Imagined Jesus #2 - Political Jesus
Message Description
Dr. Kurt Bjorklund continues along in the Gospel of John and arrives at the trial of Jesus and looks at how the upheaval that the disciples went through can remind us that when our status and security is challenged, it's an opportunity to return to the Lord.
Message Transcript
We’ve learned a lot of new phrases in recent days. We’ve learned phrases like sheltering in place and community spread. We’ve learned this idea of social distancing. In fact, I heard someone talking about social distancing. I think one of my friends posted this on line and they said that “If you are an introvert, don’t assume us extroverts are okay, put down your book and check on us.”
Somebody else also mentioned or maybe they posted it, but they said, “In a few weeks we're going to find out the true color of every women’s hair instead of whatever she had.” That was somebody else’s joke, not mine.
But we're learning these new phrases because we're in a cultural moment that is different than anything we have had probably anytime in recent history.
But when the passage that we're looking at here today was experienced or lived, there was really a moment where the disciples were experiencing incredible upheaval as well. And what we are talking about, is this is the moment where Jesus was being tried, almost in the middle of the night, being shuffled back and forth between pilot and Caiaphas. What was happening was, as he was being tried, the disciple’s lives hung in the balance. It's easy to forget this, but if Jesus were convicted, he would be put to death and anyone who was part of Him would have been seen as being part of the resurrection and probably also could have been put to death. And what that means is that these disciples were probably facing a moment that was in many ways like ours, but probably even more severe because they knew that if this was the wrong way, if they were found out, that their life could be taken from them. And as we think about it, it’s one of the reasons that probably Peter denied Jesus three times. Sometimes he's given a bad rap, but I wonder how many of us would respond if we were in a place, where if we were identified with Jesus, our life would be taken from us. And it’s in this context Jesus utters this phrase in verse 36, he says “My Kingdom is not of this world.” Now when you hear that phrase or I hear that phrase today, we kind of think okay, what’s the big deal about the Kingdom.
A kingdom is a place where things are as the person who's in charge of the Kingdom wants them. So, when Jesus said my Kingdom is not of this world, he is saying things here are not as they should be necessarily, but my Kingdom is somewhere else. And when you and I hear this phrase, we have at least two different reactions. One is it can be very disconcerting to us, and secondly it can be very comforting.
Now why do I say it can be disconcerting? Well the reason it can be disconcerting is whenever we hear Jesus say my Kingdom is not of this world, there's at least a thought in our minds that says well wait a second, isn't Jesus going to help me navigate everything that is in front of me? In fact, in recent days, you can hear all kinds of pastors and different spiritual leaders saying everything will be okay just trust Jesus. In fact on the news the other day there was a pastor who was talking about this, that the national news had picked up, who was saying that all you had to do was declare that the Coronavirus would have no bearing in your life and it wouldn’t touch you. I thought it was also interesting that that same church cancelled its services so that people wouldn’t encounter the coronavirus in their services. The reason I say this is because if you study the Bible, one of the things you'll see is that you can't guarantee that God's hand for us means that everything will turn out well in our lives. And here's why this is so important and why this is maybe disconcerting to even say my Kingdom is not of this world. You may say this isn’t comforting to me right now. I want to hear you say everything will be okay, but I don't think I would be true to scripture if I said that and here’s why.
There are all kinds of ways I could identify this but let me just show you one. This is in Revelation chapter 18, verses 9 and following. Revelation is a book that some people read, and they think that it's all future, they call them futurists. So, in other words they would say that most of the book contains future event things that will happen in the great tribulation of Jesus Christ. A better phrase will basically say its cyclical meaning that it happens repeatedly throughout history.
There's this image that is used in Revelation for the place Babylon, and Babylon in the Bible comes to stand for a city that is set against God, the city that just does its own thing. Not necessarily anti-God, but just not for God, and a whole system of that. Here is what we read in Revelation 18, verse nine, “When the kings of the earth who committed adultery with her and shared her luxury see the smoke of her burning, they will weep and mourn over her. Terrified at her torment, they will stand far off and cry: “‘Woe! Woe to you, great city, you mighty city of Babylon! In one hour, your doom has come!’
Now that’s a striking statement, and if you read down, “The merchants of the earth will weep and mourn over her because no one buys their cargoes anymore—cargoes of gold, silver, precious stones and pearls; fine linen, purple, silk and scarlet cloth; every sort of citron wood, and articles of every kind made of ivory, costly wood, bronze, iron and marble;” and it goes on and on.
And the story here is this, Babylon standing for the system of people exchanging goods, getting rich and at what Revelations says, in an hour will come to an end. Whether you're a futurist who says one day that will be the case, or you're somebody who says this is cyclical and it's talking about times, all the times. Here’s what you know the Bible says, there will come a day when all the economic prosperity we have will come crashing down.
