• II Samuel 23:1-7

This version of David’s story concludes with what are characterized as his “last words.”  David lists the attributes  with which he was endowed: skill with words, favor with God, his lineage as the “son of Jesse,” “the anointed of the God of Jacob,” the favorite of the “Strong One” of Israel, and an “oracle.”  David celebrates these privileges given to him: “the spirit of the Lord speaks through me, his word is on my tongue….”  David has been privileged to learn directly from the “rock of Israel”  He has exhibited “knowledge” that comes from the “one who rules over people justly, ruling in the fear of God, [which] is like the light of morning.”  David’s legacy is assured by an “everlasting covenant….”  But the godless are like “thorns” discarded as useless and destroyed by fire.

• Psalm 132:1-13, (14-19)

The psalmist recounts in poetic verse David’s pledge not to rest until the Ark of the Covenant had a worthy place of honor in Jerusalem.  Then follows a petition to the Lord not to forget the covenant made with David.  The psalmist records the Lord’s response, “this is my resting place evermore.”  Here the needy will be filled, the priest’s “clothed with victory” and the faithful “sing gladly.”  David’s  “enemies I will clothe with shame/but on him– his crown will gleam.”

OR

• Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14

Daniel’s revelation continues to unfold.  Now he sees thrones moved into place and the “ancient One” taking a seat in one of them.  The clothing is “white as snow,”  the hair “like pure wool.”  The throne and its wheels are ablaze.  Tens of thousands are in attendance.  The figures settle into a court configuration as “the books are opened.”  Then he “saw one like a human being coming with the clouds of heaven,” who was “presented to the Ancient One.”  To this person will be given dominion over “peoples, nations, and languages” and a “kingship that shall never be destroyed.”

• Psalm 93

The Lord is worshiped as “strong,” the psalmist sings.  Because of the Lord, the world is firm and cannot be shaken.  The Lord’s throne stands forever.  The roar of the sea honors the Lord’s majesty as its creator, who is also the source of reliable statues/commandments.  “The Lord is for all time.”

• Revelation 1:4b-8

In the spirit of the revelation to Daniel, (in particular chapter 7; see above), this John greets his readers in the name of the “seven spirits before God’s throne” and “from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the rulers of the earth.”  Christ’s blood sacrifice “made us to be a realm of priests serving God and Father….”  Look for the Son to come again, this time “with clouds.”  “Even those who “pierced him” will see this return, as well as the whole earth.  The Lord declares:  “So it is to be.”  “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the One who is, was and is still to come….”

• John 18:33-37

Throughout his narrative, John depicts Jesus as fully aware of and in control of all that happens around him.  This rendition of his interrogation by Pilate begins with the representative of the Roman Empire as judge over Jesus, but concludes with a reversal.  Pilate asks if the accusation brought against him by his own people is true, “are you King of the Jews?”  Jesus answers with a question, Is this your question, or are you just repeating what others have said?  Pilate reminds Jesus that he is not a Jew and that Jesus has been brought to him.  “So what have you done,” Pilate asks?  Jesus responds with a declaration, “My kingdom is not of this world.”  If his goals had something to do with power as generally understood, his followers would be fighting to save him, Jesus explains.  Pilate’s presses, “so you are a king?”  John’s Jesus says confidently to Pilate, “You said it.”  Jesus continues with a fuller statement that “he came into the world to testify to the truth.”  Jesus continues, “and everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”

Biblical texts offer few specific details about something that stirred such passion in the Hebrew scriptures– the Ark of the Covenant.  Questions about its exact origin, appearance or even its contents seem to be of little interest to those writers.  It is the token of God’s covenant.  Yet, David’s elaborate efforts to house it properly in his new capitol city of Jerusalem is written about extensively.  The psalmist identities the passions elicited by the Ark of the Covenant; it is a memory/sign of “an everlasting covenant,” a promise, a guarantee between God and humankind made through a chosen people that nothing will annihilate life, because God is the creator and the relentless, passionate advocate for justice which sustains creation. In its presence, justice gets done, the needy get fed.

