Jesus answered, “My kingdom does not belong to this world. If my kingdom did belong to this world, my attendants would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not here.” – John 18:36
This weekend we celebrate my favorite feast day, Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe. Doesn’t that title make Jesus sound like a superhero? Well, He really is! He is all powerful, all goodness, all intelligence, and all truth. He is the King of Kings: “May all kings fall down before him, all nations serve him!” (Psalm 72:11).
It is so paradoxical that in our Gospel reading for today, John 18:33-37, Jesus is shown as being under Pontius Pilate’s power. He has been arrested and His fate lies in the hands of the worldly ruler. Jesus seems to be anything but powerful. In the very next chapters of John, Jesus will be scourged, mocked, crowned with thorns, sentenced to be crucified, and die on the cross. This doesn’t sound powerful by any stretch of the imagination.
And the soldiers wove a crown out of thorns and placed it on his head, and clothed him in a purple cloak, and they came to him and said, “Hail, King of the Jews!” And they struck him repeatedly. -John 19:2-3
But that’s exactly the point. Jesus tells us that His Kingdom is not of this world. Notice what He says would happen if it was of this world: “My kingdom does not belong to this world. If my kingdom did belong to this world, my attendants would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not here” (John 18:36). Those who served Jesus would have resorted to violence by fighting for Him physically. This is how the world operates its power: through violence. Jesus made Himself subject to the violence of this world in order to defeat it through love, mercy, and peace. “He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth” (Isaiah 53:7).
Instead, Jesus’s Kingdom is a Kingdom of Peace: “For the kingdom of God… [means] righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” (Romans 14:17). His Kingdom shall be a Peaceful Kingdom (Isiah 11:1-9), ruled by the Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6). We who are in His Kingdom here on earth, the Church, are called to be a foretaste of this Peaceful Kingdom in the world. This is the definition of counter-cultural. Our culture values power and violence; we must build up the Kingdom of God by valuing and living out a life of humility and peace.
Jesus, I recognize that You are the King of Kings, the Prince of Peace. Give me the grace to choose humility and peacefulness over the desire to control others. May I see myself as Your subject in the Peaceful Kingdom. Cultivate humility and peace in my heart. Christ our King, Thy Kingdom Come!
The Peaceful Kingdom, Isaiah 11:1-9
“There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. And his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord. He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide by what his ears hear; but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; and he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall slay the wicked. Righteousness shall be the girdle of his waist, and faithfulness the girdle of his loins.
The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall feed; their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The sucking child shall play over the hole of the asp,and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder’s den. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.”