Then Pilate entered the headquarters again, summoned Jesus, and asked him, "Are you the King of the Jews?" Jesus answered, "Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?" Pilate replied, "I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done?" 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." (John 18:33-37)
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Matt and I were flipping channels the other night and came across an episode of “The Twilight Zone.” I'm not sure that either of us have ever watched an episode all the way through, but we were both familiar with the premise of the series: giving viewers a picture of an alternate reality, with a strange twist or turn on life as we know it. The opening sequence itself is one of transport – of taking viewers out of their present reality and dropping them into a different reality, a strange reality, an other-worldly reality.

And I started thinking about how our Christ the King gospel reading from John is kind of like an episode of the Twilight Zone, because there is a clash of realities going on between Jesus and Pilate. “My kingdom is not of this world,” Jesus says. Pilate is living in one mode of reality – a Roman governor ruling over a worldly kingdom and representing worldly values. And Jesus is living in a strange, different, other-worldly reality as the divine king of all creation, whose kingdom is distinctly not of this world.

This exchange between Jesus and Pilate is indicative of John’s theology. John writes out of a clear sense that there exists good and evil, darkness and light, truth and falsehood, death and life. And in today’s gospel, John gives us another clear dualism: the kingdom of the world versus the kingdom of Christ.

The difference between the kingdom of the world and the kingdom of Christ is not a matter of location. It is a matter of disposition; a matter of origin and orientation. To whom do we belong? To what pursuits do we focus our hearts and minds?

To be of the world is to see ourselves as subject to the movements of this life: we are born, we live, we die. Life is what we make of it. And so we orient ourselves around the values of human progress, efficiency, self-improvement, the glorification of youthfulness, the relentless pursuit of money and stuff and success and fame. Even on its best days, the kingdom of the world is built on a foundation of fear. Fear of failure. Fear of not having enough time or money. Fear of death.

I think Pilate in today’s gospel is the face of fear. He is a Roman governor in a Jewish city, taking up residence in Jerusalem during the Passover to keep order over the throngs of people entering the city to visit the temple. He is stuck in a horrible position where he fears the crowds on the one hand, and where he fears his own guilt and shame and on the other hand.

It’s not that the kingdom of this world is purely evil – it isn’t. There are plenty of good things in this world – families, friends, the joy of falling in love, the beauty of nature, creative spirits, laughter, good food, warm blankets – but none of these things are eternal. And mixed in with this good stuff is bad stuff, too – trampling crowds of Black Friday shoppers, missiles flying through the air over Gaza, church-bombings in Nigeria, cancer and AIDS and hunger and poverty and war and anger and injustice.

And we, like Pilate, find ourselves living in fear and needing a word of hope – needing some assurance that life is more than this current mix of joy and brokenness, that especially in the bad times, there is something more and something eternal that we can cling to.

This is a transition week, between Christ the King Sunday – the end of the church year – and Advent 1, when we will watch and wait all over again for Christ’s coming among us and the birth of his kingdom on earth.

This is a kingdom that is way bigger, way more eternal, way more hopeful than the kingdom of this world.

This kingdom doesn’t look much like the kingdom of the world. It’s not so much about glory or riches or power or status. This kingdom begins with God doing the unthinkable and entering the fullness of our human existence as a feeble child born in a dirty stable. This kingdom defies the expectations of the world; Christ our king does baffling things like reaching out to the poor and outcast, serving rather than seeking to be served, humbling himself at the feet of his disciples and on the arms of the cross. And through these actions, Christ binds up all of the broken parts of our world, and soothes our wounds, and promises us that even the fleeting joys of this world are no match for the eternal joy of God’s new creation.

This kingdom is our alternate reality. It is our twilight zone. It is our other life, our real life, our deepest longing, our origin and our orientation.

And so we pray, “thy kingdom come,” longing for this kingdom which turns the values of the world upside-down, trusting that we have our beginning and end in Christ the king, who has died and who is risen, and who will, at the end of all things, come to us again.

Choosing Christ as king means that we are free from the stuff and powers of this world that try to rule us. Being of Christ and of his kingdom means that we are free to live for others, to humble ourselves, to be honest and hopeful and holy, to pursue peace, to have concern for the least of these, to be generous, to be grateful in all things. Being of Christ’s kingdom means that we are free from fear.

As we enter into the blue of Advent, the prayer on our lips is a fervent, “Come, Lord Jesus.”

Come, Christ our king. Come, prince of peace. Come, our long-expected Jesus.

Come with your kingdom and set us free.
Come with your kingdom and bring us hope.
Come with your kingdom and make us your own.

Our hearts are longing, Lord. Come in, come in.