The Book of Daniel was written in a crisis when annihilation seemed possible, if not imminent.  It sees beyond the current situation to a place/time when the “Ancient One,” through One presented at the throne, will reassert a “kingship that shall never end”   John the Divine sees beyond a contemporary threat to God’s people and interprets it and the presumed failure of Christ’s ministry as, in fact, a new opportunity for a new class of “priests” who serve the “Alpha and Omega” of all life.  (Even those who executed him will eventually see God’s victory wrought from a seemingly tragic ending.)

The carefully crafted scene in John’s gospel when Jesus stands before Pilate is the distillation of the dialogue that runs throughout biblical testimony.  Here it is represented in Jesus and the presumed human authorities and systems of  power– even the power over life and death.  Pilate, who is standing in for all of us, tries to figure out who Jesus really is and what he is exactly trying to accomplish.  The charge against him is that he is a threat to human authority; a seditious “king” in rebellion against the Emperor.  Jesus ignores the questioning and says simply, “my realm is not of this world.”  He continues, I am here to bear witness to the “truth” and to those who hear and respond to what I am saying.  Jesus says nothing that answers the questions Pilate asks on our behalf, yet, at the same time, says what needs to be said. 

Richard Crashaw, the Seventeenth century English poet acknowledges God’s unresponsiveness to our questioning  yet God’s capacity to “say” what is essential in his poem, “And he answered them nothing:”

O Mighty Nothing! unto thee,

Nothing, we owe all things that be.

God spake once when he all things made,

He saved us when he Nothing said.

The world was made of Nothing then:

“Tis made by Nothing now again.

This fact that God says “nothing” to satisfy our questioning, yet what must be said is said is celebrated by certain postmodern writers, too.  One distinctive approach is that of Jacques Derrida, who finds that this absence releases a passion for justice; an opposite approach is that of Jean-Luc Marion’s, in which God overwhelms the interests that matter most to us with a paramount interest–love.  (An argument could be made that biblical texts actually embrace both approaches.)  In an essay, “Apostles of the Impossible,” written after another one of those amazingly fruitful conferences at Villanova University, the host, John Caputo, characterized  Derrida’s approach this way:  “like the Messiah, justice is always to come.”  And, Marion’s this way: “the Messiah has already come, hypergiveness has already overtaken us….”  (God, the Gift and Postmodernism, p.218)  Both writers insist that God does not yield to our interrogation; when put on “trial,” God ignores our questions.  One writer insists this unresponsiveness lets loose a passion for “justice,” which is all the answer we need;  the other discovers in the Christ a response we can only glimpse as God’s “hypergiveness”– love.

Biblical texts always operate in three time zones simultaneously– past, present and future.  They testify to God’s past revelation of love (Marion), they long for a future fulfillment of God’s love (Derrida), which animates and directs how the present ought to be spent.  The Christian testimony is that God’s realm/reign came once in the person of Jesus, the Christ, who sought to establish God’s reign in women and men who would respond.  He established  a new order of “priests” who would serve the “Alpha and Omega” of all life, and who will come again.  Central to the establishment of this realm is the assertion that life exists and endures due to the passion of the “Ancient One” who initiated it all out of love and has provided the means to sustain it all. This is an assertion that ignores the questions that matter more to humankind, yet it is the “truth” that will sustain our survival.  Jesus bears witness to this “truth.”  Furthermore, “Everyone who belongs to this truth listens to my voice.”  This is not what we wanted or expected to be said, but it is what needs to be said, over and over and over again until the Messiah comes– (again)!  This does not answer the questions we assume are the most important, but it does answer the question we did not think to ask!  Jesus answers our questions about truth with an invitation to a relationship that shares the same viewpoint by those who stand next to each other, which results in an instinctive response to his “voice.”  It’s not a ‘thought’ so much as it is a choice.