Titles

The interaction between Pilate and Jesus in the Fourth Gospel (John) has always been a peculiar one in my mind. With Jesus being so quiet in the Synoptics (Matthew, Mark, & Luke) it seems strange to me that he would speak in such a vieled way in John's account of the Passion Narrative. Today, however, I noticed for the first time a clever thing Jesus does. As we prepare to celebrate Christ the King Sunday readings about Jesus as king seem more than appropriate, but in John's Gospel we see that even when it seems like Jesus is willing to finally take on the title the crowd so often wanted to give him, he carefully avoids it all together.

Jesus answered, "My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here." Pilate asked him, "So you are a king?" Jesus answered, "You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice."

See how he does that. Jesus talks about his kingdom, thus making Pilate, and us, believe he is claiming to be a king. When Pilate asks again, however, punctuation makes all the difference.

Jesus answered, "You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth."

Jesus does not answer "You say that I am king; for this I was born, and for this I came into the world."

See the difference? Jesus, the King of kings, and Lord of lords, even at this late stage of his life denies the earthly title of King. On earth he is not a king. On earth his job is to testify to the truth - to God. We have much to learn from Jesus and his rejection of worldly things, especially those things which are utterly unreal. Titles are not concrete things one can own, but are names, unreal things which define a real thing. Jesus would not allow others to define him, and neither should we.