John 18:33-37 Commentary

On the last Sunday of the Christian year, we remember Christ as the one who reigns like none other. Having been brought to Pilate by the religious authorities from the Sanhedrin, Jesus is now face to face with the Roman Empire’s power representative.

Without pomp and circumstance, Pilate tries to suss out whether Jesus is a threat to Rome: does Jesus think he’s some sort of king of the occupied people? As the one tasked with keeping this region in line for the empire, Pilate just needs to know if Jesus is a threat or not. I’m sure he also suspects he’s being used in some sort of religious game and is feeling more than a little exasperated and annoyed when he asks Jesus what it is he’s done that’s made the chief priests mad enough to want him dead.

Jesus answers both of Pilate’s questions in one round-about answer. Jesus’s kingdom is not from this world—most definitely not recognizable from here at all. Jesus does not wield the identity of a king the same way that its known and practiced among the nations. Jesus did not raise up or have an army that he leads to battle to overthrow other leaders and take over their territory. Jesus is not the kind of literal threat that Pilate is obligated to tend to on behalf of Rome. And yet, Jesus makes a claim to kingship all the same. Just because he is not a king like the kings the world has known does not mean is he not a ruler.

Is Pilate confused, annoyed or savvy to what Jesus is getting at when he retorts, “So you are a king?” Some modern translations make it a statement rather than a question. Maybe Pilate just wants to hear the words that will make condemning Jesus easy so that all of this middle of the night frenzy will be over and done with… Similarly, what exactly Jesus is implying when he says, “You say that I am a king,” is unclear to me. Perhaps Jesus’s next words sounded just as esoteric to Pilate as the rest of the things Jesus has said thus far: “For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth.”

And the truth of the matter is that Jesus Christ does not need to claim the power the chief priests feared and disciples sometimes wished he would wield as the Messiah. The truth of the matter is that Jesus did not come and gather an army but a community of listeners. The truth is that he was born the Messiah; he came as the Messiah.

And this Messiah shows us that the way God is King is not to demand and demean and defeat with force but to take up the worst the world has to offer, the cross, and to lay down one’s life out of love. Jesus shows us, from birth in the shadow of the empire in a lowly manger, to his unjust death by state execution, that Christians do not need to be in power or control—or even influential—in this world in order to be his followers.

All they have to do is listen to him. When we listen to Christ and his truth, we easily see how unrecognizable it is to the powers and forces of this world. Or in the words of St. Paul, “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Philippians 2.5-11)

Textual Point

The gospel of John doesn’t use kingdom imagery or language all that much. In fact, you’ll only find it here and in the exchange with Nicodemus in chapter 3. There, Jesus tells Nicodemus that “no one can see the kingdom of God without being born again,” and that “no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit.” Jesus reinforces those statements here with Pilate.

Illustration Idea

The Belgic Confession was written in the 1561 in the Lowlands (modern Holland). Guido de Brès, the primary author, is said to have thrown the confession over the castle wall of the Catholic King Philip II of Spain in the hopes of convincing him that not all Protestants in his realm were political foes, rebels—even if they disagreed with Catholicism theologically. In other words, the Belgic Confession was an apologetic that focused not only on theology, but on how the Reformed were not a threat to the King’s power. Of course, as a summary of their Reformed faith, it signifies that even without political power, their faith had a transformative and positive power on society.