything about the Romans chafed in Judea – the Roman taxes, Roman insensitivity to their religion, and Pilate, if anything, aggravated the situation. The first riot occurred because Judeans considered idolatry the worst of sins; worshipping a graven image, a carved image of God, was forbidden by the second commandment. Shortly after he became governor, however, Pilate came riding into Jerusalem with his troops bearing their flag poles, on the top of each flagpole a carved image of Caesar. No Roman governor had done this before, and it sparked a riot! By the hundreds, then thousands, Judeans staged a sit-in at Pilate's place of residence. It infuriated him. He killed several of them, but the Judeans continued their civil disobedience. Eventually Pilate backed down and removed the image of Caesar from the flagpoles. (I am indebted to Edward Markquart's description of the riots)
Then Pilate, like any ambitious modern-day mayor, wanted to improve the city's infrastructure. He wanted to build a pipeline to bring water into Jerusalem. He needed money to do that, so he went to the Temple treasury and took the money that had been given to the service of God! Rioting began immediately. This time Pilate ordered his soldiers to infiltrate the protestors, and when the signal was given Pilate's troops clubbed, stabbed, and bludgeoned the Judeans to death.
Neighbouring governors started writing letters to the Emperor in Rome, complaining to Tiberius about Pilate's brutality in handling the riots. The man had no finesse! The riots continued, however, until the thirty-second riot, which happened when a Samaritan told some Judeans that he knew where Moses had hidden some sacred relics up on a mountain. Up the mountain they went, on a wild goose chase, no doubt, and when Pilate heard that some armed Judeans were going up to high places, he ordered his horsemen to attack and kill the essentially defenceless treasure-seekers! It was a bloodbath, and one neighbouring Roman ruler was so upset about Pilate's slaughter of innocent people that he sent another letter of complaint to Tiberius, and shortly after Pilate was removed from office. No doubt he told his friends that he wanted to spend more time with his family.
A Brutal Bully Interrogates a King
Perhaps Pilate was happy to go. To one accustomed to the pleasures of Rome, with its theatres, baths, games and such, Jerusalem, with its religious scruples and ever-smouldering embers of revolt, was a dreary place. Weary of the endless riots, however, Pilate, before he left, came up to Jerusalem to preserve order during the Passover, when the city was overflowing with potentially rebellious pilgrims.
Once in the city Pilate was met with a delegation from the Sanhedrin, who wanted to brief him on a "malefactor" (John 18:30, KJV) whom they accused of sedition, of counselling the withholding of taxes to Rome, and of assuming the title of king. (Luke 23:2) Pilate, with the experience of twenty to thirty riots, knew a hot potato when he saw one, and he requested a private meeting with this "malefactor".
Pilate summoned Jesus to his headquarters – Praefectus meets Malefactor – and the sparring began. "Are you the King of the Jews?" asked Pilate (John 18:33)
"Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?" (18:34) answered Jesus.
"Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me," replied Pilate. "What have you done?" (18:35)
"My kingdom is not from this world," answered Jesus. "If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here." (18:36)
"So you are a king?" (18:37)
"You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth." (18:37)
I would not be surprised if Pilate was a little annoyed by the conversation. Pilate lived in a world of intimidation and cruelty, and for the life of him he could not comprehend what Jesus brought to the table. Trying to assess whether Jesus was a threat to his authority, or whether anything about him could spark yet another riot, Pilate must have been puzzled by Jesus' remarks. If this malefactor was a king, he had not been briefed by Machiavelli. There was no hint of cruelty which Pilate could match with greater cruelty, no guile that Pilate could exploit for his own political ends, yet Jesus was not easily intimidated. Pilate sensed in Jesus a strong resistance to brute strength, and a strong sense of direction and identity. It was puzzling, but as long as Jesus didn't start another riot, Pilate didn't care.
Jesus was not like any king Pilate knew, and his replies to claims of kingship were ambiguous. "My kingdom is not from this world," said Jesus. This is the only biblical story in the Gospels to use the word, "king," in reference to Jesus, and its meaning is vague. It does not appear to have been vague in the minds of his followers, however, for from the earliest days of the Church the crucified and risen Christ was given the title, "King of kings." In the Gospel of Luke Jesus is pictured as a king even before his birth! When the angel Gabriel breaks the news of his birth to Mary, he says, "…God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end." (Luke 1:32-33) No ambiguity there!
In Matthew's Gospel the Magi ask, "Where is he who has been born king of the Jews?" (Matthew 2:2, RSV) No shyness about kingship there! In Mark's Gospel Jesus begins his ministry by stating that "the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God has come near...." (Mark1:15) As Jesus enters Jerusalem for the last time, the people gather in the streets and shout, "Blessed be the king who comes in the name of the Lord!" (Luke 19:38)
There is no doubt in the eyes of Scripture that Jesus is a king, albeit not in the Pontius-Machiavellian mold. He had no obvious power, no prestige, and sat bound before Pilate, about to be sentenced to death without pomp or circumstance. Yet Christians have stubbornly paid him homage as the King of kings!
Pilate, on the other hand, was a bully, and although he meets the three charges against Jesus with three assertions of Jesus' innocence, he was simply looking for an expedient way out of a potentially explosive situation. Satisfied that Jesus was no threat to him, Pilate wanted to dismiss the whole affair as a nuisance, and it was only when the riotous crowds grew more and more unruly that he agreed to condemn him to death.
