The Clash of Kingdoms

Prayer

The Clash of Kingdoms

As I was thinking about this sermon, a movie from my youth came to mind - Clash of the Titans. It was a big budget movie based on the Greek myths - Perseus fighting Medusa and other creatures like the Kraken. I watched the trailer for it - it’s a little dated, the claymation special effects back in 1981 could only take them so far.

Today we’re going to be talking about a clash, a clash of kingdoms - it is the kingdoms of the world versus the kingdom of God. The clash was evident from the moment Jesus came announcing that the Kingdom of God had come near. But today we come to the point where this clash hits its culmination, in the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

A quick recap: We are nearing the finale of our Lenten sermon series, the Magnificent Kingdom, taking a look at the Kingdom of God in all its truth, beauty and goodness. Our foundational verse has been Matthew 4:17, From that time on Jesus began to preach, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.

As we’ve talked about, there’s two aspects of this - the first being the reality of the Kingdom of God itself. Jesus is making clear that God’s reign, his rule over heaven and earth, has now come to us. It’s here, in our very midst. In light of that fact, the question then becomes, how will you respond?

Jesus makes clear the proper way to respond is to repent. Greek word for repentance is metanoia, transformation. As we’ve looked at repentance, we’ve been exploring the fullness of what it means to repent, what wholehearted repentance is all about.

That means the repentance of the mind - transformation in the way that we think, our view of the world - who God is, who we are - what does it mean to be human, what’s right and what’s wrong, the purpose of our lives. Our entire perspective is changed.

We talked, too, about the repentance of the soul - this has to do with a change of affections, our passions. Our loves are to be reordered so that Jesus himself is our first love, above and beyond every other love. This is a transformation of our feelings.

Finally, wholehearted repentance includes repentance of the will. To repent of our will requires that we, like Jesus, say to the Father - not my will, but thine be done. We work towards a willing resolve to be obedient to Jesus, putting into practice the good Jesus teaches us.

So, back to the clash of the kingdoms. We’re going to be looking at the clash of the kingdoms through the three transcendentals - the three realities that point us to God - truth, beauty and goodness.

We’re going to be in John 18 & 19, looking at Jesus’ trial before Pontius Pilate (whose stone we saw last week in our Unearthing the Bible). It’s been a long night for Jesus, beginning with his last supper with the disciples, the meal in which he takes the bread and the cup and points to them as being his body and blood, given for our sake. Then he and the disciples make their way over to the Mount of Olives, to the Garden of Gethsemane, to pray. There, the guards sent by the Jewish leaders, led by Judas Iscariot, the disciple who betrayed Jesus, come and arrest Jesus. Jesus then endures a kangaroo trial before the Sanhedrin, the Jewish Ruling Council. We’re going to pick up the story as Jesus is brought before the Roman prefect, Pontius Pilate, in order to be tried on the charge of sedition.

Clash of the Kingdoms

Clash of Truth - John 18:28-38 - Then the Jewish leaders took Jesus from Caiaphas to the palace of the Roman governor. By now it was early morning, and to avoid ceremonial uncleanness they did not enter the palace, because they wanted to be able to eat the Passover. 29 So Pilate came out to them and asked, “What charges are you bringing against this man?”30 “If he were not a criminal,” they replied, “we would not have handed him over to you.” 31 Pilate said, “Take him yourselves and judge him by your own law.” “But we have no right to execute anyone,” they objected. 32 This took place to fulfill what Jesus had said about the kind of death he was going to die. 33 Pilate then went back inside the palace, summoned Jesus and asked him, “Are you the king of the Jews?” 34 “Is that your own idea,” Jesus asked, “or did others talk to you about me?” 35 “Am I a Jew?” Pilate replied. “Your own people and chief priests handed you over to me. What is it you have done?” 36 Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place.” 37 “You are a king, then!” said Pilate. Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.” 38 “What is truth?” retorted Pilate. With this he went out again to the Jews gathered there and said, “I find no basis for a charge against him.

Now, if you consider the purpose of a trial, the whole goal is to get to the truth. To determine whether the person being accused of a crime is guilty or innocent. It appears initially that Pilate is interested in pursuing the truth. He questions the Jewish leaders about why they brought Jesus to him in the first place - after all, they have their own courts, they can judge him. Their motives are revealed - they want Jesus put to death. They want to get rid of him.

So they had to come up with a charge that would matter to the Romans - sedition. After all, they claim, Jesus said he was the King of the Jews. Which is what Pilate asks Jesus - are you, then, the King of the Jews? Jesus challenges Pilate on whether this is something he himself has thought or whether he’s just responding to the claims of the Jewish leaders.

