There has been a lot of nonsense talked this week about power. According to some reports, Herman Van Rompuy has suddenly become the most powerful figure in Europe, and Cathy Ashton is now the most powerful woman in the UK. Fortunately they both show signs of being a good deal more modest than that in their own assessment both of themselves and of the positions of responsibility within the European Union to which they have been called, but the media hype has been indicative of the widespread confusion which surrounds questions of status and power.
To-day we celebrate the Feast of Christ the King. Behind the scenes, in the visions of the prophet Daniel and in the book of Revelation, we see him enthroned in great glory, invested with all power and dominion, and yet in our Gospel reading, we encounter him as a powerless prisoner in the hands of the Roman Governor. It is Pilate who holds the power, Pilate who can crucify him or to set him free. We hear the sneer in Pilate’s voice as he asks Jesus whether he is the King of the Jews, but as the dialogue between ruler and prisoner moves on, it is the Governor who begins to feel uncertain about his authority. Jesus speaks with the authority that is his by virtue of the truth about God to which he bears witness. Pilate, on the other hand, for whom truth is a slippery, flexible commodity, has no firm ground on which to stand. He is caught for ever on the CCTV of history as he vacillates between justice and expediency, washing his hands of the higher responsibility as he settles for the popular decision that will please the priests and the crowd, and look good in his next dispatch to Rome. What is truth, he mutters. As he prepares to play a dark, self-serving game with the truth, he is reluctant to engage any further with a prisoner who makes him feel so uncomfortable. Already he is spinning his courageous defence of imperial authority, as he directs that Jesus shall be crucified under a sign that with bitter irony proclaims to the world that this is Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.
You are a king then, he had asked, and Jesus had not denied it. So what sort of a king was he? Jesus’ answer is enigmatic. ‘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. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.’ Pilate wasn’t really listening, any more than the Jewish leaders had listened. At one level John uses light and darkness, truth and falsehood, to divide believers and unbelievers. But if one digs a little deeper, there are some clear messages in Jesus’ answer for all who find themselves in positions of authority.
First, we must never forget where our authority comes from. Under the Lisbon Treaty, Cathy Ashton will depend for her authority on the 27 member states of the European Union for whom she must act – she may actually find that she has less power than she did as Commissioner for Trade. The power which Pontius Pilate exercised was circumscribed by the terms of his appointment under the Roman Emperor, as well as what he could do without provoking a riot. In that sense Jesus had no power at all. But there is another dimension to the exercise of power. For Pilate, Jesus had to spell it out. You would have no power over me unless it had been given you from above (John 19.11). This is a sharp reminder to us all, that any power we may exercise is not our own, or even that of any institution we may legally represent. Any power we may have is entrusted to us under God, who in turn has delegated dominion and glory and kingship to one like a human being, coming with the clouds of heaven – the figure whom we now identify with Christ the King. It is to He who is the fount of all true power, and it is to Him that we shall one day have to answer.
Which leads me to my second point. If we are to answer to Christ the King, we should bear in mind how he himself responded. He did not deny the regal authority that was being imputed to him. You say that I am a king, he says in acknowledgment. But he goes on to say that he has come to bear witness to the truth. At first sight that might seem more relevant to a prophet or a religious leader than to the rest of us, but I believe it applies with equal force to us all. It’s not just a question of telling the truth, though we must start there. It’s more about living the truth. I would suggest that we all need to ask ourselves: What is the truth about God to which we are called to bear witness in our lives? Just as the grand visions of Christ in glory hover in the wings this morning as we see Jesus the prisoner standing before Pilate, so Jesus himself, even as a man with all the limitations of our human nature, never lost sight of the bigger picture, in which he was and would always be the beloved Son of his Father in Heaven. Like him we are called to never lose sight of the fact that we are the adopted children of the same Heavenly Father. We have to ask ourselves: How should that context influence our behaviour as doctors or lawyers, as teachers or accountants, but equally as pensioners or parents, as partners and lovers, as neighbours and friends, and perhaps above all as the unique, special person that God created in each one of us. As witnesses in our lives to the truth about God, we will be directed by the same spirit of love that directed him. We will strive to do, to the very best of our ability, whatever it is we are called to do, whether it’s paid or unpaid, highly regarded or under-valued, at home, at work, and as members of our community. And as we live out our calling, we shall allow ourselves gracefully to become the person God made us to be. If we can live that truth about ourselves, in the context of His love, we shall not go far wrong in our exercise of any power and authority that may be entrusted to us.
Finally, we should not be too surprised if our witness to the truth in our lives gets us into trouble. We don’t go looking for trouble. We certainly don’t measure our success as witnesses to the truth by how much trouble we have stirred up. But nor do we measure our success by any approval ratings that may come our way. Pilate steered a carefully judged course between the conflicting pressures from his masters in Rome, the religious and secular authorities in his province and a restive population. He kept his job. The king at his feet would soon be crowned with mocking thorns and dragged away to be crucified. We are not going to be subjected to such gross public humiliation when we bear witness to the truth in our lives, thank goodness, but there may well be some consequences.
So you are a king then. As we worship Christ the King, we remember that all power and authority has been given to him by his Father. Just as the Father loved Him, so He loves us, and makes us co-inheritors with Him of that kingdom where His love reigns in power and great glory. We do not live in that vision, but we carry it with us as part of the Christian narrative which shapes our lives. It is from Christ the King, the radiant source of all true Power and all true Love that we humbly accept any power or authority that may be entrusted to. And now we ask Him to help us so to live that we may bear faithful witness to the truth in all that we say, in all that we do, in all that we are.