A Bit on Deliverance, Pt. 3 February 27, 2008

Because Jesus is driving back death and every vestige of evil, we are grateful that Jesus is a highly political ruler who is able to govern the most common tools of earthly politicians: fear, oppression, torture, violent coercion (both passive and active, passive being the withholding of food and water supplies), and death.  He does not deal in weapons or abuse, but in freedom and love.  But in order that his kingdom might be filled to the brim with those freed from sin, death, and the devil, the full implications of his victory are being gradually yet steadily enacted in all corners of the earth.  In this way, Jesus can answer Pilate, saying: “You are right in saying I am a king.  In fact, for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth.  Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.”  Jesus came into the world to institute and inaugurate his style of rule, the type of rule that doesn’t just match earthly powers but overcomes their very structures and systems of power.  The Jews living in the Roman Empire didn’t just need a new ruler whom they could call their own; they needed a whole new system of power and rule.  It wouldn’t do for Jesus to go dethrone Pilate and just pick up where Pilate left off, or to go to Rome and remove Tiberius from his throne.  To do that would be to work within the earthly systems of rule and government; but Jesus was establishing a wholly new rule and government.  A rule where the King seeks out fellowship with his people, is willing to give up his position in heaven for intimacy with his subjects, and only re-assumes the throne after he has secured an eternal place in his kingdom for his people by going to the cross.  The structure of God’s kingdom, then, is not built on murder or fear but on self-sacrifice and love.  We lay down our lives for one another, as Christ has done for us.  That’s how this kingdom works.  The system of God’s kingdom does not rely on wielding death effectively, but by removing the sting of death altogether.  If this is indeed the case, as Scripture testifies it is, how could anything but the Pharisees’ fearful remark be true: “Look how the whole world has gone after him!”