I was thinking of entitling my sermon, "How on earth did Pontius Pilate get into the Nicene Creed?" He doesn't deserve the attention, but there he is, having achieved universal name recognition, not because of who he was, but because of whom he sentenced to death. Only three people are named in the Nicene Creed: Jesus, his mother, Mary, and the infamous Pontius Pilate, his name recited every day all over the world, a brutal bully who does not deserve the honour and who was reluctant to sentence Jesus only because he wanted to pacify the hordes at his door, mock the Judeans, if he could get away with it, and protect his job.
O Where Are Kings and Empires Now?
Pilate ruled Judea during tumultuous times, but eventually he was summarily dismissed, and several years later he died at his own hand. (Eusebius) Niccolò Machiavelli wrote his political treatise during tumultuous times, suggesting a statecraft renown for its cunning and deceitfulness, but his own fortunes rose and fell with the Medici fortunes, and at one point they tortured him, hanging him from his bound wrists, from the back, forcing his arms to bear his body's weight and thus dislocating his shoulders.
One of the hymns in our former hymnal started with the line, "O where are kings and empires now, of old, that went and came?" (The Mennonite Hymnal, #378; words by Arthur C. Coxe, 1839, music by Thomas Tallis, circa 1567) In other words, monarchs come and go, but the kingdom of Jesus Christ is forever! The Pilates of this world will disappear, and most will be forgotten, but the reign of Jesus is forever!
The Old Testament prophet, Daniel, also lived during tumultuous times, having witnessed the rise and fall of great political kingdoms, but above and beyond them all Daniel foretells of a king and a kingdom that is not ethnically, spatially or temporally limited, "an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, ... (a) kingdom ...that will never be destroyed." (Daniel 7:14, NIV) Written in a time of severe persecution, the book of Daniel celebrates the enthronement of the mysterious Son of Man – with whom Jesus would later identify himself – whose reign does not operate according to the world's criteria of power.
Those to whom John wrote the book of Revelation were also living in tumultuous times, but John brings greetings from the ascended Christ, making clear that Divine rule was made visible in the life of Jesus. The Lamb of God is enthroned, and universally recognized as one enthroned. John calls him "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, ...to him be glory and dominion forever and ever." (Revelation 1:5-6)
As we witness Jesus and Pilate in conversation, we hear in the background the apocalyptic choruses from Daniel and the book of Revelation, both exuberant proclaimers of something Pilate could not comprehend. Despite tumult and persecution, these biblical writers cannot suppress their praise of the King of kings! It comes as no surprise to us that when George Frideric Handel (1685-1759) composed his Messiah, he turned to the book of Revelation for words.
The Power of Love and Freedom
The political powers of this world consistently underestimate the power of love and freedom. In 1989 Czechoslovakia witnessed the overthrow of the Communist government in what has been called the "Gentle Revolution". Students participating in demonstrations began chanting, within earshot of the Communist party leadership, "You have lost already! You have lost already!" Their victory was not assured, but one of the participants comments, "We knew we could win. We knew it was unstoppable. At the point that we committed ourselves to the struggle, we began to understand that victory was ours."
They were right. Following the collapse of the Berlin Wall in August and September of 1989, Czechoslovakia had a new government by December. Vaclav Havel (1936- ), a dissident playwright, was elected the country's first democratic president in a half-century by a parliament still dominated by Communist hard-liners, who had no real understanding of the power of freedom. Repression proved no match for the power of freedom!
The same year my eyes were glued to the television set as I watched Nelson Mandela emerge from prison a year after I visited South Africa. The old repressive regime was still in power, but one knew that the change that had begun was unstoppable.
Frederick Buechner says of the kingdom of God, "that it is not a place, ...but a condition." And "insofar as here and there, and now and then, God's kingly will is being done in various odd ways among us even at this moment, the kingdom has come already. Insofar as all the odd ways we do his will at this moment are at best half-baked and half-hearted, the kingdom is still a long way off...." (Listening to your Life, page 217)
One of the Czech protesters said that at "the point that we committed ourselves to the struggle, we began to understand that victory was ours." The kingdom of God demands our commitment. Christ's reign requires more than half-baked and half-hearted attempts to be faithful. It requires a commitment to Jesus' servanthood stance. Jesus was not and is not a king who rules through raw power, greed and manipulation, at the expense of others. He did not conscript an army to dominate the minds and hearts of people by force. He modelled a far different style of leadership.
The kingdom of God requires our commitment to Jesus' humility and compassion. A very strange king, this, who loves, serves, heals and uplifts his followers. The kingdom of God also requires us to remember that our king is a king with scars. When Jesus' stunned and frightened disciples wanted his identity authenticated, he had but to show them the scars in his hands, feet, and side. This is not a king who sends others to die on his behalf; he died on our behalf.
The kingdom of God requires us to be suspicious of Pilate in any guise. It's not for any king that we bring out our praises and hallelujahs; we reserve those for special occasions, when we're in the presence of the King of kings! AMEN
Quotations of Scripture are from the New Revised Standard Version, unless otherwise noted.