The Rightful King

The scriptures referred to are Jeremiah 23:1-6, Colossians 1:11-20 and Luke 23:33-43.

Every month Amazon Prime video service lets you watch one of the Great Courses for free. This month I have been watching Professor Gregory Aldrete's lectures on Unsung Heroes of the Ancient World. One of the people you never hear of in general history courses is a guy who could have been the first Roman emperor. Sextus Pompey was a quite capable general who could have taken Rome on 3 separate occasions while Caesar Octavian was fighting in the eastern part of the empire. It turns out that while the Roman army was formidable, their navy was terrible. Pompey's navy actually established an effective blockade that prevented the delivery of grain to Italy. Why Sextus Pompey never took advantage of his power is not known. Perhaps he was satisfied with ruling the independent island nation of Sicily. After several attempts he was finally defeated and illegally executed without trial even though he was a Roman citizen. He is probably a footnote because we tend to equate leadership with ambition and great leaders with military success. Victorious kings are remembered.

Which is why it is ironic that we are celebrating Christ the King Sunday. Jesus famously never led an army, was never crowned or seated on a throne and was executed in a way designed for traitors and slaves. In fact, of the millions of people alive back then, it is amazing that we even know of this poor handyman living in a small occupied country in a fairly unimportant corner of the empire. His name should have been lost to history like those of the two men crucified next to him.

Even knowing about his life, it is remarkable that he is held in such high esteem today. At least Sextus Pompey was a worthy opponent of Octavian, the man who did become the first Roman emperor. Jesus mostly wandered around the small towns of Galilee, preaching, teaching and healing. When confronted by a man with real political power, albeit a governor, not a king or emperor, he had Jesus executed. So why call him king?

The word “king” is related to a Proto-Germanic word and may mean “leader of the kin.” It could also mean “noble birth.” And the interesting thing is that “noble” originally meant “knowable” or “well known.” “Noble” merely meant someone who is born from a high ranking family and was the social and political superior to common people. You could be a terrible person and still be “noble.” Eventually the idea arose that such a person should really be worthy of their position and “noble” came to mean someone with high moral character. By the 1600s you could be no one important but still called a noble person because of your actions.

Ideally a king should be a person of high moral qualities as well, like the legendary King Arthur. But in reality, merely having power doesn't elevate a person morally. And if an immoral person is given power, he can do a lot of damage. That is the situation we see in today's passage from Jeremiah. Ancient Near Eastern kings likened themselves to shepherds. Judah was suffering under kings who were unworthy of the title of either king or shepherd. They were dividing and scattering the people they were supposed to lead and protect. The behavior of a leader is important. If people see the guy on top getting away with immoral and illegal actions, they don't see why they should respect the laws either.

Jeremiah began prophesying during the reign of King Josiah, the last good king of Judah. He reformed the nation, getting rid of idolatry, renewing the people's covenant with God and reinstituting the celebration of Passover. But after him came a number of kings who “did evil in the eyes of the Lord” (2 Chronicles 36: 5, 9) The last, Zedekiah, “did evil in the eyes of the Lord and did not humble himself before Jeremiah the prophet, who spoke the word of the Lord. He also rebelled against King Nebuchadnezzer, who made him take an oath in God's name. He became stiff-necked and hardened his heart and would not turn to the Lord, the God of Israel. Furthermore, all the leaders of the priests and the people became more and more unfaithful, following all the detestable practices of the nations and defiling the temple of the Lord, which he had consecrated in Jerusalem.” (2 Chronicles 36:12-14) Jeremiah went on to predict the fall of Jerusalem and the Jews' exile in Babylon.

Because these political and religious leaders had done such a bad job God said he would step in. “I will raise up shepherds over them who will shepherd them, and they shall not fear any longer, or be dismayed, nor shall any be missing, says the Lord.” But that was just an interim solution. After 70 years in exile, the Babylonian empire fell to the Persian empire and the Jews were allowed to return to their homeland. However they were not ruled by kings any more but governors. Then Alexander the Great conquered the Near East and after he died his empire was divided by his generals. At one point the Jews revolted and were independent for about 100 years, only to come under Roman rule. During that time and afterward there was no Davidic king.

As we read in Jeremiah, “The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.” This was who the people expected the Messiah to be. They wanted another King David, a holy warrior king. But more importantly they wanted a king with military and political power. Like a lot of oppressed people, they weren't as committed to one who was noble in the moral sense as they were to one who could beat the Romans.

Though of David's lineage, Jesus wasn't that kind of king. After he feeds the 5000, a miracle reported in all 4 gospels, John tells us that the people saw in Jesus the person they wanted to lead them. We read, “Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make him a king by force, withdrew again to a mountain.” (John 6:15) Mark tells us that Jesus sends the disciples away in a boat and goes up a mountain to pray. (Mark 6:45-46) When he comes down the mountain after dark, Jesus goes to meet his disciples by walking on the water. The next day the people notice that Jesus is gone and track him down. Jesus realizes that it was the miracle that attracted them. He starts talking about difficult to understand theological concepts, like about him being “the living bread that came down from heaven” which they need to consume. (John 6:51) This turns a lot of them off. This is not what they want. They want a king with miraculous powers to set up a political and ethnic kingdom of God on earth. They don't want a king who makes you think deeply about spiritual things.

