John 18:33-37
Then Pilate entered the headquarters, summoned Jesus and said to him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” Jesus answered him, “Do you ask me this on your own, or have others told you about me?” Pilate said to him, “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 said to him, “My kingdom is not of 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 said, “So, you are a king, then?” Jesus said to him, “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.”
Whenever I hear this account of Jesus standing before Pontius Pilate, this painting comes to mind. It’s called, in English, “Behold the Man,” by Antonio Ciseri, who painted it in 1871, according to Wikipedia. And I don’t recall this painting because I’m any kind of connoisseur of religious fine art – or a connoisseur of fine art, generally, to be honest. The painting was just used as the cover of a book I have about the life of Pontius Pilate.
And when I wondered about Jesus, standing with Pilate, before the crowds, in this morning’s Christ the King Gospel story, something about it all – and this painting, too – had me thinking about that old Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale, The Emperor’s New Clothes.
And just to be clear about where your Pastor’s head is, when I think about that classic story, this is the book cover that comes to mind, this one from some “early reader” Disney-flavored version of the story from my childhood.
And maybe it’s because I had baptisms and babies on the brain, BUT just when I wondered if I was off on a weird, strange, Pastor Mark kind of rabbit-hole, I came across THIS picture.
It was painted by some guy named Rob Embleton, sometime in the 1980’s, for a different picture book about the Emperor’s new clothes. Anyway, if nothing else, the similarities between the two paintings made me think maybe I was onto something – whether Rob Embleton or Antonio Ciseri would have connected these theological dots in a million years.
But back to what matters, here. Some here may not remember the story of The Emperor’s New Clothes, which goes something like this:
There was an Emperor, obsessed with his appreciation for clothes – fine linens, fancy robes and whatnot, so he summons and commissions some of the master weavers under his rule to make for him a suit of the most expensive linen and the finest cloth.
These weavers, not wild about their self-centered Emperor, decide to make a fool of him and trick him into believing they have crafted the most beautiful of robes, made from a fine, but mysterious, magical cloth. They convince their fool of a King that the cloth they’ve used can only be seen by wise people, worthy of whatever position, title, or status they hold. Which meant, of course, that fools, unworthy of their lot in life wouldn’t be able to see the outfit they had made.
After pretending to dress their emperor in clothes that don’t exist, the emperor is secretly/privately discouraged that he, himself, can’t see the new outfit he’s supposed to be wearing, which would imply that he, himself, was unfit for the role of Emperor at all. Instead of calling the tailors to task for their prank, though, he plays along with it all – hook, line and sinker – and pretends to be donned in the finest, most beautiful duds in town.
And he goes out into the world, parading throughout the kingdom in his birthday suit, extolling the virtues and the beauty of his new wardrobe. When the rest of the kingdom’s people hear about it they, too – afraid to be the only ones not worthy of seeing what everyone else could apparently see – “oooohh” and “aaaahh,” pretending to admire and to adore their Emperor’s new clothes.
And on it goes until a small child, out in the public square, without wisdom or regard for the charade of it all, declares what everyone was pretending or denying or playing along with – for their own selfish sakes: “The Emperor’s not wearing any clothes!”
The story, of course, is a simple comment on the hypocrisy of leaders, it’s about self-importance and conceit, it’s about wanting to belong and to be in charge at the expense of your own integrity. It’s about pretending to be something you’re not and of “going along to get along.”
And when I think about Jesus and his title as Christ the King, alongside the story of the Emperor’s new clothes, I see the fairy tale in a different kind of light. [PIC 1]
Certainly, I could cite examples – so many examples – in the world, in our body politic these days, in the Church – where people go along to get along, where hypocrisy wins too much of the time, where leaders don’t always measure up to what’s expected of them, where we pretend and deny and play along with the rest of the world for the sake of pride, popularity, power, and any number of self-serving desires.
But when I think about Jesus, none of that is true. When I think about Jesus and the Emperor’s new clothes, I think of the tables being turned in a different sort of way. In the fairy tale, the Emperor is the fool and the hypocrite and the one whose own incompetence is on display by his attempt to hide all of that – his incompetence, his unworthiness, his insecurity, his lack of integrity.
In Jesus though, this King we call the Christ, I think we – along with Pilate and Herod and all those who condemned Jesus way back when – we’re the ones who play the fool too much of the time. As much as we’re taught to the contrary, we still look for a King who dresses in the stuff of this world. But the kingdom of God is not made up of the stuff of this world.
Even though we gather around mangers and crosses – the ultimate symbols of humility, poverty and pain; even though we confess a suffering servant as God; even though we hear about the last being first and the first being last; about the meek inheriting the earth; about the Kingdom belonging to the poor in Spirit; about turning the other cheek; about forgiveness and mercy and grace upon grace...
In spite of all of that, we try to make Jesus, Christ the King, like a ruler in this world. We create him in our own image and we make him over in ways that match up with our intentions, which are not God’s intentions a lot of the time. Even though we celebrate the resurrection and the life, too many people fear a God who rules by death and damnation. Even though we sing about a God of amazing grace, a beautiful savior, a Prince of Peace, a blessed assurance – we make up rules, we put up stumbling blocks and we close doors to just how mighty, how gracious, how generous and how forgiving our God can be.
In other words, we dress Jesus up in clothes that God never intended to wear. We dress up Christ, our King, in attitudes and opinions that fit us, but that are just too small for him. We cover up the simple grace and peace and love of this Jesus with judgment and fear, with limits and restrictions, with a closed mind and with clenched fists that were never made for him. As Anne Lamott said once, “You know you’ve created God in your own image when your God hates all the same people that you do.”
But all along Jesus – a little bit like the Emperor in the fairy tale – isn’t wearing any of it. And Jesus – unlike the Emperor in the fairy tale – never pretends otherwise. Jesus Christ, our King and the Emperor of Eternity, hits the streets and marches to the Cross. And all along the way, he wears nothing more than swaddling clothes and belts of righteousness; he wears a crown of thorns and straps a cross to his back; he is stripped bare, he lets them gamble for his robes and he is covered up with nothing but blood, sweat, spit, tears – and the full weight of our sins.
And he does it all so we might finally see what God has been trying to show us all along:
That our King, in Jesus Christ, wears humility and gentleness; generosity and peace; forgiveness and mercy; love and good news. And because of Jesus, we’re invited to do the same. God wants us to stop pretending. God wants us to stop “ooohing” and “aaahing” over all the costumes and confusion the world adds to the simple, profound, unfettered grace and mercy of our Messiah.
We don’t have to pretend to be without sin. We don’t have to pretend that any one of us is any more worthy than the next person. We don’t have to be afraid. We don’t have to be right. We don’t have to judge or be judged. We don’t have to do anything.
We only get to look to the cross and see our salvation. We only get to feel the waters of baptism – and share them like we will this morning (with EllaSophia and Juliette) – this water that promises to turn sin into forgiveness and death into new life. And we get to lead our own parade of good news, then, fully clothed in grace and mercy and peace – and more – and we get to share the same, and tell this Truth, for a world so desperate to hear it.
Amen
