Kingdom and Cross…
04.20.25
“Jesus answered, My Kingdom does not belong to this world. If my kingdom belonged to 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.” (John 18:36)
(From Chapter 10 of How God Became King by N.T Wright.)
Jesus once again takes the initiative in the conversation, introducing the discussion of different types of kingdoms. (Multiple misreadings appear to suggest that Jesus’s Kingdom is “otherworldly” but there is no question that Jesus is speaking of a Kingdom in and for this world.)
Part of John’s meaning of the cross, is that it is not only what happens when God’s Kingdom challenges Caesar’s kingdom. It is also what has to happen if God’s Kingdom, which makes its way by nonviolence rather than by violence, is to win the day. This is the “truth” to which Jesus has come to bear witness, the truth for which Pilate’s worldview has no possible space. The truth of a Kingdom accomplished by the innocent dying in place of the guilty.
We discover the only word to do justice to this kingdom-and-cross combination is agape love. The death of Jesus is the expression of God’s love, as the famous verse in John 3:16 makes clear. For John, it is also the expression of Jesus’ own love: “He had always loved his own people in the world; now He loved them right through to the end.” (13:1)
And with that, John introduces the powerful and tender scene in which Jesus washes his disciple’s feet. In between these two, we find the “good shepherd” discourse, where the mutual love between Jesus and the Father leads directly to Jesus’s vocation to “lay down His life for the sheep.” (John 19)