Jesus then declares the truth of the kingdom of God. “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would have never allowed this. My kingdom is from another place.” And here’s what really matters to Jesus, listen again to what he says at the end: “You say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.” Everyone on the side of truth listens to me. Jesus is all about the truth. The Kingdom of God is what’s true.

Pilate’s response is so telling. It’s a response straight from the kingdom of the world. He’s trying to avoid the truth, so he plays word games, intellectual tricks meant to obscure what is plainly true: What is truth?

Pilate has an internal conflict going on - on the one hand, he has a sense of justice, of seeking the truth. He knows Jesus is innocent - comes right out and says so, there’s no basis for a charge here. He knows the Jewish leaders are railroading Jesus. But, on the other hand, he likes the power and the prestige his position gives him - he doesn’t want to be called back to Rome for having failed at his job. All that is endangered if he doesn’t play this correctly, politically speaking. It is a pull of the kingdoms of this world. He likes his place in the kingdom.

We see the exact same thing with the Jewish religious leaders. They’d heard Jesus’ teachings, they’d seen miracles, the signs he’d performed that bore witness, that were evidence that he was speaking the truth. But they rejected it all because in the current religious system, they had the power, wealth, influence.

Do you see the kingdoms clashing?! Truth is one of the touchstones - because truth always points us to Jesus and his Kingdom. Which is why a rejection of Jesus leads to obscuring the truth. Twisting it. Which is what Pilate is doing. The Jewish leaders. It’s what we do when we sin. We avoid truth. We cover our motives. We shade the truth to make ourselves look better. We embrace false teaching because it suits what we want.

But everyone on the side of truth listens to me - Jesus couldn’t make it any plainer.

Kingdoms don’t just clash over truth, they clash over beauty - John 18:39-19:6...39 But it is your custom for me to release to you one prisoner at the time of the Passover. Do you want me to release ‘the king of the Jews’?” 40 They shouted back, “No, not him! Give us Barabbas!” Now Barabbas had taken part in an uprising. Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged. 2 The soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head. They clothed him in a purple robe 3 and went up to him again and again, saying, “Hail, king of the Jews!” And they slapped him in the face. 4 Once more Pilate came out and said to the Jews gathered there, “Look, I am bringing him out to you to let you know that I find no basis for a charge against him.” 5 When Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe, Pilate said to them, “Here is the man!” 6 As soon as the chief priests and their officials saw him, they shouted, “Crucify! Crucify!”

Fascinating to see what’s going on here - political ploys, chess game between Pilate and the religious leaders. Pilate knows Jesus is innocent, he doesn’t want to execute Jesus - but he also doesn’t want an uprising, a revolt on his hands - so he’s trying to find a way to appease the crowds.

Pilate tries first to offer the release of a prisoner, a traditional gift that the Roman leader would give to the Jews on Passover - he offers to release Jesus on that basis. They reject that offer and instead demand that Pilate release Barabbas, an insurrectionist.

Pilate then tries to appease them by having Jesus flogged. He gives Jesus over to his soldiers, who give him 39 lashes with the cat o’nine tails, and then make a mockery of him by dressing him as a king. It’s in this condition, Jesus dressed in his “royal” outfit - a purple robe and a crown of thorns, that Pilate trots him out to the gathered crowd. “Here is the man!”

Pilate’s hope is that he has punished Jesus enough to sate the crowd - look at him, Pilate is trying to say, he’s been flogged, properly humiliated. Isn’t this enough?! This ploy, however, fails. As soon as religious leaders see him, they shout out, “Crucify!” In their minds, only death is good enough for Jesus.

Here, I want to invite you to stop and do what Pilate invites us to - Behold the man! Look at Jesus! Because it is here we again see the clash of the kingdoms.

Whole goal of Pilate is to humiliate Jesus. He has him scourged. Jesus’ flesh is torn, ripped by bits of bone and rock imbedded in the lash of the whips. His body is bruised, bloodied all over. Over his beaten body, they drape a purple robe and upon his head a crown - made of thorns, piercing his brow. The sight of Jesus “the King” is meant to stir pity - how ugly, how terrible.

The way the kingdoms of the world view Jesus is exactly as described in Isaiah 53:2-3...He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. 3 He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.

But for us, we should see the beauty of the kingdom of God, Because it is in his suffering, in his death, that we see the glory and majesty of Jesus. If beauty is goodness made manifest to the senses - here we should see Jesus’ goodness made manifest. The beauty of his love - the King, the true King - enduring our mockery, enduring the bitter rejection, enduring the punishment that we by our sins deserved. We should hide our faces, but look upon him, hold him in high esteem - as we see the beauty of our King, the Savior.