Now again you say, this is not comforting right now, but here is what I want to say. The Bible is very realistic about this and it tells us there’s a reason for this. You may ask, why would God allow a virus to run through the world if he could stop it? One of the things we see in the Bible is that God often allows things to cause us to turn and see His eternity amid our temporal life. In Babylon, what people would do is they would put all of their hope, all of their security, all of their status into things in this world and so whenever it's taken from us, the pettiness, the smallness of our security, of our status, is revealed and we come face to face with something bigger.
In the old testament, there’s a prophet and his name is Amos. In chapter 4, Amos tells us about how God works, and again the specifics here don't necessarily matter as much, but there’s a repeated phrase in Amos Chapter 4, “Yet you have not returned to me declares the Lord.” And what happens is each time there is that, it appears just before God has allowed a calamity to come on people.
Verse 6 - “I gave you empty stomachs in every city and lack of bread in every town, yet you have not returned to me,” declares the LORD.”
Verse 7 – “I also withheld rain from you when the harvest was still three months away. It tells some more things and at the end of verse 8 it says, “Yet you have not returned to me,” declares the Lord.”
Verse 9 - “Many times I struck your gardens and vineyards, destroying them with blight and mildew. Yet you have not returned to me,” declares the LORD.”
Verse 10 - “I sent plagues among you as I did to Egypt…. And yet you have not returned to me,” declares the LORD.
Verse 11 - I overthrew some of you as I overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. And yet you have not returned to me,” declares the LORD.”
Now, why do I read this or just point this out, because here’s the pattern. See, so many times what happens is, we experienced something that feels negative and it’s an opportunity for us to return to the Lord because our status, our security is being challenged and yet so many times we miss it and maybe this moment in history is just one of those moments for some of us.
I was thinking about this the other day, I’m going to go out of your shot for a moment, but I’m coming back, and I was thinking about this, remembering something of my childhood. So, this is a big cardboard box, and when I was a kid we had moved into a house in these Woods. They weren't huge, maybe 25-50 yards, probably 20, but in the summertime, you couldn’t see from the house to the road through the woods. And there was little space in there where there was just a small opening.
One day a big cardboard box had become available and one of my friends and I took the box. We dug a little hole in these woods, and we put the Cardboard box down in because we always wanted to have a cardboard box fort. And I remember digging it out, making this fort, and we planned to have a sleepover and do different things we thought would be fun in this box fort. And I remember my dad coming home from work saying, “What are you doing? You are spending all this time on this cardboard box fort. This thing is not going to last.” But I didn’t care because I had a vision of what this place would be. And you know how this ends, what happens after a few days is dew. And after a few days of working on it, suddenly it rained hard and our fort was destroyed. A cardboard box fort is, temporary and vulnerable. That’s what it is.
If you have a carboard fort, what happens sooner or later is it will come crashing down. So maybe, just maybe, what we’re seeing today is an opportunity to realize the ways in which we have built our lives on cardboard box forts. Things where we’ve seen this, is the ultimate importance and I’m going to spend all kinds of time on this, and what is really happening, is before the ultimate destruction of that fort, before the rain comes and it’s no more, this is just the moment of the dew saying don’t put all your hopes into this. Because Jesus says, “My kingdom is not of this world. I didn’t come just so you could have comfort here and now. I came so you can experience my kingdom in another way entirely.”
Now, the truth is, that this kingdom not being of this world, isn’t just a little disconcerting but it can also be incredibly comforting, because when your Babylon, your cardboard box fort is exposed, when part of your world comes tumbling down, when you say my kingdom, Jesus’ kingdom is my kingdom and it’s not of this world but it belongs to another world, what that means is you can say I have security and status whatever is happening.
Some of us have probably lost a lot of money in these recent days, money in stock market, money because we are out of work, lost a job or your job is uncertain, or maybe we’re experiencing a health concern. Those are things where we say if I can just build my life well enough, then I’ll have security, then I’ll have status. But what has happened in recent days is all of us have realized that our sense of security isn’t as secure as we like to think. But the comfort is Jesus saying I give you a security that transcends whatever cardboard box or fort you might be building here today.
Now what happens in this text, after Jesus says this, “My kingdom is not of this world.” Pilot says, well then you are a king. And Jesus responds, “Well you say I’m a king.” Then Pilot, after Jesus says everyone who is on my side is on the side of truth says these questions, well what is truth, how do I know?