And I don't think they want the kind of kingdom Jesus proposes. The problem is that not only do you need a moral king in charge, you need moral citizens willing to follow what the king says. In God's covenant with the people of Israel at Mt. Sinai, he begins by laying out 10 basic laws that put parameters on how the people should act towards him and towards each other. (Exodus 20:1-17) The people repeatedly fail to do so. In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus lays down how his kingdom should work. (Matthew 5-7) He raises the standards on things like murder, adultery, divorce and other issues. His kingdom is one in which you not only must love your neighbor but also your enemy. His kingdom is one in which you turn the other cheek and go the extra mile. His kingdom is one in which you treat others the same way you want to be treated. Have Christians always followed those edicts from their king? And why do some of them want to post the Ten Commandments in courthouses and schoolrooms but not anything from the Sermon on the Mount, like the Golden Rule? Why not the two Great Commandments?

The kingdom of God is the only kingdom where all who become citizens do so voluntarily. Nobody is simply born into it. No one is in the kingdom because they were conquered. The only blood shed was that of its king. The only death that made it possible was his own. His kingdom has no borders. There is no kingdom or nation on earth like it.

The founding fathers of the United States set up a government built on noble ideals. But as we've seen, people with less than noble aims can pervert it. No system is perfect if it is run by imperfect people. No system is foolproof precisely because fools do things with it no wise person would do. Even the church doesn't work as it should if the people in it are trying to exercise the power of God rather than emulate his morality as exemplified by his Son.

But how can sinful humans follow Jesus? That is why he was crucified. That's why his blood was shed. That's what Jesus was getting at when he spoke of eating his flesh and drinking his blood. It wasn't physical sustenance that the people who wanted to make him king needed; it was spiritual sustenance. You need to eat healthy to be healthy. Jesus said, “The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life.” (John 6:63) They needed the Spirit of Christ, the living Word of God, in them. Only when they were cleansed with his blood, only when they received his life in them, only when the Spirit of Christ was what was directing and fueling them, could they live according to his word.

It starts with faith, which is to say, trust. You have to trust Jesus with your life. The criminal on the cross next to Christ could not do anything at that point to undo the harm he had done. He could only admit that he was justly condemned for his deeds and acknowledge Jesus as king. He trusted that even though Jesus was also being crucified, somehow he would come into possession of his kingdom. And that was enough. Jesus says to the man, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” He is the only person in the Bible to be told that.

Jesus was not born into a rich and powerful family. He did not have a position that gave him earthly power over others. He did not live the life of a king. He worked for a living. He lived and died as one of us. And yet, as we read in Colossians, “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation...all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things and in him all things hold together.” Remarkably, though, as we read in Philippians, Christ “though he existed in the form of God did not regard equality with God as something to cling to, but emptied himself by taking on the form of a slave, by looking like other men and by sharing in human nature. He humbled himself, by becoming obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross!” (Philippians 2:6-8) And why would he do that? Why would he make such a great sacrifice? Because of his great love for us. (John 3:16; Romans 5:8; Ephesians 2:4; 1 John 4:9-10)

If your child needed blood, you would give it. If they needed an organ, you would give it. We needed a new heart and a new spirit, as it says in Ezekiel 11:19-20. So Jesus, God the Son, gave us his blood and his heart and his spirit, so that we might live. (2 Corinthians 5:15) Paul said, “I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live but Christ lives in me. So the life I now live in the body, I live because of the faithfulness of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20)

Because Jesus gave his life for us, we should give our life to him and live as he would have us live. Because he is our king and our ultimate allegiance is to him, wherever we happen to be on earth. An ambassador is still subject to the laws of his country even when abroad. An embassy is considered an outpost of its nation where its rules reign. As Peter and the apostles said when commanded not to teach the gospel of Jesus, “We must obey God rather than people.” (Acts 5:29) And as it says in Psalm 146, “Do not trust in princes, or in human beings, who cannot deliver! Their life's breath departs, they return to the ground; on that day their plans die.” (Psalm 146:3-4) But as Paul says, “We know that since Christ has been raised from the dead, he is never going to die again; death no longer has mastery over him.” (Romans 6:9) Nor will his kingdom end. As it says in Daniel's vision of the Son of Man, “To him was given ruling authority, honor, and sovereignty. All peoples, nations, and language groups were serving him. His authority is eternal and will not pass away. His kingdom will not be destroyed.” (Daniel 7:14) That is true of no other kingdom. One day we will see that “The kingdom of this world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign for ever and ever.” (Revelation 11:15) And wherever Jesus reigns, there is paradise.