Finally, clash of Goodness - John 19:6-16...But Pilate answered, “You take him and crucify him. As for me, I find no basis for a charge against him.” 7 The Jewish leaders insisted, “We have a law, and according to that law he must die, because he claimed to be the Son of God.” 8 When Pilate heard this, he was even more afraid, 9 and he went back inside the palace. “Where do you come from?” he asked Jesus, but Jesus gave him no answer. 10 “Do you refuse to speak to me?” Pilate said. “Don’t you realize I have power either to free you or to crucify you?” 11 Jesus answered, “You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above. Therefore the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin.” 12 From then on, Pilate tried to set Jesus free, but the Jewish leaders kept shouting, “If you let this man go, you are no friend of Caesar. Anyone who claims to be a king opposes Caesar.” 13 When Pilate heard this, he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judge’s seat at a place known as the Stone Pavement (which in Aramaic is Gabbatha). 14 It was the day of Preparation of the Passover; it was about noon. “Here is your king,” Pilate said to the Jews. 15 But they shouted, “Take him away! Take him away! Crucify him!” “Shall I crucify your king?” Pilate asked. “We have no king but Caesar,” the chief priests answered. 16 Finally Pilate handed him over to them to be crucified.

Pilate realizes he is losing the battle. He makes his final efforts to free Jesus - first with Jesus himself, hoping he will give him something that will enable him to let him go. Then a final effort before the Jews, who respond with political pressure - “You are no friend of Caesar.”

Pilate acquiesces, sits on what is known as the judgment seat, from which final declaration would be made. Here is your king. The Jews respond, Take him away! Crucify him!

Pilate plays with them, “Shall I crucify your king?” Catch their response, this is startling: “We have no king but Caesar.” In other words, we embrace Caesar. We pledge our loyalty to the Roman emperor. The Jewish leaders sell out. So Pilate finally hands Jesus over to be crucified.

And here we see the kingdoms clashing. The good would be justice, which Pilate, for political convenience, abdicates. The good would be integrity, which the Jewish leaders abandon. They have twisted the good - they think condemning an innocent man to death serves a greater good, the ends justify the means. But it’s Jesus who reveals true goodness.

Peter Robinson hosts a program called “Uncommon Knowledge,” where he interviews some of the brightest people. For one of his most recent programs, he sat down with three people who all grew up in Birmingham, Alabama in the sixties, at the height of the civil rights movement. The three of them - all black, all friends - have attained great success in their personal and professional lives - Mary Bush has her own financial consulting business, Freeman Hrabowski served as president at one of the schools in the University of Maryland system, and finally, a name you’re likely to recognize, Condoleezza Rice, former Secretary of State.

It was fascinating to hear them describe their upbringing and what it was like to endure the tensions and struggle of blacks earning equality of rights. Freeman, as a teen, participated in one of the protests led by Martin Luther King, Jr. Sometime during that protest, he was spat upon by the infamous Bull Conner, who was, get this, the Commissioner of Public Safety for Birmingham, Alabama. This influential public figure spitting on a young teen, treating him like dirt.

As you can imagine, Freeman held a great deal of bitterness against Bull Conner. Mentors of his encouraged him to let it go. But he couldn’t. At least not until years later, Freeman was talking to his mother on the phone, discussing the news of Bull Conner’s death. And his mother was crying. Freeman couldn’t believe it - how could his mother be shedding tears for this monster?! So he asked her. His mother said to him, “Because he was somebody’s child. And his mother never taught him to love. And I’m so sorry.” Before he knew it, Freeman was crying, too. Before he knew it, all that hatred, all that bitterness just washed away. At another point in the interview they all affirmed this great truth - love conquers all.

Because what a tragic realization - that Bull Conner was never taught to love. As we come to the crucifixion, to Jesus, here we see Jesus teaching us to love. Willingly enduring the injustice, the beating, the mockery - the spitting - and finally, death itself, for our sake - we see goodness itself. He is teaching us to love, to be for the good of others, by loving us. By going to the cross to pay the penalty for our sins.

In the clash of the Kingdoms, love conquers all. In Jesus’ suffering and death, we see the truth, the beauty and the goodness of God’s Magnificent Kingdom. The appropriate response is to repent. To allow what Jesus did here for us to transform us, to change our hearts. To recognize the truth that life, salvation only comes through Jesus Christ and his dying for our sins. To see the beauty of our God, hearts, too, would melt at the thought of his love for us. To know the good - to do the good - that we, too, would be people who give themselves over for others - people who have been taught how to love.

Spiritual Discipline

Be with Jesus this week. Go to one of the Gospels. Read the final chapters, the last week of his life, from the Triumphal Entry to the Resurrection. Take time to meditate on Jesus’ suffering and death. Let the truth, the beauty, the goodness of what Jesus has done for us transform your heart.