November 22, 2009
Do We Get It? - John 18:33-37
Pastor: Luke Maybry
DownloadWhen I was ten years old or so, then Secretary of the Navy, William Ball, came to Spartanburg. He was from Spartanburg and this was a homecoming of sorts for him. I vividly remember meeting him at a performance of the Spartanburg Symphony. A friend of mine, Peter Moore, who at the time was a member of the symphony, had the privilege of being his host and taking him around town. The story goes that Secretary of the Navy Ball decided, just for kicks, to check out the local navy recruiting station late on a Friday afternoon, not far from quitting time. Now I have been in the military myself around quittin’ time on Friday afternoons and things, in my experience, get much more lax then. I can imagine that the poor sailor manning the recruiting station was sitting on the top of the world after a hard week of work. I can also imagine that he would know what the secretary’s picture looked like, but never would he actually see a man of such high stature, much less have him walk through the door around quittin’ time on Friday. Sure enough, so the story goes, that’s what happened. The poor sailor there was all lounged back with his feet up on the desk as Secretary Ball walked through the door of the Navy Recruiting station in Spartanburg, SC right around quittin’ time on Friday afternoon. The sailor then leaned up (without taking his feet off the desk), looked back at the secretary’s picture hanging on the wall, looked back at the secretary, looked back at the picture, got up in disbelief and said something that I cannot repeat here.
The situation of the Navy Recruiting station in Spartanburg that day is not all that different from the situation in this Scripture reading. Pontius Pilot thinks that he’s the king of the world. He’s clearly calm, cool, and collected. He may not be Caesar himself. Caesar is in Rome. But in Jerusalem, Pilot is hot stuff. He is the king, the judge, and the jury all rolled up into one. By every account, he is the most powerful man in that region. And he meets, in this passage, with the least powerful man in that region, Jesus. But John so skillfully shows us that it’s actually the opposite. Pilot looks like a clueless, spineless coward. And even though Jesus does get crucified, Jesus is clearly the king. Pilot asks Jesus two times if he is the King of the Jews, and both times Pilot unknowingly answers his own question in the affirmative. The irony of course is that Pilot is supposed to be king of the Jews. At least the guy in the recruiting station that day knew that the guy in front of him was important. That wasn’t true for Pilot. Pilot clearly did not get it. The crowd clearly did not get it. Nobody got it in this story except the very one who ends up at the bottom of it.
The question that we must answer today is, do we get it? We say that we get it, but do we really? If we do get it, what about us reveals that we get it? I am somewhat of a historian, and I like to play the “what if” game. What would have happened if? John shows us that Pilot was very clearly clueless here and did not get it. But what would have happened if he had gotten it? What would have happened if there was not any irony in this story, and Pilot honestly recognized Jesus to be The King? What would have happened had the crowd gotten it? What would have happened had the disciples gotten it? The disciples may have gotten it at one time, but they certainly had forgotten it by now. Nobody got it. One of my favorite Christmas Carols is “Sweet Little Jesus Boy.” The refrain of that song says, “We didn’t know who you were.” Well what they had known?
We do know, right? That’s the difference between us and them. We have the gift of hindsight. Pilot did not. We have an advantage over Pilot, and the crowd, and the disciples. So how does it show in us? Unlike any of them, we audaciously and very seriously claim every Sunday that Jesus is The King, the only King that matters, whose “name is above all names, so that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.” And yet, we still have all these other kings. We have to pay our mortgages. We have bills to pay. We might like the idea of firing our boss, but we need our bosses for an income. And lest we forget, we may not have a king in this country, but we do have a congress, and that congress likes to spend money, and they do that by taxing us. We may not like much of what that congress does. In fact, it may well conflict with the only King to whom we give our allegiance, Jesus. So do we pay our taxes? Or should we just hang out on Walden Lake like Ralph Waldo Emerson and, just to prove a point, not pay our taxes? When we really confess Jesus to be King, it can complicate matters in a hurry.
This is a confusing passage, in my opinion, but the one thing that’s clear is that Pilot does not get it. The other thing that’s clear, at least from what we say and from what John reveals about Jesus (and Matthew & Mark & Luke, not to mention the other 23 books in the New Testament), is that we do get it. Not only do we have hindsight, but we’ve got 2000 years worth of it. We get it. Had Pilot gotten it, the whole story would have changed. And maybe since we do get it, then our whole story should change.
