I do find myself feeling a certain amount of sympathy for Pilate in the exchange he has with Jesus in today’s gospel (Jn 18:33b-37). He’s been handed this hot potato by the Jewish leaders, who he trusts about as far as he could throw them. He doesn’t care whether Jesus thinks he’s a king or not – Herod might, but Pilate is a Roman governor. He has real power. If these tedious Jews want to argue about who they want as king he’d rather stay out of it.
So all he’s trying to do is find out what Jesus is saying about himself so he can lay down the law and move on. “Look, I really don’t care, but just tell me, are you saying you’re a king or not”.
Is Jesus just being awkward in not giving a straight answer?
Well he’s clearly not intimidated by the situation, as any normal person would be. As Pilate points out a bit later, with obvious exasperation, I can have you killed in an instant, how about you take me seriously.
But Jesus isn’t thumbing his nose at Pilate. He’s trying to explain as best he can to someone who isn’t really able to understand. “You say I am a king” – you don’t have any other words or concepts to use to describe me, so in that sense yes I am a king, I am a ruler, I have power. But my kingdom isn’t like anything you would recognize as a nation, it’s like another world. It’s about truth and justice, peace and love. No earthly kingdom is like that – they are about power, and borders, and status, and wealth.
So when we end our Church year with a recognition that Jesus is a king, we’d better be clear that the battles that we still fight, whether in elections or wars, over power and wealth, borders and status, have nothing to do with the kingship that the Scriptures claim for Jesus.