It might seem a little awkward to hear this gospel text at this time of year.  After all, here we are only five weeks away from Christmas and this text … it would be more at home read during Holy Week right before Easter.  Today is Christ the King Sunday and this is one of the texts that refers to Christ as a King … but even so, the text is troublesome.  On a Sunday when you would think the reading would be more confident about professing Christ as King, inspiring us to claim Christ as King, maybe proving to us that Christ should be King!  Instead the scene is confused and chaotic.  There are more questions than answers.

After months if not years of sneaking about, sceaming and plotting and planning, the Pharisees, the religious officials, have finally stirred up enough trouble and found the right moment to arrest Jesus with the help of Judas, the betrayer.  Although Jesus offers himself peacefully, in fact willingly, the gospel of John says that it took an entire detachment of soldiers with its commander plus the officials to do the deed.  They finally bind him up and haul him to Annas, the father-in-law of the high priest (does anyone find that weird) … who then sends Jesus to the high priest … who then sends Jesus to the Roman governor, Pilate … who, having run out of places to pass this buck, finally turns to the people for advice.  And - remember – this is not a democratic society – the governor simply makes a decision – if he can.  If the whole scene weren’t so tragic, it would be a comedy – a sick and twisted comedy of errors, bungled justice, and the thirst for blood wins the day.  Everyone is angry … but no one knows why.

As I was writing this sermon, I kept thinking that felt familiar … and then it hit me … adolescence.  I don’t think she’d mind me telling you – Kathy did it most honestly.  She’d suddenly be sobbing, completely out of the blue, but when you’d ask her why, she’d sob “I don’t know.”  It was like her emotions had a mind of their own … and the result was hysteria.  For different people, it can result in a perpetual grumpyness, moodiness … but the phenomenon is the same … you ask them “why?” and they cannot tell you; you ask them ““what’s wrong?” and they tell you that everything is wrong.  In adolescence, it has something to do with hormones.  For the rest of us, it has something to do with how we perceive the world around us – “what is real?” - in fact, how we answer the very question Pilate asks rhetorically – “what is truth?” 

I don’t know about you … but I have stood where Pilate stands.  Although I have never been a governor, I have stood in a position of relative power, needing to make a decision that seems more crucial to others than to me.  I have needed to make difficult decisions on behalf of my children, on behalf of those who come after me – decisions that mean putting myself on the line for the sake of the future.  Under the weight of those daunting decisions, I have been tempted to utter “Whatever” beneath my breath and wash my hands of it all and walk away.  Under the weight of those daunting decisions, I have been pleaded with God “take this cup from me,” prayed for someone else to make the decision … to take the responsibility away from me … to save me from having to decide … to save me from having to risk deciding wrong.  I have experience times that have been so confusing and so politically treacherous that I have yearned for a scapegoat.  I have worn a path between my people and my palace, running back and forth between wanting to be popular and grappling with my own sense of honor and integrity.  And it has all left me exhausted, emotionally, even physically … because the harder that I try to dig myself out, the deeper the hole I’m in seems to be.  Yes, I have been where Pilate stands – his back against the wall, his gut screaming, his mind reeling, the boundary blurred between reality and a nightmare.

But here’s the thing … the twist … in reality, where do we both stand but right in front of … Jesus, the Way, the Truth, and the Life?  Where do we all stand but right in front of the man that holds all the cards, the man with all the answers?  Do we not believe that Jesus Christ, in some way, shape, form or manner, has a connection with the Almighty God Himself – do we not believe that Jesus Christ is God, or is the Son of God, or is in some way divine?  Pilate and you and I all, in all of our confusion and chaos and exhaustion and apathy and cynicism and searching about frantically for answers to our unanswerable questions are doing so at the very feet of the one, the only one, who can help us. 

And worse than that, we refuse to ask!  We blame God!  And our sin - it nails Christ to that cross again and again and again!  How senseless is that?  Jesus Christ died to forgive us once and for all and we still insist on nailing him up there again and again.  For what?  All because what we perceive is not reality, but a nightmare largely of our own making … we hate when there is no good reason to hate … we seek vengeance when it does us absolutely no good … we borrow trouble from tomorrow like we don’t have enough to deal with today … instead of building mountains from which we can shine our light, we use up our energy digging holes that will bury us.  God’s human creation needs to get real … see clearly what we are doing to ourselves and one another … and start living what we really believe, fully in the presence of our Creator … and the Son whom he sent to save us from ourselves.

In spite of the fact that Jesus tells Pilate that dying was what he was born to do, I’m convinced that the King of Pilate’s salvation would have answered his question – what is truth? – had Pilate asked him directly.  If Pilate had been open to receiving that good news, if he had taken the time to sit down and listen – the crowds weren’t going anywhere; the soldiers followed his orders; obviously he had Jesus’ full attention – if he had really, sincerely wanted the truth, instead of a quick resolution to his political dilemma, Jesus would have gladly given it to him, as willingly as he was to die for him.

On this Christ the King Sunday, may we see clearly that we always have this kind of audience with the One who Reigns supreme in our lives, the One to whom we have pledged loyalty, the One whose kingdom we profess to be building, that we always, in every circumstance and situation, stand before Him, having every opportunity to know the truth that will ultimately set us free.  Amen.