Here’s another “what if.” What if, in verse 37 Pilot would have made a statement instead of a question? What if Pilot had said, “Okay, Jesus, you are the King, and I am not. But look, brother (I mean, King), I’ve got a job to do here, and that job is to keep the peace. You are making that job very difficult. So, even though you are the King and all, I’m going to kill you anyway.” Would Pilot really have gotten it, do you think? I’m saying all of that, I am doing all of these confusing “what ifs” to say that I’m not so sure that we do get it. Theoretically I guess we might, but probably, if we are honest, for the most part, we’re kind of like Pilot. I remember in that Mel Gibson movie, The Passion, that the guards who killed Jesus were portrayed as being evil. It was clearly a story of good versus evil, and the evil side was painfully obvious.
I have reason to doubt that. Sure the guards whipped him and beat him and even killed him. It was all in a day’s work. They didn’t have the technology to warehouse people in prison for the rest of their lives like we do now, so they just killed them. And, like us, the guards had bills to pay and mouths to feed and orders to follow. Pilot judged people all the time. Pilot didn’t care what religion you practiced, just so long as you paid your taxes and didn’t make a stir, and like it or not, Jesus did make a stir. If nothing else, Pilot and the guards and everybody else were all too busy to recognize Jesus as the King.
And so are we, and I think that half the time, we miss it. There is just so much that happens around us where God does something incredible, but we miss it. But sometimes, unlike Pilot, we really do get it. We often get it on mission trips, when we get outside of our comfort zones and routines, and enter people’s lives. I often get it when I go visit people. I get it when I appreciate my children. Children have this unique way about them that points to their Creator. I get it when I run. There is something about being outside for me when my heart starts pumping. I really enjoy being alive then, and I really appreciate the body that God gave me. I really get it here, right here in Church on Sunday morning. There is something about the whole community gathering together, especially when they could be doing so many other things, that is just powerful for me. What do you have to gain by being here, other than a small reminder of a Kingdom that is much greater than you can even imagine? And another thing, I get it when I remember that everything that I do here in worship is for God and not me. That doesn’t always happen, but sometimes it does, and when it does, it’s a beautiful thing. I get it when I sing a hymn like it’s a love song, because really, if you think about it, it is. I get it when I do my devotions. Sometimes devotions are hard to do. But, day in and day out, it forces my eyes upon the One who created and called me.
And here’s another thing. Part of me says that I get it when I don’t get me. But that’s not true. In fact, if anything it’s the opposite. If anything, I get it specifically when I do get me. I honestly think, as the Psalmist says many times over, that God created me to be in fellowship and communion with him and with you. In short, God created me to worship. When I really do that, when I really appreciate God, I really appreciate me, too. I don’t know about you but sometimes I’m not really crazy about myself as I drive down the interstate, or when I get really, really busy. But it seems to me that whenever I get lost in a hymn, for example, or when I read a Scripture reading and really pay attention to it and how it speaks to me, it shines a new light on me. And even if it does make me squirm, it helps me realize who and whose I am.
My favorite holiday is in four short days. I love Thanksgiving because it forces us to look at what really matters. It forces us to give thanks. When we start counting all the blessings that we have, we’re forced to conclude that the vast majority of what we have, we did not earn. We are forced to conclude that life itself is a gift given by none less than God Himself. When we really give thanks, then we get it. Unfortunately, we often don’t get it when we celebrate Christmas. Christmas has become everything that it’s not supposed to be. But if we can escape the hustle and bustle and reflect on why we need a Savior, and then give thanks when the Savior comes, then I think we get it.
2009 is over, you know. I love this time of year, but it’s fast and furious. Of all times, I think this time of year all the kings in our lives demand our allegiance. And yet, there’s this other King that we so often over look, even in Church, even at Christmas. Pilot did not have a clue, and neither did anyone else then. Fortunately for us, a few people have gone before us who have gotten it and they have told us a thing or two. My prayer for us, then, is that we get it, that we know the King when we see the King. It’s not what you think it is or even where you think it is. But the Kingdom is alive and well, and it’s still very much in the business of granting citizenship and taking back old, long lost friends. I just hope that we can get it.
In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.
