Last week we had something of a preview of this, our last Feast of the year, the Feast of Christ the King. Our first reading today is the passage from the book of Daniel (Dn 7:13-14) which links to the gospel of last week in which Jesus talks about himself as that powerful figure arriving on the clouds. That power is reflected in the title of “king”. Kings were people in control, and that control was somehow beyond the bounds of time, as shown in today’s psalm (Ps 93). The amazing tombs of kings (from pharaohs to medieval monarchs) demonstrate the importance of the claim to a power which went beyond the lifetime of the individual.
The difficulty for us is that we have a hard time relating to the idea of a king. Americans are likely aware of George III and probably Henry VIII – neither of which is a very useful example for our reflections. And even people from countries which still have kings, say Spain or Britain, probably wouldn’t find their idea of royalty very helpful in reflecting on the power of Jesus.
So maybe we are stuck with a concept which was useful in the time of the psalms, or of Jesus, or even medieval times, but really doesn’t work for us in the modern world.
The problem with this argument, at least as far as scripture is concerned, is that there is very little evidence of kings in reality having the glorified status referenced by the psalmist or Daniel. Most of the accounts of kings in the Old Testament show them as flawed at best and in many cases as plain bad! And today our gospel reading (Jn 18:33b-37) hits the issue head-on when Jesus tells Pilate that he might call him a king, because there isn’t any other title that has the same implications of power and control, but it’s really not a good fit.
So it seems everyone ended up using the title King, but not with any image of a real king in mind, but rather some idealized notion, a king from myths or fairy tales rather than living in an actual palace in an actual kingdom.
So we can appreciate Jesus’ frustration at Pilate’s insistence at labeling him in this way. And this isn’t because we are modern people, the problem would have been clear also to Jesus’ contemporaries. So let’s take note of Jesus’ attempt at clarification or explanation – it’s as relevant to us as to John’s original audience.
Power and majesty lies in truth telling. Knowing and telling the truth was Jesus’ whole reason for being – there is nothing more.
We know the truth because Jesus has told us. “Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.” We listen to his voice, we belong to the truth. We know the truth. What remains is to tell it.