a different kingdom

For the last several years, I have taken a deep dive into the events of the last week of Christ’s life.  Over 25% of the gospels are focused there.  I realized that I have, by and large, jumped from Palm Sunday to Good Friday to Easter, and an awful lot went on that week!

Recently, I was looking at the series of “trials” that Jesus went through on His last night.  After His arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane, He was brought before Annas (the former High Priest), and then Caiaphas (Annas’ son-in-law and the present High Priest), and finally before the Sanhedrin itself.  The chief priests then took Jesus to Pontius Pilate, who interviewed Him, sent Him to Herod Antipas (the “king” of Galilee), and then received Jesus back for a final verdict.  Interestingly enough, the charge for which the Sanhedrin convicted Jesus (blasphemy) was not the charge they brought to the Roman political leadership (insurrection).

As I pieced the events together and learned about the key players in this drama, I could see and feel the political drama being played out.  The dance of power between the Jewish leadership and the Roman political authorities was long-standing and practiced.  They depended on one another to maintain their positions of leadership and influence and power.  Pilate needed the Jewish leadership to help him maintain the peace.  His greatest threat was the insurrection of the Jewish people.  They had tried many times before.  Those disruptions sent ripples through the entire Roman Empire.

The Jewish leadership owed their security to the whims of Roman authority.  The office of High Priest was given/sold annually to the leader of Pilate’s choice.  Pilate had the legal authority to kill anyone he chose.  They were beholden to him, while threatened and antagonistic at the same time.  It was a dance of power.

Into that political dance comes Jesus – a threat to the Jews in power, but more of an amusement to the Romans.  Pilate knew that Jesus was not only not a threat but was in fact innocent of the charges made.  Yet, in the end, for his own sense of political well-being, Pilate gave the Jewish leadership what they wanted.

And yet he was troubled throughout those two sessions with Jesus.  Something didn’t make sense.  Pilate gave Jesus every opportunity to explain Himself, to offer a defense that would justify the dismissal of the charges.  Jesus was invited into the political conversation.  He had cards to play with Pilate, but He didn’t.

“Are you the king of the Jews?”

            “Is that your own idea”, Jesus asked, “or did others talk to you about me?”

            “Am I a Jew?”, Pilate replied.  “Your own people and chief priests handed you over to me.  What is it you have done?”

Now here is the place in the story where I find myself stopped.  Jesus could craft a response that gives Pilate every reason to let Him off.  But He instead offers an enigmatic explanation that doesn’t help his defense:

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.”

At the moment when His life is literally on the line, Jesus essentially says, “Yes, I am a king.  But this worldly, political kingdom that you fight for, defend, invest in, care deeply for, is not the kingdom that matters.  My kingdom is on a completely different plane than the one on which you are playing!”

So, given Jesus’ perspective on life, I have to pause and reconsider my own perspective. In doing so,  I find myself asking:

• How much of my time and energy am I investing in this world’s political kingdom? How invested am I in my news feeds, in prepping for political debates, in trying to make this “kingdom” what I know to be right?
• What does it mean to invest my life in His kingdom—a different kingdom—that is not “of this world”?

I’m really not sure of the answer to that second question.  But I know that at the most critical moment of His life Jesus knew His kingdom was not the one played out in the political world of His day.  Somehow, it would be played out in a different kingdom “not of this world.”

I want to invest in that kingdom.  Lord, help me to find it.

Palmer Trice is an ordained Presbyterian minister.  He is married to Lynne, has three children and has been in Charlotte since 1979. In his spare time, Palmer enjoys golf, tennis, walking and reading.