Kingship and Truth

John 18: 33-37 (November 22, 2009)

1) The Text

33 Then Pilate entered the headquarters* again, summoned Jesus, and asked him, ‘Are you the King of the Jews?’ 34Jesus answered, ‘Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?’ 35Pilate replied, ‘I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done?’ 36Jesus answered, ‘My kingdom is not from this world. 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.’ 37Pilate asked him, ‘So you are a king?’ Jesus answered, ‘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.’

2) The Context

This is scene two of the seven scenes which make up John’s account of the trial of Jesus before Pilate, running from 18:28 - 19:16. Pilate has met with those Jews seeking Jesus’ death outside his “headquarters”, the praetorium. He has asked: what charge, valid in Roman law, do you have to bring against him? (v. 28). V. 29 shows that they have none. Pilate refuses to get involved by telling them to try him under Jewish law. They then make it obvious that they seek Jesus’ death.

Now Pilate goes inside the praetorium and asks Jesus: are you the leader of a revolutionary movement? In return, Jesus asks him: Is this question your idea, based on what you have heard, or did others put you up to it? Pilate shows his scorn for Jews; the religious authorities seek your death, but what grounds are there for killing you? In v. 36, Jesus begins to explain the nature of his kingship. Were he a rebel leader, his followers “would be fighting to keep me from being handed over” to the religious authorities, but he is no threat to Pilate’s authority. Pilate picks up on Jesus words “my kingdom”. Jesus is king of “truth” (v. 37); his subjects are those who belong to the truth. He was “born” and “came into the world” to establish the kingdom of God, the ultimate truth.

3) Interpretation

What kind of King is Jesus? And what kind of kingdom is his? The reading tells the story of Jesus before Pilate. It raises the questions of who is king and what is truth.

Pilate, himself a ruler of a kingdom, asks Jesus if he is a king. Jesus responds to his questioner with a question. He turns the tables on Pilate. He moves from a question of kingship to one of truth. The turn Jesus introduces into the exchange with Pilate, frames the question of kingship differently. In Pilate's world to be ruler of a kingdom requires power but not necessarily truth. In the kingdom of which Jesus speaks, to rule is to rule in truth.

It is easy enough to focus on the great virtue of Jesus and the terrible villainy of Pilate. After all, Pilate's complicity, if not responsibility, for the death of Jesus is clear. The text, however, does not portray Pilate as such a villain. Instead it portrays him more as victim than villain. He is a victim of his world and its kingdoms. A shrewd political player, Pilate is caught in a world in which truth is a luxury he simply can't afford. There are compromises one simply must make to live in the kind of world Pilate occupies, and compromises with the truth are just part of the game. These aspects of Pilate's character make him a thoroughly modern person. He is like so many of us who must live in a complex world, where compromises are made every day. In the verse after this text he asks a totally modern question: "What is truth?" (v. 38).

Indeed, what is truth? Truth is so elusive. A test of truth can be found in this text. Standing before Pilate, Jesus says that he came into this world "to testify to the truth" (Jn 18:37). The Greek word translated to testify is also the root of the English word martyr. To testify to the truth may in some way mean dying for the truth; at least that was the case for Jesus. In the next verse, John returns to the question which tradition had preserved: was Jesus a ‘king’ (18:38)? Jesus’ enigmatic and typically Johannine response speaks of his coming to bear witness to the truth. When Pilate asks, ‘What is truth?’, John’s hearers might respond with Jesus’ own words: he said: ‘I am the way and the truth and the life.’ Jesus embodies truth. Jesus embodies kingship.

But the image of kingship given in the account of the crucifixion is a subverted one yet it belongs at the heart of Christian faith and community – and at the heart of God. Jesus is a different kind of king: weak, crucified, crowned with thorns, pathetic, defeated. Mark has been telling us about love and self-giving, a path that led Jesus to the crucifixion. John retains the stark melody. As Jesus’ life is subversive, so also is his death. It depicts in deed what Jesus taught in word: greatness is lowliness and compassion, the last is first, loving matters most.

4) Thought Exercise

How has the truth of the world failed you?

How has God’s faithfulness sustained you?