And in this passage, there are two ways we can miss truth that still exist today. One is this, we can miss truth much like Pilot missed truth because we scoff at the idea that Jesus has a kingdom that isn’t of this world. What makes Jesus kingdom difficult to see especially when things are going well, is that he’s not visible, his kingdom isn’t visible. Therefore it’s much easier to put all of our effort and hope in this cardboard box fort, that make it into the ultimate thing in our lives and say the more I can dress this thing up, the more I can put carpet in it, the more I can put some décor into this, it will now be sufficient. We don’t tend to want to acknowledge that Jesus has a kingdom that isn’t of this world.
But there’s another way we can miss it. This is at the beginning of the passage; I didn’t read this section at the beginning but in verse 28 we get the account of the Jewish leaders who took Jesus to Caiaphas. And it says they took him early in the morning to avoid ceremonial uncleanness because they did not want to enter the palace, but they wanted to be able to eat the Passover. Now this is just full of irony. What the religious leaders do, is they bring Jesus to be crucified but they say we aren’t going to enter the palace because we’d be ceremonially unclean, then we wouldn’t be able to celebrate the Passover, so crucify him, but it’s off of our hands. Now this is religion and one of the ways we can miss truth is in the exercise of personal religion. And I say personal religion because I don't think it's about going to church or involving yourself in Christian community as it’s a self-justifying mindset that says my way of doing things is right therefore I don’t need a God, I don't need a savior.
Pilot didn't think he needed anything because his world was working just fine. He had the power in his mind to put Jesus to death, nothing challenged his world. The religious leaders were threatened by Jesus because he had something different to say than what they wanted to believe, but they were so enamored with their own perception of their self-righteousness the way that they lived, that they didn't think they needed Jesus at all. Jesus says anybody who follows me basically embraces the truth. And what Jesus is really driving at in this moment is that he's letting everyone know that there is a path forward, and then the way that this passage ends is with Pilot saying look, I don’t want to deal with this. You have a way in which you release a person every year, do you want me to realize this king of the Jews to you, and the crowd says no, we want Barabbas. And Barabbas had taken part of an uprising and what this shows is the sacrifice of Jesus going to his death so that someone who doesn't deserve to go free, goes free.
Here we have the gospel coming right into this story, a picture of the truth if you will, and what this is showing us in this moment, is after Jesus said my Kingdom is not of this world, you can’t simply look at your life and say there’s nothing more. He shows us the way forward and that is to believe that Jesus pays the price for the person who doesn't deserve it. It's a beautiful picture and I think what that does in many ways, is it puts us in a place where we can have the power to face and live in the middle of whatever we are doing.
I saw this quote that Martin Luther said during a time in which he lived, in which there was the Black Death plague. I like some of these older quotes right now because I thinks it’s helpful to get perspective from people of another generation or another era. Martin Luther said this, “I shall ask God mercifully to protect us, then I shall fumigate help purify the air, administer medicine and take it I shall avoid places and persons where my presence is not needed in order to not become contaminated and thus per chance inflict and pollute others and so cause their death as a result of my negligence. If God should wish to take me, he will surely find me, and I have done what he is expected of me and so I am not responsible of my own death or the death of others. If my neighbor needs me however, I shall not avoid place or person but will go freely as stated above. And here is why I like this. Here’s what Martin Luther lived with, he lived in the time of the black plague and what he was able to do was say I can give my life away. The reason he could do that was because he precisely knew that Jesus had a kingdom that wasn’t of this world and he could say I understand and know the truth I haven’t missed that element.
So, here’s what’s probably true today. True for me. I don’t know if it’s true for you today, but with everything that's happening, here's how I know I'm anxious. The other day I found myself eating ice cream at 9:00 am in the morning. Last time I did that, maybe not since I was a kid, I'm like what am I doing. And we're anxious because our cardboard boxes have been exposed. I'm anxious because of that, but here's the real question, we don't know when or how this will end and there's a chance that this could be our Babylonian moment that Revelation 18 talks about. But it's more likely that at some point, soon, things will turn around. They may not turn around quickly. This may be a prolonged period but at some point, things will probably turn around and the question is will you and I go back to the illusion that our lives can be fully satisfied by the building of our Cardboard box? And I see we’re too easily satisfied because if that happens, then this is an act of grace to see things more clearly. So the question is, will you let the veneer be pulled back enough to say this is not all about my own battle cardboard box fort, but it's about something, and you see if you do say that, then you can say my Kingdom, the Kingdom I'm part of, the Kingdom of God is not of this world. And then it becomes an incredible comfort because then you know that you weren't just living for what you can get here and I'm not loading all of your hopes and visions into what this world has to offer, but you're saying I can receive it as well as I can much like Martin Luther King, because I'm created for something more.
If we can do that in this time, if you can do that, then you'll have a confidence that will be winsome in our world as it exists today. Jesus didn't play into the politics of his day, he simply said my Kingdom is not of this world.
